Part 5 • Mujahideen movies

(Page 3 of 4)

(J.C.) At the beginning of my ordeal, I had hoped my kidnappers were amateurs who wouldn't really know what to do with me and would start to get very nervous after a few days. Then they'd let me go.

	ZARQAWI: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi spoke in a rare video of him posted on the Web on April 25, 2006. REUTERS

I knew they were Iraqis, which was good. It was the foreign-born insurgents - such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who beheaded hostages.

They seemed a small group, and they told me they had come together and forged their identity fighting the US military for control of the restive city of Fallujah in a Sunni- dominated area west of Baghdad.

But after about a week in captivity - about the time of the showing of the jihadi videos - it became increasingly clear to me that they were the real deal.

During the precious few hours when the electricity worked, they would sometimes plug in a cassette player, and an angry voice would blare in classical Arabic from the room across the hall, where the guards slept.

I usually only understood a few words, like "America," "Israel," and "occupation," but the point was clear.

"Do you know who that is?" one of the guards asked me at one point. "That is Sheikh Abu Musab. Is he a good man? What is your opinion of Zarqawi?"

I dodged the question. But inside, I felt the fear welling up. These were Zarqawi people! I was an American. I thought again, there was no way I was getting out of this alive.

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