A world held to ransom

I was lying on my bed in a hotel room in Basra when the whole world changed. Approaching midnight on August 12, I became the first British civilian to be kidnapped in Iraq. A few hours later, after having been dragged out of the hotel at gunpoint, my worst nightmare had come true. I stood there, sweating and shaking with fear, surrounded by a dozen Iraqi militants and, most ominously, a man holding a video camera.

The youngest of the kidnappers eagerly donned a black balaclava and stood beside me, brandishing a gun, both of us knowing that the rituals of hostage-taking had to be precisely observed. "Unless the Americans leave Najaf we will kill this British hostage," he intoned, patting me on the shoulder as we posed for the camera. I realised with growing despair that I was about to become the latest western civilian to be murdered by Muslim extremists.

A few hours later, tied to a bed in a nondescript Iraqi house, I could hear my kidnappers in the next room watching Al Arabiya, the Middle East’s most watched satellite news channel. After hearing the channel’s distinctive jingle, I was stunned to hear that my kidnapping was the top story. "James Brandon, the British journalist who was kidnapped in Basra yesterday..." began the announcer, as the kidnappers guffawed at their moment of fame. I could hear the sound of backs being slapped as they watched their own home-movie.

The kidnappers seemed proud of the thuggish image they presented to the world, and appeared unashamed of the fact that they had needed 30 gunmen to abduct one unarmed journalist, or that they were too cowardly to reveal their faces on television.

Fortunately, the leaders of Iraq’s Shiite insurgency were also watching, and, aghast at the wildcat kidnapping carried out in their name, ordered my immediate release. But the huge publicity generated by the whole episode had turned Britons into tempting targets for the insurgents, who within months would snatch and murder Ken Bigley and Margaret Hassan.

At the same time, far away, in Beslan in southern Russia, Chechen separatists set their sights on a much softer civilian target. This time, a gang of masked and armed terrorists seized a whole school, filled with over 1,000 adults and children on their first day of term. When the Russian army finally stormed the building, the kidnappers shot down children as they tried to run away. More than 340 people lost their lives, half of them children.

When the aid-worker Margaret Hassan was first kidnapped, ITN interviewed me about the risk of being taken hostage in Iraq. Afterwards, one of the presenters came over and asked, "Honestly, what do you think are her chances?"

"If she can’t get out of this, nobody can," I said. "And although these guys are total bastards, I really can’t see them executing a woman."

But I had underestimated the brutality of her kidnappers, and Margaret Hassan was murdered as Iraqi militants, frustrated by their inability to do any real damage to the US army, resorted to attacking vulnerable civilian targets. Now vast political power could be wielded by any gang able to get their hands on a knife and a video camera.

In a sense this is nothing new - assassins and terrorists have always had an impact disproportionate to their numbers. But now, as if distant footage of burning buildings and grieving relatives after a typical terrorist attack is no longer enough, we get to know the victims Big Brother-style, and to see them suffer from the comfort of our living-rooms. And, like Big Brother, with every episode the ritualised humiliations become more extreme.

Over the past few decades, militants around the world have increasingly shied away from the dangerous business of attacking trained and well-prepared armies and instead deliberately target civilians. Already these rules of kidnapping have become well established, and their metaphors are obvious and striking. Who can forget the footage of Ken Bigley in an orange jumpsuit pleading for his life while caged to mimic America’s treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay? The fact that Bigley was a civilian engineer made no difference to the kidnappers.

In the last year we have seen families, groups of colleagues and total strangers taken for ransom to make a political point - often in blood. The roll call reads like a list of arrivals at an international airport - 100 visitors and journalists held hostage in a women’s prison in Ecuador, 19 tourists held by cocoa growers in Peru, three UN workers in Afghanistan - and it is only a few such as Bigley and Hassan who actually make the headlines.

"I am a journalist," I remember repeating desperately to my captors. It made no difference. "Yes, yes, but you are British," replied one of them with a logical calm that even today sends a shiver down my spine.

Later, when my kidnappers beat me up after a failed escape attempt, I became aware that their savagery was about much more than British or American foreign policy. It also reflected a rage at their own society for failing to offer anything other than war, poverty and despair, and a desperate jealousy of the wealth of the west. "You love life and we love death," wrote one of the Moroccan bombers who killed 200 commuters in Madrid - perfectly defining the many Islamist terrorists who, unlike old-style revolutionaries, do not promise their followers a better life, but instead only more revenge, envy and bitterness.

Just as Iraqi kidnappers realised that the west’s concern for its citizens made it vulnerable, so Muslim fundamentalists are realising that Europe’s greatest strength - its liberty, freedom and openness to immigrants - may also be a weakness. Already militants have killed thousands in Russia, Spain and the United States, while British Muslims have carried out suicide attacks in Israel and travelled to Iraq to fight the coalition.

When the Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh was murdered last month, allegedly by a man named Mohammed B, who disagreed with his portrayal of domestic violence in the Muslim community, it seemed to bring the horrors of Najaf and Fallujah one step closer to the UK. Van Gogh’s death proved that Europe’s aggrieved Islamists no longer needed to travel to distant war zones to kill infidels; it is just as easy to do so in the heart of Europe.

Hearing of Van Gogh’s shooting, which was followed by ritual throat-slitting, I recalled the words of a senior officer on Scotland Yard’s hostage negotiation team, who had debriefed me after my kidnapping in Iraq. "We all know that it’s only a matter of time before this happens here," he said grimly. "We’re just waiting for that call, waiting for the video to pop through the post. And there’s nothing we can do to prevent it."

The next few years will surely reveal whether he was being unnecessarily pessimistic.

And there’s nothing we can do to prevent it."

More accurately, there is nothing they are permitted to do that would prevent it.

"Who can forget the footage of Ken Bigley in an orange jumpsuit pleading for his life while caged to mimic America’s treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay?"

I'm sure the terrorists rightfully jailed in Guantanamo are treated like the hostages who are jailed by the terrorists in Iraq.

Let me be honest...

Just like the article sort of implies, if we want to win this we need to fight it. And continue to fight it. If we don't fight it we will lose and the horrors of a very unconventional war will haunt us even more. Just like the majority of the world (except France) did during WWII, the enemy will never give up unless they are defeated and completely wiped out. The Japanese learned the hard way and, perhaps unfortunately, there is no world leader alive today that would do what FDR and Truman did in order to win in WWII.

Chechen separatists

There is no such a thing! The Chechen terrorists are Muslim terrorists! Our media, and CIA made a grave mistake helping these Muslim fanatic losers.

And there’s nothing we can do to prevent it."

Sure there is plenty we can do to prevent it. Nuclear war is a great preventative measure. Dead terrorists make flowers grow. It is only our restraint at trying to not hurt the "good" Muslims that is protecting the "bad" Muslims from a good dirt nap. As this terrorism increases over time, the distinction between the two group will fade and the problem will be solved Dresden and Hiroshima style.

It is the last choice, but it is rapidly becoming the only choice. We can, after all, drill for oil through glass.

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