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00:28I don't know if you guys are allowed to get
00:29me and the news about ourselves and our situation, we don't have anything, anything, anything,
00:37but we're just basically dying every day, just people just dying in prison. We're just
00:41sitting there waiting for, waiting for death.
00:48Hamza Parvez from West London is currently being held in prison in Syria and suspicion
00:53of being an enemy combatant. He has had his UK citizenship revoked.
01:15In 2012, a number of Hamza's London friends, radicalised by extremist preachers in Britain,
01:22travelled to take part in the so-called religious war in Syria and Iraq.
01:25travelled to take part in the so-called religious war in Syria and Iraq.
01:30A lot of people make quick decisions. If it's not going to be me that sacrifices,
01:35not going to be me that helps, who's going to do it? There was friends that I knew that
01:42had gone to Syria before. Most people are going, they're not looking back, they're actually looking
01:47for death, they're looking to die, they're looking for martyrdom.
01:50Yes, my feeling is great and alhamdulillah I'm happy that I'm here and I'm here to please Allah subhanahu
01:55ta'ala and I'm not here to please anyone else but Allah subhanahu ta'ala.
02:00These foreign fighters are the new phenomena that British photojournalist John Cantley was investigating
02:06when he and his friend James Foley were taken by masked men at gunpoint.
02:11A relatively large number of these jihadists were either English-speaking or English.
02:17Disenchanted young men from the UK now unified under this jihadist banner.
02:30This is the golden era of jihad.
02:33The Islamic State is now at war with the West.
02:37One thing we can all agree on is that a group like ISIL has no place in the 21st century.
02:51John went into the hornet's nest.
02:54He wanted a proper story.
02:57He went looking for British jihadis in dangerous environments.
03:02Or is he on the verge of an amazing story?
03:07Journalists have become targets.
03:09Scores of journalists are believed to have been kidnapped.
03:12John Cantley being held by extremists from Islamic State.
03:19We just were desperate for information.
03:22It was a mission to find missing persons.
03:27Another barbaric beheading.
03:29Another unwatchable video.
03:32It became apparent that he hadn't been beheaded.
03:36Hello, my name is John Cantley.
03:39And the media hasn't had a story as big as this for a very long time indeed.
03:44Why not kill him like the arrest?
03:48People began to take the view that he was a turned Islamic State asset.
03:53What really did happen to John Cantley?
04:20Well, Thanksgiving Day is always a special gathering with our family.
04:28Jim has four younger siblings married with children.
04:32And my husband has a large family.
04:35And actually, Jim was in frequent touch.
04:40He emailed or called weekly.
04:42And particularly on special days.
04:45Anybody's birthday, any holiday.
04:47And that's what made us pause Thanksgiving Day of 2012.
04:57I remember coming home from our family gathering and thinking, how odd.
05:01We just didn't hear from Jim.
05:03You know?
05:05But trying not to think much of it.
05:08So it was really the next morning, my husband and I were having our morning coffee.
05:13And then we got a call.
05:17Their driver had said that Jim and John had been kidnapped.
05:22No one had any idea who had kidnapped him.
05:27We were devastated.
05:30But the advice from the FBI was to keep totally quiet about it.
05:36We were told not to tell anybody about John and Jim's kidnapping.
05:47Jump on a plane and join us in Antakya.
05:51In the next few days, it'd be good to have you along to keep me sane.
05:54Best, JC.
05:57And that was the last email I got before then his beacon went off.
06:00I think it would have been in the early hours of the morning.
06:02No.
06:03Early 22nd of November.
06:06I think something.
06:08There was no worse place to be than where he went.
06:13He went into the hornet's nest.
06:15He was entering a world he had no idea.
06:19Because he was naive and a maverick.
06:23Yeah.
06:24He didn't know what was coming.
06:25And by God it was coming.
06:27Yeah.
06:29Everybody was panicked.
06:31There was lots of communication between the family, me, his friends, his close friends.
06:38Trying to figure out what the next plan was.
06:43We contacted the Foreign Office and normal diplomatic channels.
06:49I was on the full-time hostage and crisis negotiation unit at New Scotland Yard.
06:54And my boss said, John Cantley's been kidnapped again.
06:59At first it was like, what?
07:01Why would he go back?
07:02You know, why would anybody go back?
07:05Gosh, that's...
07:06That's unheard of.
07:08I can't think of anybody in the history that I've been working in negotiation with.
07:12Somebody has been kidnapped twice.
07:16My boss asked me to go and spend some time with John's family next of kin just to support them.
07:24I got the impression that they just thought, oh, this is typical of John.
07:28And I remembered them thinking it would be over quite quickly.
07:32John would probably escape pretty, pretty soon.
