Brian4Liberty
09-02-2014, 04:48 PM
It appears that Steven Sotloff did a very foolish thing, even in the eyes of the most experienced war corespondents and operatives.
Was U.S. Journalist Steven Sotloff a Marked Man?
Just before American journalist Steven Sotloff was abducted in Syria, his fixer’s identity may have been compromised.
When pro-regime and anti-government factions started killing each other in the 8,000-year-old Syrian city of Aleppo, a little town in Turkey called Kilis blossomed into relevance at their expense. Located just four miles north of the Syrian border, Kilis became a vital crossing point in and out of a rapidly devolving war.
If you were to wander into the decrepit Hotel Istanbul in the center of Kilis last summer and sit in the lobby for a few hours, you’d trade wary glances with bomb-chasing photographers, ragged aid workers, desperate Syrian refugees, war tourists, and a couple of European Muslims looking to join what was then known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham. From the hotel’s upper floors, you could see smoke billow on the horizon from airstrikes and shelling light up the sky at night. If you entered a guest room, the pungent odor of the air freshener dangling from the grimy mirror might lead you to discover that it was, in fact, a urinal cake. A German magazine called it the “Hotel of Madness,” and at times, the place really did better resemble an asylum than professional lodging.
Steven Sotloff checked into Room 303 at the Hotel Istanbul on August 1, 2013. It was a dodgy time to be at the Turkish-Syrian border. Jihadist fighters had recently snatched several Western journalists and aid workers on the road connecting Kilis to Aleppo, and rumors were flying that Westerners might even be under surveillance in Kilis. It was said that spies on the Turkish side could be tipping off jihadis and criminal gangs on the Syrian side. Those groups were eager to get their hands on anyone who could be used for ransom or political sway.
By the time Sotloff arrived in town, the flow of journalists in and out of Aleppo had diminished to less than a trickle. Local fixers were hurting for business, especially those whose clients had been previously targeted for kidnapping attempts. Many of them started taking some of the odd jobs in town just to stay afloat.
...
This time, Steven had arrived in Kilis after dark, and planned to be in Syria the next morning. He’d only stopped in town to pick up a borrowed flak jacket, he said. His timing was cautious, and the bar was a discreet 50-foot walk from the hotel.
Security and logistics were more critical than ever, and we soon drifted onto the topic of reliable fixers. He asked about a Syrian man he planned to meet the next day, a fixer whom I’ll call X (not his real name). A fine fixer, I had heard from correspondents who knew him, but there had been a problem recently. A relevant problem.
***
A Canadian man I’ll call “Alex” (also not his real name) wanted to photograph in Syria...Alex told me he had asked journalists with Syria experience to connect him to their fixers, but none had delivered. They told him not to go to Syria, he said. Syria was never really a war for first-timers, and least of all by mid-2013.
He then asked if I knew any fixers. There was one I trusted immensely, Mahmoud, the fixer who had taken the Italian jihadist’s mother to the front lines. And since Alex intended to go into Syria despite the warnings, better that it be with someone trustworthy.
But Mahmoud declined on account of the Alex’s lack of experience. “Three months ago, fine,” Mahmoud said. “But now we’ve got the Islamic State at every checkpoint between here and Aleppo, and I’d be risking my life if he does something stupid.”
...
Up to that point, I had been patient with Alex. But now X’s life was also on the line, and he didn’t even know it. Aggressive berating fell on deaf ears.
“I already spent $1,500 to fly here,” he said decisively. “I’m going in.”
...
“He’s under a [sic] big danger if he enters Syria, some of my contacts told me that some people are getting some informations [sic] about him, about his nationality, they know where he’s staying in Kilis, and they know that he’s supposed to come with X as a fixer tomorrow in Aleppo… tell him to be careful and that he’s under danger and people are monitoring him.”
The journalist in London forwarded the warning to Alex, too, and he finally decided to go home. I breathed an enormous sigh of relief when Alex left Kilis that morning, just two hours before his 10 a.m. appointment with modern terrorism.
...
Two days after Alex left town, Steven Sotloff asked what I knew about X. Was he a good fixer? So I’d been told. Trustworthy? Apparently, yes. Safe? Unlikely, given the preceding days. I told him about what had happened with Alex.
...
On August 5, I had dinner with an Italian journalist fresh out of Aleppo. The Islamic State was closing in on the media center, she said, still trembling from a mix of adrenaline and fear. They had to leave two days early. And now the jihadis had a checkpoint within sight of the border. That wasn’t there when the journalists crossed into Syria a week ago.
...
By the following afternoon, confirmation trickled in that Sotloff and X had been kidnapped together within minutes of crossing the border on August 4. Nobody knew exactly who had them, but the recent alerts of spontaneous Islamic State checkpoints and increasingly frequent abductions made that group a likely suspect.
...
The relevant people informed Steven’s family of his disappearance, and his family ultimately decided to keep a media blackout on the case for a multitude of reasons related to strategies for negotiating his release. A few Syrian activists tweeted about his abduction last August, but online nudges got most of those early tweets taken down. Meanwhile, the international press stayed diligently silent.
That is, until Tuesday, when the Islamic State released a gruesome video that apparently showed a fighter with a British accent murdering James Foley, a well-known freelancer whose disappearance in 2012 was widely publicized. According to those who have seen the video, the Islamic State subsequently displays a man who they claim is Sotloff, threatening that he will be next if the United States continues its military operations in Iraq.
...
And now—after a year of measured silence within the international media, a year during which not one major news outlet announced “American journalist Steven Sotloff was kidnapped in Syria”—the Islamic State superseded his family’s wishes and ended the media blackout on its own terms.
