What Life Was Like For An American Who Was A Prisoner In A Syrian Rebel Camp

“They were so nonchalant. They didn’t point a gun at me, and moved me very gently.” Matthew Schrier described his abduction in Aleppo on Dec. 31 by fighters with the Nusra Front, which is aligned with Al Qaeda. Matt Roth for The New York Times

American Tells of Odyssey as Prisoner of Syrian Rebels -- New York Times

Matthew Schrier was helpless. An American photographer held in a rebel-controlled prison in the Syrian city of Aleppo, he and a fellow prisoner had been caught trying to gouge a hole in their cell’s wooden door. The captors took his cellmate, he said, beat him, and brought him back with blood-streaked ankles and feet.

Now was Mr. Schrier’s turn.

Wearing masks, his jailers led him out, sat him down and forced a car tire over his knees. They slid a wooden rod behind his legs, locking the tire in place. Then they rolled him over. Mr. Schrier was face down on a basement floor, he said, legs immobilized, bare feet facing up.

“Give him 115,” one of his captors said in English, as they began whipping his feet with a metal cable.

When the torture ended Mr. Schrier could not walk. His captors, he said, dragged him to his cell. He remembers their parting phrase: “Have you heard of Guantánamo Bay?”

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My Comment: This American was very lucky .... especially since Al Qaeda in Syria has already warned Western aid workers: We’ll kill you.