Thursday, October 14, 2004
Thank God I'm alive, says captive forced to watch hostage beheaded
From Nicholas Blanford in Bednayel, Bekaa Valley
HOME from Iraq, Mohammed Raad, 27, a lorry driver from Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, has a probable unique but unenviable claim to fame.
He may be the only man in the world to have been taken hostage by followers of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, watched a fellow captive beheaded, and survived to tell the tale.
Pale and gaunt, and chain-smoking, his eyes brimmed with tears and his foot tapped nervously on the floor of his home in the hillside village of Bednayel yesterday as he told The Times of his ordeal.
“I thank God I’m still alive, even though my life has been destroyed by what happened in Iraq,” he said.
Mr Raad was abducted on August 2 from a hotel in the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, west of Baghdad. He was on his way to the Iraqi capital to become engaged to a cousin, but was bundled into a car by two masked men and driven 30 miles to Fallujah.
Blindfolded and bound by the wrists and ankles, he was given nothing to eat or drink for the next six days, despite blistering summer heat. His four captors, who never identified themselves or removed their masks, accused him of being an American agent.
“They beat me with their fists, rifle butts and metal bars,” he said. “All I could think about was having my head cut off with a knife. I thought how stupid I was to come to Iraq.”
On the sixth day he was passed to a second group of kidnappers who claimed to be members of the Islamic Movement of the Holy Warriors in Iraq, the Seif al-Islam Brigade. He was driven through the night to Samarra, another rebel town north of Baghdad, then into the desert near the Jordan-ian border.
As Mr Raad and his captors stood outside a cluster of mud huts, another car drove up. A man covered in bruises and dressed only in underwear was pulled from the boot. The group’s leader, known as the “Emir”, told Mr Raad that this was an Egyptian who had been caught helping the Americans to target insurgents in Fallujah.
The Emir then explained to him that he was about to witness the beheading of the Egyptian, whose name was Mohammed Fawzi Abdul Mutwalli, as a warning to all Lebanese not to work with the Americans in Iraq.
“They took me into one of the huts. The floor was covered with dried blood and it reeked of death. The Emir told me that this is where they slaughtered their captives. The man who was to kill him was known as ‘the butcher’.
“He sharpened his knife on a stone as they prepared the Egyptian. They dressed their victim in a white gown and he then identified himself and confessed to his ‘crime’.”
At the end of his confession he recited the Shuhada, a prayer used by Muslims who hope to enter Heaven.
Mr Raad said: “The butcher grabbed him by the throat and sliced off the tip of his tongue. The Emir said: ‘You are a traitor and have disgraced your religion. You cannot recite the Shuhada out loud’.”
Flanked by two armed men, the ‘butcher’ stood behind the Egyptian and read a short statement to a video camera.
“Then the butcher’s assistants pushed the Egyptian to the ground, face down, and one of them held his feet. The butcher yanked back his head by the hair and cut his throat. When the knife hit the bone, there was a sawing noise, and then the butcher cut from the back of the neck, severing the head.
“While the butcher was doing this he chanted ‘Allahu akbar’ (God is greatest). It took about ten seconds. The butcher raised the head up and I saw the eyes were still moving up and down and the skin on his face was still twitching.”
Mr Raad collapsed and was dragged out of the hut. “The stench of the blood was the worst thing I have ever smelt,” he said. “They said afterwards that he was the first person they had slaughtered whose blood smelt so bad.”
The body was put into a bag in the boot of the car.
“I asked if they would bury him. The Emir told me, ‘No, we will throw him into the river for the benefit of the fish.’ ”
From the slaughterhouse in the desert, Mr Raad was taken back to Ramadi, where he spent the rest of his captivity.
He said that his nine captors treated him well, giving him plenty of food and providing a doctor to tend his injuries. They even took him fishing in the nearby Euphrates river.
“They threw hand grenades into the water to kill fish. But the Americans would hear the explosions and arrive in their helicopters to shoot up the river bank.”
When American and Iraqi troops raided the neighbourhood, the militants and Mr Raad hid in trees near the river. “They were in contact with the Iraqi police by walkie-talkie. The police told them when the Americans had gone and they could go home.”
Other than the Emir, the most senior figure in the group was known as the “Qaed”, or “Leader”, who was responsible for deciding the fate of each hostage. It was the Qaed who told Mr Raad that he was to be released, after more than two weeks in captivity, as the result of an appeal from the Muslim Clerics Association, an Iraqi gathering of senior Sunni religious figures. “They read a statement to a video camera and that’s when I learnt I was to be freed. Afterwards they all kissed me and said, ‘Congratulations’. I felt nothing. I was in a state of depression and shock.”
He was driven to Fallujah, where a car from the Lebanese consulate picked him up.
“The Emir came with me. When he said goodbye, he asked me if I knew who they were. I said I thought they were with Zarqawi. He patted me on the shoulder and said, ‘We are all with Zarqawi’.”
Mr Raad now spends his days dwelling on his experience in Iraq. He has no intention of returning there and has abandoned the idea of marrying his cousin in Baghdad.
“I have terrible nightmares and I try not to sleep at night,” he said. “I can’t get the picture of the Egyptian being killed out of my head.” As for the resistance in Iraq, he said: “There is no resistance. They are all criminals and thieves.”