...
More:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/21/was-u-s-journalist-steven-sotloff-a-marked-man.html
Was U.S. Journalist Steven Sotloff a Marked Man?
Just before American journalist Steven Sotloff was abducted in Syria, his fixer’s identity may have been compromised.
When pro-regime and anti-government factions started killing each other in the 8,000-year-old Syrian city of Aleppo, a little town in Turkey called Kilis blossomed into relevance at their expense. Located just four miles north of the Syrian border, Kilis became a vital crossing point in and out of a rapidly devolving war.
If you were to wander into the decrepit Hotel Istanbul in the center of Kilis last summer and sit in the lobby for a few hours, you’d trade wary glances with bomb-chasing photographers, ragged aid workers, desperate Syrian refugees, war tourists, and a couple of European Muslims looking to join what was then known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham. From the hotel’s upper floors, you could see smoke billow on the horizon from airstrikes and shelling light up the sky at night. If you entered a guest room, the pungent odor of the air freshener dangling from the grimy mirror might lead you to discover that it was, in fact, a urinal cake. A German magazine called it the “Hotel of Madness,” and at times, the place really did better resemble an asylum than professional lodging.
Steven Sotloff checked into Room 303 at the Hotel Istanbul on August 1, 2013. It was a dodgy time to be at the Turkish-Syrian border. Jihadist fighters had recently snatched several Western journalists and aid workers on the road connecting Kilis to Aleppo, and rumors were flying that Westerners might even be under surveillance in Kilis. It was said that spies on the Turkish side could be tipping off jihadis and criminal gangs on the Syrian side. Those groups were eager to get their hands on anyone who could be used for ransom or political sway.
By the time Sotloff arrived in town, the flow of journalists in and out of Aleppo had diminished to less than a trickle. Local fixers were hurting for business, especially those whose clients had been previously targeted for kidnapping attempts. Many of them started taking some of the odd jobs in town just to stay afloat.
...
This time, Steven had arrived in Kilis after dark, and planned to be in Syria the next morning. He’d only stopped in town to pick up a borrowed flak jacket, he said. His timing was cautious, and the bar was a discreet 50-foot walk from the hotel.
Security and logistics were more critical than ever, and we soon drifted onto the topic of reliable fixers. He asked about a Syrian man he planned to meet the next day, a fixer whom I’ll call X (not his real name). A fine fixer, I had heard from correspondents who knew him, but there had been a problem recently. A relevant problem.
***
A Canadian man I’ll call “Alex” (also not his real name) wanted to photograph in Syria...Alex told me he had asked journalists with Syria experience to connect him to their fixers, but none had delivered. They told him not to go to Syria, he said. Syria was never really a war for first-timers, and least of all by mid-2013.
He then asked if I knew any fixers. There was one I trusted immensely, Mahmoud, the fixer who had taken the Italian jihadist’s mother to the front lines. And since Alex intended to go into Syria despite the warnings, better that it be with someone trustworthy.
But Mahmoud declined on account of the Alex’s lack of experience. “Three months ago, fine,” Mahmoud said. “But now we’ve got the Islamic State at every checkpoint between here and Aleppo, and I’d be risking my life if he does something stupid.”
...
Up to that point, I had been patient with Alex. But now X’s life was also on the line, and he didn’t even know it. Aggressive berating fell on deaf ears.
“I already spent $1,500 to fly here,” he said decisively. “I’m going in.”
...
“He’s under a [sic] big danger if he enters Syria, some of my contacts told me that some people are getting some informations [sic] about him, about his nationality, they know where he’s staying in Kilis, and they know that he’s supposed to come with X as a fixer tomorrow in Aleppo… tell him to be careful and that he’s under danger and people are monitoring him.”
The journalist in London forwarded the warning to Alex, too, and he finally decided to go home. I breathed an enormous sigh of relief when Alex left Kilis that morning, just two hours before his 10 a.m. appointment with modern terrorism.
...
Two days after Alex left town, Steven Sotloff asked what I knew about X. Was he a good fixer? So I’d been told. Trustworthy? Apparently, yes. Safe? Unlikely, given the preceding days. I told him about what had happened with Alex.
...
On August 5, I had dinner with an Italian journalist fresh out of Aleppo. The Islamic State was closing in on the media center, she said, still trembling from a mix of adrenaline and fear. They had to leave two days early. And now the jihadis had a checkpoint within sight of the border. That wasn’t there when the journalists crossed into Syria a week ago.
...
By the following afternoon, confirmation trickled in that Sotloff and X had been kidnapped together within minutes of crossing the border on August 4. Nobody knew exactly who had them, but the recent alerts of spontaneous Islamic State checkpoints and increasingly frequent abductions made that group a likely suspect.
...
The relevant people informed Steven’s family of his disappearance, and his family ultimately decided to keep a media blackout on the case for a multitude of reasons related to strategies for negotiating his release. A few Syrian activists tweeted about his abduction last August, but online nudges got most of those early tweets taken down. Meanwhile, the international press stayed diligently silent.
That is, until Tuesday, when the Islamic State released a gruesome video that apparently showed a fighter with a British accent murdering James Foley, a well-known freelancer whose disappearance in 2012 was widely publicized. According to those who have seen the video, the Islamic State subsequently displays a man who they claim is Sotloff, threatening that he will be next if the United States continues its military operations in Iraq.
...
And now—after a year of measured silence within the international media, a year during which not one major news outlet announced “American journalist Steven Sotloff was kidnapped in Syria”—the Islamic State superseded his family’s wishes and ended the media blackout on its own terms.
...
More:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/21/was-u-s-journalist-steven-sotloff-a-marked-man.html