INTO SYRIA
Mehmut whispered: “Good luck.” Sadiq got ready. He sprinted toward the barbed wire. It tore into skin and flesh. Searchlights swept slowly across no man’s land, leaving pitch darkness behind. He forced his way through the hole in the fence. Do not get caught. Do not stumble. Do not fall. He ran.
Beyond the border lay a two-mile-wide unoccupied zone. Parts of this stretch were dug up, as though defensive trenches had been planned. On either side of the ditches lay fields and flatland. He heard shots. His body tensed an acrid taste of blood in his mouth. A man panted alongside him. Do not panic. A burst of gunfire. Was he running in the right direction? Had the girls run through here too?
When he’d heard that the girls had crossed into Syria, he had broken down. He had dragged himself back to the hotel and lain down on the bed. His mind was whirling. I am not a father if I don’t keep on searching. I am not Sadiq if I return home now. Then he had called Sara. “Don’t go over, yes, go over, no, come home,” she said. And eventually: “Find them.” He had then called the police back home, who said: “We would strongly advise against that.”
Sadiq called Mehmut. “Can you drive me to the border?” They left at sunset.
“I have a friend called Osman,” Mehmut said. “Osman can help you. When he gives his word, you can count on him to the bitter end. Don’t trust anybody else. Remember that. Osman is expecting you on the other side. He’ll be waiting in an olive grove.”
They stopped outside a village by the border. There were others skulking around — bearded types with Gulf accents. North Africans. Brits. Clean-shaven Turks. And him. The Norwegian. The Somali. Hundreds of people crossed illegally every day. The frontier was fenced, but there were many holes in the fence.
He ran. Suddenly he was surrounded by people, torches, shadows. He came to a halt, panting, gasping for breath. He could discern trees: crooked, dark branches. There was a group of men in front of him with Kalashnikovs slung over their shoulders, wearing flak jackets. A torch was pointed at him. A hefty man approached. Then something was pulled over his head. He lost his glasses. Someone clutched him by the throat. “Calm down,” a voice said. “It’s only a hood. All newcomers have to have one on. I’m Osman.”
Sadiq picked up his glasses and squinted through the eyeholes. The man speaking was in his thirties. He was tall, heavy-set, with a large beard.
“You’re one of us now,” he said, handing Sadiq an AK47 and an ammunition belt.
Gunfire crackled between the trees.
“Out of here, now!” someone said. They clambered into a Skoda pick-up.
“What’s going on?” Sadiq asked.
“It’s not about us,” he was told, as he sat squeezed between fighters in the back seat. Not us. Who is “us”?
DAY 14 – Wednesday 30. October
It is expensive to travel around in a war zone. Everything costs money. Guns, food, shelter, bodyguards and most of all contacts. It is the contacts that makes you safe, that gives you the possibility to travel around and to meet people who can answer your questions. Sadiq needs more money quickly and in a war zone cash is king. Sadiq needs access to an ATM where his VISA card works, and the only ones that he has any hope of getting to is in Turkey. Which means he has to cross it. At the night between Osman and Sadiq drive up to what they have known as weak spots in the border. It is heavily guarded. They try to get access to it from another angle, again they are stopped by the guards. Five times, five different angles, five fails. Desperate, Sadiq calls Mohammed to figure out what is going on. It is getting late and he needs to cross the border soon if he should have any hope of doing it today. Mohammed takes his call. He doesn’t have good news.
Early that Tuesday an Egyptian boy has been caught trying to cross the border. Sadiq is never told which way the boy tried to escape. He was caught and, as makes common sense, the weak point where the Egyptian tried to cross is flooded by guards. It’s also the point where Sadiq was trying to cross. Mohammed has talked to his friends in the military. There is no point trying to cross today. Heartbroken Sadiq and Osman go back to Osman’s home.
Later in the day, they go back to the border to try again. The guards are gone. Sadiq manages to successfully flee into Turkey. He is met by a motorcycle that drives him 1.5 km to Mohammed. He’s waiting in a car and rives bin to Reyanliah. Here he gets the cash he needs. But when he tries to get back late at night the guards are back. It’s not possible to get back into Syria. Sadiq has to travel to a close by town, Reyanliah, to bide his time.
“We’re Jabhat al-Nusra.” Al-Qaeda’s men in Syria.
The truck sped along the dark, potholed road. Shooting could still be heard when the car stopped. The gunfire took him back to the war in Somalia that had formed him as a teenager. Sadiq had switched into soldier mode, an identity he thought was gone. But no, his brain was already programmed, all it needed was to be reactivated. This is not my war, he thought. I have come to save my daughters. I’m just a father.
In Osman’s living room, they agreed on a price for the minders, the weapon and the vehicle, the same Skoda pick-up from the night before. The first order of business was to bring Sadiq around and introduce him. The war had its own bureaucracy; foreigners could not be in Syria without belonging to a group, somebody had to vouch for you. They went first to Jabhat al-Nusra. Al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria was the most powerful militia in the area. At their headquarters, Osman and Sadiq were met by Abu Islam, a young man with thick glasses and a plump, pear-shaped body. Sadiq related his story. Abu Islam had not heard of any Somali girls. Foreigners usually passed straight through, he told them. “Farther on to where?”
“Daesh.” Isis.
He elaborated for Sadiq: “They’re the ones who recruit women. Not us.”
The recruitment of women was a bone of contention. Al-Qaeda’s men would welcome women in Syria, but only once the war was over and the true caliphate established. Isis wanted them to come right away. Abu Islam promised: “We’ll keep an eye out.”
Their next port of call was Ahrar al-Sham, an Islamist militia that was more moderate than al-Nusra and had no connections to al-Qaeda. Ahrar al-Sham also wanted an Islamic state, but rejected global jihad and a caliphate beyond Syria’s borders. “A father who comes to a warzone to get his daughters. Respect,” the commander said, and promised to keep a lookout.
Sadiq showed him the worn photocopy of their passport pictures. But the photos were probably of little use; the girls were likely to be now wearing niqabs.
The headquarters of the Free Syrian Army was just a few minutes’ drive away, at the local police station. The force, having initially wrested control of the town from Assad, was losing territory. A tall, thin man in his sixties with a walrus mustache approached them. “Sad, very sad,” he said, upon hearing Sadiq’s story. “They’re almost certainly being held hostage,” Sadiq said. “Most likely by a criminal gang.’
The colonel nodded. “Yes, yes, no doubt, but you have to leave now.’
There was one group left: the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria: Daesh. Its headquarters was in a villa once owned by an Assad general, situated behind high walls and a large gate. They were welcomed by a tall emir, Abu Saad al-Tunisi. Sadiq put great effort into fashioning a good story. He focused on his daughters being kidnapped and held against their will. Abu Saad offered food, but no promises…… continued on the next page