07:38We really did not have any idea if Jim and John were dead or alive.
07:44So I was frantic to find out more.
07:49Jim was a freelancer.
07:51One of the outlets had some kidnap insurance.
07:55And with that was able to enlist a security professional to help look for Jim.
08:06Is it a dangerous job?
08:08Well, I mean, it depends on the circumstances.
08:11You could say that my threshold of safety was different.
08:17So as a private actor, you are much less constrained in what you can do.
08:27Kidnap investigator Jens arrives in Turkey.
08:31John and James have now been missing for 48 hours.
08:36Ahead of him is a live and deadly conflict.
08:40I picked up my bag at the luggage carousel.
08:44There were lots of Europeans.
08:46They were all like, hey, are you going?
08:47Are you coming in with us?
08:49Are you going to join the fight?
08:50And I was like, no, I'm here on another issue.
08:52But I was very well aware that, you know, I should keep a low profile.
09:00Takia is a very, very small city right on the border.
09:05And it was completely congested with foreign fighters.
09:11I always use the reference to Star Wars Tenswine.
09:14They were not openly carrying weapons, but they were carrying their fatigues and desert boots.
09:20And they all look very, you know, paramilitary, waiting eagerly to go in and join the fight.
09:30I knew exactly where they were taken.
09:33We knew that they were apprehended together.
09:36And we had to assume that they were kept together.
09:40So I went to interview Mustafa Kareli, the fixture.
09:46Mustafa was actually the only one who really knew what transpired when they were apprehended.
09:54He was the key witness.
09:57I was blaming myself.
09:59I thought, like, maybe in the same day or the day after, they were released.
10:06They would be with me.
10:08So I go back to my uncle.
10:12I was angry and shouting and also crying.
10:16Please, I need, like, my friends.
10:19I told him, when we got kidnapped, there was, like, six, seven people.
10:25They have a different accent.
10:26And they're, like, hiding their ideas.
10:29When I described them to him, he said, they are Captain Al-Nusra.
10:34The jihadist crew.
10:36Jabhat al-Nusra is one of the most aggressive rebel groups on the ground,
10:40fighting against President Assad's regime.
10:43Al-Nusra is part of Al-Qaeda and it's run by a man called Abu Muhammad al-Jalani,
10:49who has recently been released from a US prison in Iraq.
10:54Years later, he will become the leader of the new Syria and welcomed by heads of states.
11:02Jalani was a senior level Al-Qaeda operative.
11:08It's difficult to see how the kidnap of two foreigners, an American and a Brit,
11:17wouldn't have at some stage involved the direct knowledge of Jalani.
11:23Jalani was the one in charge.
11:25He was the most powerful guy in that entire region.
11:29So I started looking everywhere for Jalani.
11:38Jens tracks down old Jalani through his contacts
11:41and is hoping to negotiate a quick release of John and James.
11:47We had Jalani interviewed several times about this issue.
11:51He knew about it.
11:52He had the power to search, go bang on all doors.
11:59And I remember we had several meetings with some high-ranking people.
12:04And at the end, they just came around and said,
12:07listen, if you ask us this question one more time, we're going to do something bad to you.
12:11I mean, basically, they became annoyed by us.
12:15They have only one answer to say.
12:18They are kuffer.
12:20They are not with us.
12:22And we don't know anything about them.
12:24But even if we know, we are not going to give you.
12:27And they said, if we hadn't, we would say it and we would come with a demand.
12:39Things were changing on the ground and I did not feel safe.
12:45As the Syrian struggle intensifies, the battle to remove the Assad regime
12:49is pulling in volunteer fighters from across the Arab world.
12:56A new group is emerging.
12:59And there are rumours that they're interested in high-value prisoners.
13:04Coming from Iraq and calling itself the Islamic State,
13:07this group is highly organised, violent and intent on taking hostages.
13:15Its leader is a man called Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,
13:18who has also been released from a US prison in Iraq.
13:23Al-Baghdadi plans to take over Syria and Iraq.
13:27And one day, the whole world.
13:30The schism happens between those who want to declare their allegiance to Baghdadi,
13:36Islamic State Chief,
13:38and those who want to stay with Jelani, who was Syrian
13:41and he wasn't quite as extreme as Baghdadi or his Islamic State group,
13:46nor did he want to be deferential to get the two foreign apart.
13:51Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State then fight each other.
13:57Someone from Jabhat al-Nusra told me that James and John,
14:01they was the big deal.
14:04ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra, they are ready to leave all their heavy weapons
14:08just to take the two journalists, the foreigners journalists.
14:16I must have interviewed close to a thousand people
14:19about the James and John case.
14:23Endless interrogations, questionings,
14:26smoking a gazillion cigarettes, drinking six thousand cups of coffee.
