Posted on 01/16/2006 8:08:15 AM PST by SittinYonder
THE car boot closed like a coffin lid and Phil Sands knew he was dead. Blindfolded, with his hands cuffed behind his back, all hope evaporated as the 28-year-old journalist contemplated his fate from the boot of his captors' car. It was Boxing Day in Iraq and he was in the worst possible position: a fresh kidnap victim in the most dangerous country on earth.
"When they slammed the car boot, that was the worst point of the whole ordeal. I just knew I was dead, that I wouldn't get out alive. I began to think of my parents in Britain, how they would have to watch this on the news and what it would do to them.
"I felt I could cope with whatever happened to me; it was what they would go through that was unbearable. I could feel the panic rise up, but I had to force it down. I kept telling myself: 'This will do no good - concentrate only on what will help'."
The day had begun like so many others during Sands's almost three years of covering the Iraq war as a freelance journalist for The Scotsman newspaper, among others.
An economics graduate of Exeter University, Sands, from Poole, Dorset, had worked as a journalist for regional papers before arriving in Baghdad in February, 2003 on the eve of war. Since then, he had survived ten visits to the country, a few lasting as long as three months.
On Boxing Day, he had risen from his bed in the Hotel Fanar, a residence used by western journalists. After breakfast, he was met by both his driver and translator before setting out to eastern Baghdad, where he had arranged an interview with a source who had information on the assassination of Iraqi academics by religious zealots.
It was an appointment he would never keep.
Shortly after 9:30am, he noticed two cars driving towards him. The cars stopped suddenly, blocking the road ahead, and men in balaclavas and armed with AK-47 automatic rifles leapt out and raced towards the car. "I just thought: 'Shit, shit, shit'," said Sands, who got out of the car and was thrown to the ground, handcuffed and blind-folded. He was then introduced to the boot of the car.
The BMW drove off at speed. Sands has no idea how long he was in transit; he was aware only of the clattering noise as the car sped over roads dotted with potholes. He was taken out of the car and led into a house and what he later learned was a bedroom. It was then that one of his captors spoke to him words - in Arabic - that made him feel physically sick. He was told that if he was "guilty" of being a soldier, or of helping the occupation, they would cut his head off.
Images of Ken Bigley, the English contractor executed last year, began to rise up in his mind, but Sands found himself able to cope.
"It's strange, but being told that they would cut off my head wasn't the worst part," he said. "The worst part was being put in the boot. I'd already, strangely, accepted that I was dead. I'd already very quickly sunk to the bottom and there wasn't any place else to go. The fact that they were talking about cutting off my head was better than them actually doing it now. It's hard to describe the feeling."
He was then left in the room. The first opportunity to inspect his new quarters came a few hours later with his first meal in captivity. To allow him to eat in relative comfort, his blindfold was taken off and his handcuffs removed. He saw that he was in a simple bedroom with four beds and a window high on the wall which was covered by curtains. An armed guard in a balaclava was watching over him. Two or three times a day he was fed rice, tea and bread. "Occasionally, I was given chicken. They didn't starve me. It sounds strange, but they looked after me with a kind of courtesy, apart, of course, from the threat of execution."
Each day Sands wrestled with his own mind. Panic and feelings of terror would begin to rise up and then he would talk himself down. He prohibited himself from thinking about his parents, David, 58, an engineer, and Jackie, 60, now retired, or his sister Alexandra, 30, a teacher, or his brother, Chris, 25, also a journalist, in Afghanistan.
He decided that thoughts of home were useless, so instead he devoted his free time to remembering the Arabic he had picked up. "I would sit there and run verb tables through my head and try to remember as many words and phrases as I could. I figured if I could communicate maybe I could reason with them."
He said he never cried. "It was all stiff-upper-lip stuff. I didn't cry then and I still haven't cried. Maybe it will come later."
On the second day he was made to record a video. "It was a strange moment. Very surreal. A fellow came in with a little handicam and I was told in Arabic what to say. They also gave me a handwritten note with the words in childish English, and I remember thinking that all the spelling was wrong. I sat there and said all British troops had to pull out of Iraq and all prisoners had to be released. It was all over in a few minutes. But I knew it wouldn't do any good. No-one was going to listen to me."
The thought of his family watching the video tightened the tension in his head.
"Each day I woke up thinking if this would be the day when they would kill me. I kept thinking about the situation I was in and I tried to handle it as well as I could each day. I didn't have any grand plan for escape."
Four more days were to pass in silence, the time broken up only by the changing of guards and the arrival of platefuls of food.
