My Journey Into the Heart of Terror: ten days in the Islamic State by Jurgen Todenhofer

Author:Jurgen Todenhofer [Todenhofer, Jurgen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIO026000, POL037000, REL078000
Publisher: Scribe Publications
Published: 2016-04-18T04:00:00+00:00

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2014

ABU QATADAH HAS still not made contact. Yet again. We settle in for a long wait. In the afternoon, we decide to drive down into the old town center. We’ll stroll through the market a bit, find something tasty to eat. We’re already weighing our options if Abu Qatadah doesn’t get in touch in the next few days. The Turkish border town of Kilis comes under consideration, but a few foreigners have been abducted there recently. We’re not very keen on that. We could, of course, hire a reputable security agency. But do such things even exist here?

We go into a romantic out-of-the-way mosque to pray. I love the often-mystical atmosphere of Turkish mosques. Later, we walk through the market, buy a few raisins, pistachios, and bananas. People are at work, hard at work, in many of the small workshops. Huge metal bowls are being beaten into shape and hammered with ornate designs.

Frederic suddenly notices on his cell phone that Abu Qatadah is online. He writes that he can Skype with us now. Half an hour later, we are talking to him. According to Abu Qatadah, the security situation is stable in Raqqa at the moment. Assad hasn’t ordered any bombing of the town for the past few days. On account of the bad weather. Assad’s pilots can’t drop bombs when the weather’s bad. With their old planes, they have to fly low below the cloud cover, where they are in danger of being shot down. And they are not in a position to hit their targets precisely. Which explains why there are so many dead civilians. It’s different with the Americans. They are more dangerous, but even they cannot see if it’s fighters or civilians gathered in the buildings they target.

We want to discuss our accommodation and when we will be picked up. But Abu Qatadah still doesn’t have clear answers to most of our questions. We agree to speak again the following afternoon at three. The crossing into Syria won’t take place until late afternoon, or at night, anyway. However, we should prepare ourselves for the possibility that everything will be a go for tomorrow evening. Or the day after tomorrow. Apparently, time is a flexible concept for IS.

We talk to Abu Qatadah about the ever-increasing Twitter commentary, which is repeating my criticisms of IS in remarkable detail. Abu Qatadah repeats they don’t have any problem with that. Our guarantee of safety is valid and nothing can change that. Unless one of us takes it into his head to insult God or the Prophet while we are in the “Islamic State.” In that case, not even the guarantee of safety can save us from the death sentence. But he doesn’t say where he draws the line when it comes to blasphemy. “Pretty early on,” Frederic suggests later. My undiplomatic conversations with extremists fill him with dread. I have never minced words, not even in Afghanistan.

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