14:30I would pick up somebody, drive in the car, and basically had the chat on the move.
14:35I was sucked into this surreal world where my borders for safety would slip.
14:43Every stone was turned and there was nothing.
14:46Whoever took John and James did not want them to be found
14:51and took great effort to hide them.
14:59There was this feeling of incredible worry.
15:04We were quiet for the six weeks or a month.
15:08Did our best to listen to the advice of the FBI,
15:12but it was hard not to tell our closest friends.
15:18It was horrifying. It felt very isolating.
15:24I felt strongly that I needed to do my part. I was desperate.
15:31And so we felt the only way to get some light on it was to ask for help.
15:38We were gravely concerned about Jimmy's health and welfare and safety.
15:42We miss him terribly.
15:44He's in our thoughts and our prayers every day.
15:47And we're committed to do everything within our ability to secure a safe release.
15:53And this is our only priority.
15:55Part of the need to be public.
15:57Since Jim was a journalist and I knew he had journalist friends,
16:00perhaps some of his colleagues might have an idea of what was happening.
16:09Once it was public, angels have surrounded us.
16:21As time went by, Syria became really, really dangerous for us Western journalists.
16:31But a Syrian revolution is a really big story.
16:35So we're all drawn to Syria.
16:37What had already been super violent and chaotic was getting beyond difficult.
16:43The violence had become so widespread and the risks had so multiplied.
16:48Feral, feral times.
16:51So John and James were the first ones that I heard about who disappeared.
16:56And that's how it started.
16:58And then you get to hear on that very internal journalist that grapevine,
17:03hey, so-and-so's gone missing.
17:05There's two other journalists gone missing.
17:11A lot of people going missing.
17:20Five months into the 40 Cantlie case, I get a phone call about a super young photographer,
17:27that had been kidnapped also in northern Syria.
17:44On the 17th of May 2013, 24-year-old Danish photographer Daniel Roy is kidnapped.
17:52Jens is deployed to search for him.
17:56He was very green, but he had also really tried to do the best he could to prepare himself for
18:02that trip.
18:03But I was worried because knowing what I knew about Syria, I just had a bad hunch about it.
18:11So Jens was looking for Jim, but he was also helping Daniel's family.
18:16So he was working both cases, but they felt they knew where Daniel was.
18:24In Daniel's case, I knew exactly what building he went into.
18:28We quite quickly established direct communication.
18:32And then they stopped replying.
18:36They said this issue has now been passed on to others.
18:41He has been transitioned, not specified, and we lost the track of anyone holding Daniel.
18:49So this whole transitioning, what we know now is that was basically the start of Islamic State.
18:58Islamic State has become the strongest jihadist group in Syria,
19:03and is seizing hostages from other armed groups.
19:06What's beginning to emerge is a systematic taking of people as prisoners.
19:12The honour of the ummah is jihad, in peace of Allah.
19:15Ummah brothers, come to jihad and feel the honour we are feeling.
19:19Feel the happiness that we are feeling.
19:24I took a very strong view that the Prime Minister should always know whenever a hostage was taken.
19:32I would then, you know, ask for COBRA emergency committee meeting to take place,
19:38so that I could ask the heads of special forces, the heads of the intelligence agencies,
19:43what do we know about this hostage?
19:45Where do we think they are?
19:46Is there a chance of a rescue?
19:48Now, as part of that, I felt it was incumbent on us to make sure the families were kept up
19:55to date with anything that was happening.
19:56They had police liaison officers and other support officers.
19:59And I was very happy to meet with the families, if they wanted to meet.
20:04You know, obviously they want their loved one brought home.
20:06I want to make sure their loved one is brought home.
20:08But sometimes you can't say everything about what's being done.
20:12John has now been missing for almost six months.
20:16Only a handful of friends and relatives know that he's been taken.
20:21At the request of the government, press avoid reporting on John's kidnapping.
20:26When things like this happen, kidnappings, there's a great deal of secrecy around it because there are so many dynamics.
20:34And as soon as things start hitting the news, the dynamics around it changes.
20:40The key objective when someone is kidnapped, I mean, obviously it's the life at stake that matters the most.
20:47You must do everything you can do to prevent that case from scaling out of control.
20:53So the secretiveness around it is often founded in the fact that what matters the most is saving that life.
21:08When he got kidnapped the second time, it felt like this is getting ridiculous.
21:13I remember just feeling partly feeling not surprised, you know, I thought, well, that's really not a surprise that he's
21:21got himself into the suit.
21:25He definitely seemed to be deeply affected by the story.
21:29And he was bombarding me with photographs he'd taken to Syria.
21:32A lot of the images, though, were of rebels, very kind of gung-ho, you know, frontline.
