I certainly had no idea British journalist Phil Sands was being held hostage in Iraq. I also didn't know he was freed by U.S. troops. Glad to hear he is safe and sound, sad to hear that no one noticed.

Phil Sands was taken by a group of Sunni terrorists, threatened with beheading, forced to make a video calling for the withdrawal of British troops--the whole hostage nine yards. Five days into his ordeal, American troops freed him. He was held for such a short period of time, his terrorist captors had not had time to upload the video to the internet or send it to al Jazeera. No one, not even the troops that freed him, knew he was missing.

Thanks to Tribeca for noticing this. BBC:

A British journalist who was kidnapped in Baghdad and held for five days has been rescued by US forces - despite never being posted as missing.

Phil Sands, a freelance reporter was taken hostage on Boxing Day and released on 31 December, it emerged.

Not even his family had reported Mr Sands, from Poole, Dorset, missing and his captors had not made any demands.

British authorities were completely unaware he was in the country until he was brought to the British embassy.

"We can confirm that Phil Sands was kidnapped on December 26 but we were not notified, nobody told us and the hostage-takers weren't in contact," said a spokesman from the Foreign Office.

"He was released during a routine US military operation on December 31 and he left the country after a medical check-up and having been in touch with his family."

Mr Sands, who freelances for The Scotsman newspaper, told the paper of his shock when men brandishing AK47 rifles forced him into a car.

He was forced to make a video calling for British withdrawal and the release of all detainees in Iraqi prisons, but his captors had not distributed it before their arrest. Throughout his captivity Mr Sands, 28, was convinced that he would be killed. At one point he was led to a deep pit and assumed that he was about to be shot. US soldiers found a large sword and an orange boiler suit similar to those worn by other murdered hostages....

They said that they were Sunnis, the minority to which most insurgents belong. They gave him a bed and fed him well. He worried about his parents, David and Jackie, who live in Poole, Dorset, and tried not to think about dying.

About 2.30am on New YearÂ’s Eve, he heard helicopters. The door flew open and two US soldiers burst in, yelling at him and his guard to stand up. Only when he saw how surprised the Americans were to see him did he realise how lucky he had been. They were on a routine search for insurgents and had found him by chance.

He was flown to Dubai where British security services questioned him for seven days. “We went very thoroughly through what happened.

"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....

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."

Posted by: Rusty at 04:19 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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