From Nicholas Blanford in Bednayel, Bekaa Valley
HOME from Iraq, Mohammed Raad, 27, a lorry driver from Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, has a probable unique but unenviable claim to fame.
He may be the only man in the world to have been taken hostage by followers of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, watched a fellow captive beheaded, and survived to tell the tale.
Pale and gaunt, and chain-smoking, his eyes brimmed with tears and his foot tapped nervously on the floor of his home in the hillside village of Bednayel yesterday as he told The Times of his ordeal.
“I thank God I’m still alive, even though my life has been destroyed by what happened in Iraq,” he said.
Mr Raad was abducted on August 2 from a hotel in the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, west of Baghdad. He was on his way to the Iraqi capital to become engaged to a cousin, but was bundled into a car by two masked men and driven 30 miles to Fallujah.
Blindfolded and bound by the wrists and ankles, he was given nothing to eat or drink for the next six days, despite blistering summer heat. His four captors, who never identified themselves or removed their masks, accused him of being an American agent.
“They beat me with their fists, rifle butts and metal bars,” he said. “All I could think about was having my head cut off with a knife. I thought how stupid I was to come to Iraq.”
On the sixth day he was passed to a second group of kidnappers who claimed to be members of the Islamic Movement of the Holy Warriors in Iraq, the Seif al-Islam Brigade. He was driven through the night to Samarra, another rebel town north of Baghdad, then into the desert near the Jordan-ian border.
As Mr Raad and his captors stood outside a cluster of mud huts, another car drove up. A man covered in bruises and dressed only in underwear was pulled from the boot. The group’s leader, known as the “Emir”, told Mr Raad that this was an Egyptian who had been caught helping the Americans to target insurgents in Fallujah.
The Emir then explained to him that he was about to witness the beheading of the Egyptian, whose name was Mohammed Fawzi Abdul Mutwalli, as a warning to all Lebanese not to work with the Americans in Iraq.
“They took me into one of the huts. The floor was covered with dried blood and it reeked of death. The Emir told me that this is where they slaughtered their captives. The man who was to kill him was known as ‘the butcher’.
“He sharpened his knife on a stone as they prepared the Egyptian. They dressed their victim in a white gown and he then identified himself and confessed to his ‘crime’.”
At the end of his confession he recited the Shuhada, a prayer used by Muslims who hope to enter Heaven.
Mr Raad said: “The butcher grabbed him by the throat and sliced off the tip of his tongue. The Emir said: ‘You are a traitor and have disgraced your religion. You cannot recite the Shuhada out loud’.”
Flanked by two armed men, the ‘butcher’ stood behind the Egyptian and read a short statement to a video camera.
“Then the butcher’s assistants pushed the Egyptian to the ground, face down, and one of them held his feet. The butcher yanked back his head by the hair and cut his throat. When the knife hit the bone, there was a sawing noise, and then the butcher cut from the back of the neck, severing the head.
“While the butcher was doing this he chanted ‘Allahu akbar’ (God is greatest). It took about ten seconds. The butcher raised the head up and I saw the eyes were still moving up and down and the skin on his face was still twitching.”
Mr Raad collapsed and was dragged out of the hut. “The stench of the blood was the worst thing I have ever smelt,” he said. “They said afterwards that he was the first person they had slaughtered whose blood smelt so bad.”
The body was put into a bag in the boot of the car.
“I asked if they would bury him. The Emir told me, ‘No, we will throw him into the river for the benefit of the fish.’ ”
From the slaughterhouse in the desert, Mr Raad was taken back to Ramadi, where he spent the rest of his captivity.
He said that his nine captors treated him well, giving him plenty of food and providing a doctor to tend his injuries. They even took him fishing in the nearby Euphrates river.
“They threw hand grenades into the water to kill fish. But the Americans would hear the explosions and arrive in their helicopters to shoot up the river bank.”
When American and Iraqi troops raided the neighbourhood, the militants and Mr Raad hid in trees near the river. “They were in contact with the Iraqi police by walkie-talkie. The police told them when the Americans had gone and they could go home.”
Other than the Emir, the most senior figure in the group was known as the “Qaed”, or “Leader”, who was responsible for deciding the fate of each hostage. It was the Qaed who told Mr Raad that he was to be released, after more than two weeks in captivity, as the result of an appeal from the Muslim Clerics Association, an Iraqi gathering of senior Sunni religious figures. “They read a statement to a video camera and that’s when I learnt I was to be freed. Afterwards they all kissed me and said, ‘Congratulations’. I felt nothing. I was in a state of depression and shock.”
He was driven to Fallujah, where a car from the Lebanese consulate picked him up.
“The Emir came with me. When he said goodbye, he asked me if I knew who they were. I said I thought they were with Zarqawi. He patted me on the shoulder and said, ‘We are all with Zarqawi’.”
Mr Raad now spends his days dwelling on his experience in Iraq. He has no intention of returning there and has abandoned the idea of marrying his cousin in Baghdad.
“I have terrible nightmares and I try not to sleep at night,” he said. “I can’t get the picture of the Egyptian being killed out of my head.” As for the resistance in Iraq, he said: “There is no resistance. They are all criminals and thieves.”
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