21:39It was all men.
21:40And I remember thinking, this is really strange.
21:42You've gone to Syria and you're just taking photographs of guys.
21:45But what was clear was that he felt that he was making a difference and he wanted to keep going
21:50back.
21:52John Cantney had been capturing the rapidly changing conflict in Syria when he was taken.
21:57But there was a new and deeply unsettling twist coming out of the war.
22:04Photographers don't often bring in amazing stories.
22:06It just doesn't happen like that.
22:08But was he on the verge of an amazing story?
22:11Was he on the verge of the scoop of his life that would have transformed his career?
22:16Hold it like the way I told you.
22:18Hold it like a man.
22:20There you go.
22:21OK, you guys ready?
22:22Ready.
22:22Are you sure you're recording me?
22:23Yeah, yeah, yeah.
22:25A little Chinese man.
22:27A little black man.
22:29The Islamic State group is proving more popular with young Brits than any other group in Syria.
22:36That's how we do it over here.
22:42He's happy.
22:43And they're starting to film their lives on the front line.
22:48Part video diary.
22:49Part propaganda.
22:51What are you doing, man?
22:53Right now it's just Friday afternoon.
22:57And we're just chilling here on the battlefield.
22:59In a little while we'll be doing an attack.
23:02There's been a lot of talk about the so-called five stars you had.
23:07Here, alhamdulillah, this is where most of the media work happens on this little rescue.
23:13Their videos are spreading across the internet, attracting more recruits, including 21-year-old Hamza Parvez from West London.
23:22We were taken to the desert.
23:25I brought boots and stuff and jackets inside.
23:28I had already some stuff.
23:29Some Primark H&M.
23:34It's the first Mosul Kleshnikov.
23:36I didn't know a word of Arabic.
23:38I didn't know nothing.
23:40We did, like, classes about military tactics.
23:43I'm not saying that I went out and there was a fire and I fought.
23:46But you have to have a weapon to protect yourself.
23:50When I first got my first weapons, Kleshnikov, put the magazine in.
23:55Lock it back.
23:56Take a shot.
23:59How did it feel?
24:00It was very scary.
24:02It's a weapon that kills human beings.
24:07This is the golden era of jihad.
24:09What are we doing sitting in the UK?
24:11Sitting in the al-Khafah, the land which killed Muslims.
24:14At the time that I recorded the video, I was very, like, you know, charged up.
24:17Everything was happening.
24:18I was in the desert.
24:20So it was a call for the guys, whoever wants to come.
24:23To come.
24:25Do you regret that video?
24:26Yeah, it was stupid. It was stupid.
24:37As we approach October, this is close to a year since they were kidnapped.
24:44That's when I get the breakthrough.
24:48An 18-year-old from Belgium recently returned from Syria
24:51and has been detained on suspicion of being a member of a terrorist group,
24:55something he denies.
24:56A Belgian guy had hooked up with the Islamic State.
25:00Then he'd fallen foul of the Islamic State.
25:02He'd chucked him in prison.
25:04Finally, he's released.
25:06He goes back to Brussels, where he's probably detained by Belgian authorities.
25:13So I went to Belgium to meet this jihadi.
25:18He was in a maximum security prison.
25:21There was no allowed access to the jail.
25:24Basically, I'd bullshit myself all the way into that prison
25:27by saying I was his uncle.
25:30Let me ask, it's going to be audio only, right?
25:34During his debrief, he said,
25:36oh yeah, funny thing, I was in this prison in Aleppo.
25:40You never know, are you the one next being killed or not?
25:45Even though I was innocent, they interrogated me.
25:49I was in prison with two people.
25:52I didn't know who they were.
25:53There were two men in the cell with me.
25:57And their names were James and John.
26:01One was John Kelly, one was James Foley.
26:04That is the first time that word comes out of John and James since their abduction.
26:13I had some proof of life questions that were impossible to know unless you had spoken to him.
26:21They started to become friends, told what their hobbies were, drinks we had.
26:28It all checked out.
26:30So it was 100% sure that they were alive when he met them.
26:36They got torched really bad, and they still had the scars on their ankles.
26:40And then you start to have conversations like, if I get out, I'm going to contact your family.
26:49It was the fall of 2013 when we were desperate for information.
26:55A parent of a young Belgian jihadist reached out to me and said, my son has seen Jim.
27:03He's alive.
27:06And that Jim was not alone.
27:08He was in fact with other Westerners.
27:11He was being helped with Daniel Rye, and that was the first hope we had.
27:20I was incredibly grateful.
27:26When I was put into the same room with James and John, it was quite crazy to see them.
27:33Because they were kidnapped half a year before me.
