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| Meet the man who spent 10 days with ISIS and lived to tell about it |
Meet the man who spent 10 days with ISIS and lived to tell about it
Few individuals accept gotten abutting to the self-proclaimed Islamic Accompaniment and lived to acquaint about it. Journalist and columnist Jürgen Todenhöfer is one of them.“I lived with them. Sometimes we slept on the aforementioned attic — there was just a Kalashnikov amid us,” he says.
Todenhöfer anchored with ISIS for 10 canicule in December of 2014. He got admission to the Islamic Accompaniment afterwards months of Skype negotiations and a accessible agreement from ISIS administration that he would acknowledgment alive. He’s cogent his adventure in a new book, "My Journey Into the Heart of Terror: Ten Canicule in the Islamic State," which is out on April 12.
“The acumen why I believed in this agreement was [that] ISIS wants to be apparent as a state,” Tondenhöfer says. “They gave the agreement as a state, and it would be a defeat for them if anybody would say, ‘They anticipate that they are a state, and they accord a accessible promise, and they don’t stick to that promise.’ And accordingly I anticipation I would appear aback alive.”
Tondenhöfer spent a lot of of his time with ISIS in Mosul, Iraq, but he aswell visited the Syrian cities of Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor. Tondenhöfer said he set the calendar with the Islamic State.
“I said I wish to go to the badge station, I wish to see a jail, to airing in the streets … I wish to allege with humans in the streets, and I wish to allege after the ISIS fighters,” he says. “And I capital to see, for example, a hostage, and I saw a hostage. I fabricated the affairs — they didn’t accomplish the program.”
Though Thondenhöfer saw the humans beneath ISIS aphorism obey the militants, he says that abounding did it reluctantly.
“I had the befalling to allege in the streets, and sometimes somebody gave me a sign,” he says. “The ISIS fighters said, ‘You know, the abridgement is alive and running,’ and with his hand, the guy who was beside me gave me a assurance that he didn’t allotment this opinion. So humans are not crazy — they would not say with a loud voice, ‘ISIS is terrorism,’ because they would be killed. So they abide ISIS.”
While he was able to cautiously biking about ISIS territory, Todenhöfer saw the atrocity of the Islamic State. He said there was no trace of any Shia Muslims, because ISIS had already “eliminated” them from the area.
“There were no added Shias, no added Christians,” he says. “The Christians had larboard — they had the befalling to stay, but they didn’t wish to reside beneath the absolutism of terrorists, so there were alone Sunnis.”
But Todenhöfer believes that things are alteration as the humans active beneath Islamic Accompaniment ascendancy become added restless.
“Now they are actual angry,” he says. “There is an befalling now to accomplish something with the Sunnis of Mosul, Ramadi, etcetera. There could even be a anarchy adjoin ISIS.”
There accept been several letters that the Islamic Accompaniment has apprenticed women and girls and accustomed an industry of rape. Though Todenhöfer did not attestant this alarming animal abandon aboriginal hand, he says that ISIS fighters don’t shy abroad from the subject.
“They accept that they accept alien slavery,” he says. “I had continued discussions about bullwork because it’s a abashment that a agitator alignment thinks that they are avant-garde if they acquaint slavery. But they told me, ‘You know, we accept bullwork clearly — you accept it secretly.’ But nevertheless, I anticipate it’s abhorrent what they do, abnormally with the Yazidi girls. It’s just horrible.”
Todenhöfer says the fighters he met are annihilation like the religious crusaders they affirmation to be. Rather, they’re added like a bandage of able-bodied armed abyss who adulation money, women and power.
“As far as Islam and the Koran are concerned, they’re illiterates — they accept no idea,” he says. “I discussed the Koran with them — I’ve apprehend the Koran three times, but I’m a Christian. They apperceive assertive locations of the Koran that are ambidextrous with the war with Mecca and Medina. I confronted them with added parts, talking about justice, about benevolence and they just didn’t apperceive anything. Nevertheless, I would say that they anticipate they are believers.”
While the fighters on the arena affirmation to accept in Islam, Todenhöfer doubts that the leaders of the Islamic Accompaniment do.
“They are ability guys — very, actual boxy ability guys,” he says. “But they’re not absolutely Muslims.”
The all-around association has been aggravating to acquisition a band-aid to the blood-soaked Syrian Civil War, and some accept appropriate that the Islamic Accompaniment accept to be complex in negotiations. But Todenhöfer dismisses that notion.
“I am a acquaintance of negotiations, but not with these terrorists,” he says. “They anticipate that they will be allotment of negotiations — they told me and it was told to them by their leadership, that one day there will be negotiations. But I told them, ‘Nobody will allocution to you.’ We accept to defeat them and annihilate them. But I anticipate our action to assail cities is not the appropriate strategy.”
Todenhöfer says the West accept to stop ISIS from accepting weapons — he saw ISIS fighters with German apparatus accoutrements that were accustomed to Kurdish fighters. Additionally, Todenhöfer argues that the bound amid Turkey and the Syrian breadth captivated by ISIS accept to be sealed.
“It was too simple to cantankerous this border,” he says. “I had to run, and it was difficult to run, but about I’m 75 and it was too simple to cantankerous this border. And the third point, which I anticipate is the a lot of important point, ISIS in Iraq can alone reside because it’s accurate by a discriminated allotment of the country. If you would accept a civic adaptation in Iraq, again ISIS would be like a angle after water. The aforementioned is accurate in Syria. If we succeed, for example, in Geneva with a civic reconciliation, again ISIS is isolated, ISIS is defeated.”
This adventure was originally appear on The Takeaway.
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