Hostage-Taking Central to Islamic State Strategy in Syria


The Sunni militant group calling itself the Islamic State is holding as many as 1,000 Syrians, and possible as many as 20 foreigners, in detention centers they control, say Syrian opposition activists involved in mediation efforts to release captives.

The Islamic State, in its early days a reincarnation of al Qaeda in Iraq, has expanded its ranks and ambitions in the chaos of the Syrian civil war over the past two years, rounding up rivals, secular activists and others. Last year, it expanded its sights to foreign aid workers and journalists.

The new spotlight on the group following the beheading of James Foley is revealing the extent to which their hostage-taking and killings have become central to their strategy.

It isn't clear how many foreigners are being detained. But based on sightings in Syria and information passed between detainees and their families, the activists estimate between a dozen and 20, opposition activists and negotiators say.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists estimates that about 20 journalists, Syrian and foreign, are still missing in Syria. "Many of them are believed to be held by Islamic State," the organizations says.

A handful of European journalists have been held by the group and then released after large ransom payments have been made, according to people familiar with the cases. Little has been publicly revealed about these incidents.

Islamic State earlier this year changed its name. That followed its 2013 rebranding as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham. At that time, it quickly became a magnet for thousands of foreign jihadists as Western concerns focused on another al Qaeda-linked group, Jabhat al-Nusra.

Al Nusra remained focused on fighting Syrian government forces, while Islamic State, in its incarnation as ISIS, turned against the mainstream Syrian rebels they had purportedly joined the battlefield to fight with.

Initially, ISIS would sweep in relatively peacefully to the local communities that came under their command, set up administrative offices, begin to levy taxes, and then slowly institute harsh interpretations of Islamic law.

It was only a couple of months before the militant group's first public executions, captured in video that is significantly less sophisticated than those of recent weeks, began at a main roundabout in Raqqa, their stronghold along the Euphrates river, where militants would gun down captured Syrian army soldiers.

They also jailed rivals, activists, and women who defied their religious codes. Accounts began to emerge of ISIS detention centers that, in an irony for Syrians, mirrored the regime jails many of those rounded up by the jihadists had themselves already experienced.

The group at first appeared focused on exerting its power across its new strongholds in Syria, and eliminating competition among rebels or opposition to its rule. That strategy started to shift in July 2013 after its capture of an Italian Jesuit priest in Syria who had traveled to Raqqa to mediate with the jihadists, according to Western diplomats in the region and Syrians involved in mediating the release of detainees.

Father Paolo Dall'Oglio, who had lived for three decades in a Syrian monastery, made a statement shortly after his capture saying he was just a guest of the extremists, but he later disappeared. It is not known what happened to him.

Some Syrian activists claim the militant group killed him, after leveraging the Italian government for a ransom payment. It isn't clear what happened with the negotiations.

The IS group is increasingly targeting the large community of foreign aid workers, foreign journalists and even Syrians working with foreign-funded aid or reconstruction projects in northern Syria. Every town under its control now has a prison, often set up before any other administrative building, Syrian rebels and former residents said. The main Islamic State prison complex is believed to be in Raqqa, where detainees are transferred from across the north.

"They have a number of journalists and they consider them, let's say, six bullets in a gun that they have to use wisely," said Rami Jarrah, a Syrian activist involved in mediation efforts to release several friends held by the group.

He believes the militants have been emboldened by "all the attention they were getting and the impact it was having." Foreign journalists became so valuable, he said, that Islamic State militants made it known across their areas that "they wanted any foreign journalist, and that they would pay for them."

Mr. Jarrah and other Syrian activists say that, for a while, information on the movements and conditions of those in ISIS jails was made available by members of Jabhat al-Nusra, who at the time retained links with both ISIS and the mainstream rebel movement, and acted as mediators. But those links broke down as the two al Qaeda affiliates sparred, leaving hundreds of families without the interlocutors they once had.

Most Syrian families, like those of missing foreigners, remain quiet about the kidnappings because they are told "if you say anything, we will kill your son," Mr. Jarrah said, recounting a message relayed to the family of one of his detained friends, a Syrian media activist.

Now, he said he believes the group was acting out of fear over U.S. airstrikes. "They sense the danger strategically of being attacked in Iraq and pushed back into Syria," Mr. Jarrah said. "They wanted to deliver a message, not a small one, a very big one, directly to the American president."

Write to Nour Malas atnour.malas@wsj.com

Source http://india.wsj.com/articles/hostage-taking-central-to-islamic-state-strategy-in-syria-1408711183?mobile=y

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