27:38So they had been hostages for a long time when I saw them the first time.
27:44And they have been through things that you cannot imagine.
27:48They were very skinny.
27:51But they didn't seem very scared.
27:54They seemed like they had adapted quite well.
27:58We just smiled and said hello.
28:02They were like this old couple who have been married forever.
28:08Daniel Rye is placed in a makeshift cell with John and James several months after he was taken.
28:14First meeting them here, in the notorious basement of an Aleppo hospital.
28:20Because of the heart treatment that I have had in the beginning, where I was heavily tortured and beaten up,
28:31I looked like a skeleton.
28:33Some of the other guys didn't want to get too close to me.
28:39But not John.
28:42I really hated myself and I didn't have any self-respect left.
28:48And when I spoke to John, he got so angry at me.
28:51And he started to tell me all the reasons I had to not be angry at myself.
28:57I was like, wow, I'm not weak.
29:02I'm probably actually strong, even though I don't see that right now.
29:07That was the beginning of a new way of looking at myself.
29:11It was something I really learned from John.
29:15So he is and was a very, very strong character.
29:23The weird thing was, I would drive in Aleppo, past the teaching hospital, in which John and James were being
29:30held.
29:32Without realising they were there.
29:33The rules were, when you drive past that hospital, don't look over to look at it.
29:37Just drive past, just don't do anything.
29:39At that stage, the fighting between the Islamic State and all these other groups, all piling into Islamic State.
29:45It was a huge fight.
29:46As well as the fights going on against Assad in that city.
29:50So Islamic State decided to remove their high value prisoners, which include the Western hostages, from that hospital and driven
29:58to Raqqa.
30:01We were chained to each other, two and two.
30:05We were put into a truck.
30:08Suddenly I woke up during the night and was like, whoa, where are we?
30:13So some of the other guys was like, I think we're sitting on top of eight tons of IEDs, improvised
30:22explosive device.
30:23It's like, okay, if something goes wrong, we will fucking blow up.
30:34Relocated to a new hidden site, Islamic State group are consolidating their most valuable hostages.
30:46Among them is veteran Spanish correspondent, Javier Espinoza.
30:54Assembling all the foreigners in the same place.
30:57That kind of situation, you feel comforted in a way because, well, we are a lot, you know, it's not
31:04going to be just me alone, all these crazy guys.
31:06You were given a number, can you tell me about that?
31:09I'm number 43.
31:11And everybody has a number, 43, 45, 47.
31:14You cannot answer, I'm Javier.
31:18Because it's diminishing your human entity, you know, you are not anymore a human, you are a number in a
31:25system.
31:33And then suddenly, I heard them the first time.
31:37They knock on the door, like a big iron door.
31:47And I remember it because when they opened the door, all the, all the heat that we created as a
31:54group, just kind of went out.
31:58They call them the Brits.
32:06And they yelled hands to the wall.
32:09And then, and they came in and the first they did was to beat up the Americans.
32:17Everybody that they enter in the room, you have to move and face the world.
32:21But you could hear the, the noise of the, of the beating.
32:24One after another, bam, bam, bam, bam.
32:27It was with the, I mean, kicks, actually, you know, it wasn't, we've had, it's a closed room, so, you
32:33heard a lot.
32:34I think that was the same day, almost, that John Cantlie said, we need to ref, be able to refer
32:40to them as something.
32:42Hey, let's call them the Beatles, John, Brinko and George.
32:46The so-called Beatles, a semi-criminalized group of three young guys.
32:52They had become subsumed with this new Islamic movement they found there.
32:57They'd assume these new identities too, big deal, part of Islamic State.
33:04Obviously, that kind of stuff is very, very secretive.
33:07No one knows about it.
33:08No one knows where the hostages were taken from.
33:11No one knows where they're kept.
33:12No one knows what the situation is.
33:13All that stuff, it's with the security services of Islamic State.
33:22These guys doesn't feel they have any purpose in England, and suddenly they have a purpose in life, which is
33:30to create a huge Islamic State.
33:32And especially, they are given power to be somebody who's undecided.
33:37I know you died.
33:38No, you live.
33:39That's enormous power for them.
33:41I mean, many times they put the knives on your throat and say, you're going to be killed, and blah,
33:47blah, blah.
33:51John was very brave.
33:54He wasn't afraid of anything.
33:57He was like this cat just standing and looking at this dog, being like, what the fuck do you think
34:03you are?
34:04And the dog just stops barking and walks away, you know?
34:08I think that was what John kind of did to them.
34:11And they was like, okay.
34:14So I think they respected him.
34:17Somehow.
34:19They saw his humor.
34:23ISIS, they used to use him to imitate popular guys from the BBC.