Then, in the early hours of 31 December, he heard the soft thrum of a helicopter's rotor blades. He could also hear that the guard in the room was asleep by his snoring and so decided to ease off the blindfold. The room was dark. Although he was aware that the only people in this area of Iraq with helicopters were the US army, he didn't immediately think about a rescue. "I think I'd pushed hope so far back in my mind that it didn't spring forward." Instead, he waited and listened as noises came closer.
After a few minutes he could hear people moving around the house, then the door was kicked in and American voices began to shout: "Get the f*** up! Get the f*** up!." A torch was shone in his face. "I told them: 'I'm a British journalist. I was kidnapped about a week ago'."
Their response was welcome news: "You're all right now."
He was then taken outside and loaded into the back of a Black Hawk helicopter that was within a few minutes' flying through the night sky towards the Green Zone, the armoured area in Baghdad where coalition forces are based.
In the helicopter he was still in shock. "I remember feeling so very cold. I think I was still a bit shellshocked. I didn't feel any huge wave of relief or start shouting and hollering with delight; that took time."
As he climbed out of the helicopter in the Green Zone he was met by a number of British officials, one of whom shook his hand and said: "Good to have you back. We didn't know you were gone. Happy New Year."
The American army unit had not been on any specific mission to find him, but were carrying out a routine search and had stumbled on him by chance.
It was then Sands realised that the video filmed by his captors had never been broadcast on the internet or al-Jazeera and that no-one had been aware of his ordeal. A communication breakdown, combined with the quiet holiday period, when many western journalists headed home, meant that his disappearance had not been noted. "That was a great relief to know that my parents had been spared all that worry."
The following morning, he was flown to Kuwait, from where he called his parents.
He recalled: "It was a strange conversation. The first thing my father said was: 'Not like you to call'. He had thought I was calling to wish him a happy New Year. When I told him I had been kidnapped and had just been freed, he went quiet and then said: 'I'll tell your mother.'
"They were both pretty shaken up when what had happened to me finally hit them."
Today, Sands is home in Poole, his war reporting on hold for just now. "I don't want to push my luck too much."
He admits that he has been "very, very lucky". The routine US military operation that discovered him meant more than a rescue. It was a resurrection.
A spokesman for the Foreign Office said yesterday: "Mr Sands was taken hostage and released during a routine US operation on 31 December. We were not aware of his presence in the country, nor were we aware that he had been kidnapped.
"As soon as we became aware of his rescue he was taken to the British Embassy, given a check-up, allowed to contacted his family and his safety was ensured as he left the country. "We would advise anyone visiting Iraq to follow professional security advice."
Interesting read.
"We're a SEAL team, and we're here to get you out."
One of the best phrases on the planet.
When the "freedom fighters" put you in the trunk of a car: You think "I'm already dead".
When the Americans show up: "You're all right now".
Why does the media have a hard time recognizing the Good Guys??
Exactly.
That's an excellent question. Watching some crap about the presidents on History Channel with my son Saturday, and they talked about how Reagan had this idea that Americans were the good guys. Of course, the narrator said it with a derisive tone, suggesting that Reagan was immature for thinking such a thing and incorrect.
My wife and I both looked at our son and said, "Americans are the good guys."
After reading this, you have to wonder for the millionth time how journalists look in the mirror every morning and tell them selves, "My job requires me to be absolutely neutral, well okay, leaning left is okay. Arabs can't be held to the same standards as the US, so they're allowed to kidnap, behead, blow up markets, tall buildings, etc.. (Is this racist thinking? You bet it is.)
Rescued by the very people that he had probably been vilifying for years. I wonder how that makes him feel?
And Haji said "Huh?"
No sir, living in Darfur, Sudan is the most dangerous place on the face of the earth.
"Why does the media have a hard time recognizing the Good Guys??"
They're trying to be "even-handed", meaning they don't have any values of their own.
Possibly, although one of the reasons I read the Scotsman is I think they're very reasonable and straight-forward in their reporting. I'm not familiar with this reporter's specific articles, but I get the general impression that the Scotsman's articles are, if anything, more supportive of the WOT and specifically Iraq. I don't read any of the opinion pieces, but the articles always at least present a conservative viewpoint.
be interesting to do a search of the kind of reporting this guy did before we rescued his ass. Wonder if he is like all the other bashers of the US military?
I wonder why the army was kicking in "that" door? Particularly since they didn't even know he was missing....
Whew!
What a story. That was pure hell.
Glad he's safe.
"The American army unit had not been on any specific mission to find him, but were carrying out a routine search and had stumbled on him by chance. "
By chance!
One lucky guy.
Looks to me like they knew there were some Islamofascists behind "that" door. And lo and behold, they were right.
Absolutely. I think the interesting between-the-lines info in this story is that we are obviously getting excellent intel that's sending us to the right places.
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