34:30They were laughing and, ha, ha, ha, ha, yeah.
34:33You should have done this as a job.
34:37We've come to Phoenix, Arizona.
34:40Johnny Cantley.
34:41This man was born on a bike.
34:43Why do we still need a piece of old, dead cow?
34:46There's the ultimate in motorcycles.
34:48John had a ruthless energy.
34:50He would act out with great enthusiasm his endeavors and his missions.
34:58He started out with motorbikes.
35:02Screeching around, acting like a lunatic.
35:05Mikey, how do you respond to people who would say, but what you're just doing is just bloody irresponsible and
35:10quite honestly putting other people's lives in danger.
35:12And then he suddenly turned up on the scene as this freelance photojournalist going around looking down the barrels of
35:19tanks.
35:22I think people thought he was full of shit, but he wasn't.
35:25And I think this hindered his credibility as a good journalist.
35:32Because he'd never really been trained by, say, the military, his energetic maverick mentality meant that very often he would
35:41overextend.
35:43Which is why he always got himself in trouble.
35:59Islamic State started setting up their own Sharia courts, formalizing local power.
36:06They spoke of themselves as a, as a new nation, and now they just need money.
36:16ISIS is taking over ever more of rebel-held northern Syria.
36:23They've now got, it's thought, at least 20 hostages.
36:26It's a pretty big business.
36:30When did you realize that these people want money, they want political leverage?
36:35Since the very beginning, for all of us.
36:39They came in and took a few pictures, and I had to pose with a letter where it was written
36:442 million euros.
36:47That's a lot of money.
36:51Like 2 million euros, that's completely insane.
36:54And my family don't have that kind of money, so my head couldn't understand how can I get back from
37:02this.
37:02In my case, it was to the important people of Spain and the leadership of the country.
37:09Please, do what these people want to do, because if not, they will kill me.
37:16Islamic State group make their first direct contact with Javier's wife, Monica, reaching her by email.
37:23It was in my spam. I didn't find it until two weeks later, maybe.
37:28They were using a VPN. I tried to locate the IP address, and it was impossible.
37:33So I was trying to figure out how to reply to that.
37:39And next, the ransom demands come through for John and James' families.
37:45They had an encrypted email that our FBI couldn't, couldn't penetrate.
37:52Know that we are many, and we are many in numbers.
37:55We had a feeling they might be British because of some of the wording in the emails.
38:02I know that you cannot harm us in the least, because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is of the muttaqeen.
38:07The early one was really rather cordial.
38:12I think there was a tiny window there, but that tone changed over time.
38:18I know that the ground that we sit on is the ground that we will bury you in.
38:22And the terrorists wanted to directly negotiate with our government.
38:27They wanted more than a hundred million euro for the release of Jim.
38:35The ransom prices for John and James as British and American citizens are astronomical.
38:41They were asking millions and millions of dollars.
38:44We had a very clear policy, which is to say that we would do everything we could to try and
38:50get hostages home.
38:51But we would not pay ransoms to terrorist kidnappers for the very clear reason that if we did, they would
38:57kidnap more British citizens.
39:00It was, I accept, a tough policy.
39:04I took it to the G8, and I looked all of the other countries in the eye, the French, the
39:09Italians, all of them, and said, let's all sign up.
39:12So, you know, nominally, other countries in the world had signed up to this policy.
39:17Our government did not negotiate with terrorists, and they made that clear.
39:23But the government, meanwhile, was telling me that Jim was their highest priority over and over and over.
39:32So, as a mom, I wanted to hear that, that yes, my government may say publicly they won't negotiate with
39:39terrorists, but that privately, my government's telling me that Jim's their highest priority.
39:50I understand from a political perspective why states shouldn't pay, but I also understand that any family should be allowed
40:02the right to do what they deem necessary.
40:05Had it been my kid, I would have said, well, F you, I'll do it myself then.
40:16We met with the highest level at the White House that I had to date.
40:21They were very kind.
40:23They listened.
40:24We went to FBI.
40:26And what was horrific was that is when we were told for the first time that as American citizens, we
40:35would be prosecuted if we dared to raise ransom.
40:41We certainly would have risked prosecution, but I know I wanted to believe that our government would privately find a
40:52way to do something to bring our son home.
41:02The British and Americans, they were much more depressed and there were more anxiety among them because they knew that
41:10their governments were not going to speak with these people.
41:14Joe also told me about not fair, that we are being forgotten here.
41:21We knew that people would be killed soon.
41:26They started to talk to us again, like quite happy.
41:30Three, four times a day, he stripped us for food and blankets.
41:38James was one of the main targets of the Beatles.
41:44They saw a picture of him dressed in uniform.
41:48So they were convinced that he was an army guy.
41:51He was beaten really badly by them, but he handled that.
41:56He was really, really strong, very, very strong.
42:00The victimhood, it was not his style.
42:06If somebody was beaten, James was the one who was consoling him and telling him, yeah, that's going to pass.
42:14He was the one who shared food with the rest of the people.
42:17If there are two tomatoes, James took the smallest one and gave you the bigger one.
42:22I don't remember one selfish moment from him.
42:31The evenings, they were very difficult.
42:35We would sit in completely darkness all by ourselves and our own thoughts.
42:41And that was tough and very lonely.
42:46I remember what moved me in the world was John Cantley.
42:51The way he could tell stories, like, fucking amazing.
42:57It's like you have hidden that story until the right moment.
43:01Sometimes I remember when we were almost scared and tired and hungry and beaten up.
43:08He made his lecture about riding more than a million miles on a motorbike.
43:15And we were sitting on our small motorbikes using our water bottles as the handlebar.
43:23And I remember him talking about the path only two meters wide in the Himalayas.
43:34And he's just describing, of course, the mountains or this river right next to us, like 100 meters down.
43:43All of us were sitting on a motorbike, in a line, trying to stay on the path.
43:49So that was thrilling, exciting and beautiful.
43:53And that moved me a lot.
43:56That was his own life he spoke about.
43:59His old life.
44:03I think that John knew that he had burned all his matches.
44:12That was a part of him that really, really, really regretted that he went back to Syria.
44:19It was a part of him that hated himself.
44:24He was really tough on himself.
44:29If they got their freedom again, John and James wanted to change.
44:36You know, don't go back and try to be a hero.
44:39Just go back and be humble.
44:42And I'd be happy that you have your freedom.
44:47Don't take that for granted.
44:54Jens has returned to Syria 13 months after Daniel was kidnapped.
44:59And he's about to have an encounter with the men holding Daniel, James and John.
45:07Everybody is super nervous.
45:10You get total paranoia when you are in that phase of the operation because even the smallest thing can go
45:17wrong.
45:19What would prevent them from just taking the money, taking me, knowing that there's a lonely guy sitting in the
45:27middle of nowhere with two million euros?
45:30I mean, that would be the easiest hoists ever, right?
45:34A little past eight o'clock, all of a sudden a motorcycle comes.
45:40It slows down, drives fast and stops right behind the car.
45:45There are two people both wearing black fatigues.
45:50I walked towards him with open hands.
45:53We had agreed on a code name.
45:57I had placed the money in a bag.
46:00He didn't even open it.
46:01He just weighs it.
46:03And then I said to him, we have a deal.
46:05Stretched out my hand.
46:07Then he gave me a handshake.
46:08He knew English.
46:10I mean, it could have been one of them.
46:12I don't know which of them.
46:14And then he just spun around and got on the bike.
46:17And then he disappeared across the border to the south.
46:22This transaction lasted less than two minutes and it felt like two hours.
46:28And then there was a very long waiting game.
46:39The three beetles came into the room, threw a blanket over my head, dragged me to the door.
46:45And two days later, I crossed the border and came into freedom.
46:59And there he stood, Jens, with a new pair of glasses for me.
47:07We hugged and it was very emotional.
47:10And it was difficult for him to let go.
47:13He had been looking for me for 13 months.
47:16Blaming me for destroying his sleep.
47:21This tremendous relief at that time.
47:24It was very moving.
47:26We celebrated his freedom.
47:28And the day after, we flew back home to Denmark.
47:38Now it was full of emotions.
47:41I was super, super excited, excited, excited until I saw him.
47:47And once I saw him, he was okay.
47:51Something unbelievable.
47:57I didn't want to see anyone just to be with him.
48:00It's like, I don't need anybody else.
48:11It really wasn't until after the Spanish came out, the French came out, then the Italian.
48:21Then it became clearer and clearer to me that, wait a minute, our government's not negotiating.
48:27The Europeans are.
48:29And that's why they are coming out.
48:35I was so shocked.
48:37I was so, so disappointed.
48:42People who'd taken time to meet with me had listened and then chosen not to help.
48:50And had not been truthful till the very end when it was much too late for us as citizens to
48:59raise a ransom.
49:04In June 2014, the Islamic State Group has reached its peak, seizing Mosul, Iraq's second city.
49:14It now controls the largest amount of territory ever held by an extremist organization.
49:41The Sunni militant group ISIS proclaimed its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as the leader of all Muslims.
49:55Iraq's second city, Mosul, is still emptying out as the country risks breaking apart.
50:02These are just some of the huge numbers fleeing as the Islamic militants of ISIS notch up their gains.
50:11To see Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi after killing people and bombing and cutting the heads and he's like saying, I
50:18am the Khalifa.
50:20A terrified man is led away to be killed.
50:23Are you crazy?
50:25Are you like after all this crying?
50:27This is not Islam.
50:50All of a sudden, they control a city like Mosul with, what, 2.5 million people?
50:57This is now more than a regional threat.
51:01These guys are serious. This is going to be a big, big, big problem.
51:05What was different about ISIL's state was for the first time, here was an Islamist extremist violent organization that had
51:14money, oil, weapons and effectively a country.
51:20And so we had to act as urgently as we could.
51:26Today I authorized two operations in Iraq.
51:29Targeted airstrikes to protect our American personnel and a humanitarian effort to help save thousands of Iraqi civilians.
51:36I mean, it was bound to happen that they would have massive retaliation against Islamic State.
51:43We intend to stay vigilant and take action if these terrorist forces threaten our personnel or facilities anywhere in Iraq.
51:51And I knew that environment would just make it almost impossible to conduct not only negotiations but also trying to
52:00send people in and out.
52:03Tonight we give thanks to our men and women in uniform.
52:06God bless the United States of America.
52:10By the summer of 2014, only the British and American prisoners are left.
52:17The start of the bombing had inevitable consequences for the fate and treatment of the remaining British and American hostages.
52:28In July of 2014, I was about to come back to the States when my husband told me that they'd
52:35received the email announcing that Jim was going to be killed.
52:39But the email was quite graphic.
52:41They were planning to very brutally kill Jim.
52:45If we, our family, did not stop the bombing, the terrorists were going through us for things they knew we
52:56couldn't do anything about.
52:59When it became obvious to the captors that our government was not engaging, they just made a decision.
53:07That's okay. We won't try to get money for the Americans and British. We're going to use them in a
53:13different way.
53:16The Beatles are still holding Americans, Stephen Sotloff, Peter Kasich, Kayla Muller, and James Foley.
53:26And the British, David Haynes, Alan Henning, and John Cantley.
53:33The UK and US are running out of time.
53:36And with the announcement of the Caliphate, it's time to respond.
53:42I was absolutely clear that we had to find these hostages, we had to find the people responsible, and that
53:51we had to defeat ISIL in Syria.
53:56I approached this from a soldier's mentality. There is no negotiation, we come through the fucking door, kill you all
54:02and get everyone out.
54:03That was my only belief.
54:11I had quite a lot of conversations directly with President Obama about what assets do we have to try and
54:18find out where they are.
54:19It's an incredibly difficult thing to do, but it is always right to try.
54:24There was one attempt in July 2014.
54:31Unfortunately, that had to be handed over to the Americans because we couldn't build an air bridge.
54:38And American Special Forces executed that mission.
54:44They put in incredible work to try and rescue John and James.
54:52We thought we knew where they were.
54:55The Americans put quite a large amount of people on the ground.
55:01Huge, huge resources went into trying to rescue them.
55:04People went into harm's way, bravely.
55:09But unfortunately, it all failed because they had been moved.
55:21Before I was released, the Beatles said, take a good look.
55:27And because you will be the last one to see them alive.
55:32So that was the last picture I had of James and Steven and Peter, Alan, David and John.
55:43Jim knew he wasn't coming back home.
55:51But he wanted to reach out to us.
55:57And so he sent the letter to us through Daniel.
56:04To recite that letter to us, Daniel had memorized Jim's words.
56:13The words in that letter were Jim.
56:16It was just such a gift.
56:21What he did was little anecdotes of little lines to different members of our family.
56:28To help each of us know that he remembered his last moments with us.
56:38I remembered most vividly what he said about my mom.
56:43That he was going to need her strength to reclaim his life.
56:50I think he said.
56:56It was very much Jim saying his goodbye to us.
57:12John is held in captivity and watches as all of his fellow captors are murdered.
57:20This is James' right for you.
57:24I'd encourage everyone to put themselves in John's shoes and say,
57:27what would I do to survive?
57:30Hello, my name is John Cantley.
57:33I'm going to show you the truth behind these systems and motivation of the Islamic State.
57:39He finds himself very quickly as their little media guru.
57:43Hello, I'm John Cantley.
57:45Some people said maybe he has become part of the enemy.
57:49To Mosul, it's been a while since I've ridden a motorcycle, so excuse me if I wobble around a bit.
57:55He found a way to survive and I don't want to judge him in any way.
58:02You know, who knows what any of us would do in those circumstances.
58:06There are two sides to every story.
58:20Truth to solving crimes in detail. Evidence reveals everything in forensics. The real CSI on iPlayer. Watch now. And in
58:28a new story, a prescription drug with side effects no one expected. Listen on sounds to Shadow World impulsive.
58:39From the
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