The Suited Caliph (of al-Sham) – Part Two

Sheri Laizer | iKurd.net

Ahmed al-Sharaa gave an interview to PBS in February 2021. This followed up on his much earlier one with Al Jazeera of December 19, 2013, its footage running to just over three minutes.1 There, al-Sharaa had been seated with his back to the camera. The footage showed al-Nusra’s fighters in action, some wearing black tunics with black vests comparable to the footage of Austin Tice – but this was winter. There was no white. 2

Since December 8, 2024, al-Sharaa has become renowned as the jihadi victor of the Syrian war. Three years before, PBS had asked him directly about Theo Padnos:

Q. Those who have been in your jails, certainly under al-Nusra, in the past, speak of brutal treatment and torture. One, for instance, is Theo Padnos, an American who speaks of torture in an al-Nusra prison. Can you respond to that and say why it was that he was treated the way he was?

A. Who is Theo? I don’t know who he is.

Q. Theo Padnos is an American who was taken prisoner. He says that your lieutenant, a man you know well, Abu Maria al-Qahtani, has apologized for his treatment. I’m surprised if you do not know the case.

A. We never had American prisoners, in the first place, not during the Nusra time or even now. This is the first time I hear about it.

There was an era when al-Nusra split from IS, and that was during the caliphate era, when many wrongdoings happened. But that was never part of our policy. Some fighters who defected from al-Nusra might have committed acts that were outside al-Nusra law, so to speak. Or they probably were members of ISIS who did bad things in the name of al-Nusra.

But we never arrested or detained anyone. That has never happened. 3

Notable here is that Theo’s detention began in October 2012 before the split with ISIS and extended through and beyond this divergence of the ways to the peak of ISIS taking control of eastern Syria and northern Iraq including its capital, Mosul in June 2014. 4

Indeed, Theo had been held and tortured by al-Sharaa’s men throughout this two year stretch, from October 2012-August 24, 2014. This involved a ‘welcoming’ beating or extensive torture session every time he was moved to a new place of detention always tightly blindfolded and handcuffed.

In various makeshift cells in Aleppo, including in the basement of the defunct eye hospital, he and fellow prisoners were deprived of access to light, of exercise, of fresh air, of any view or contact with the exterior world, without windows or windows blocked off, denied an adequate diet and exposed to constant beating, torture and death threats.

The prisoners who Theo Padnos encountered included Alawites, government military officers, general suspects and other foreigners including Americans but not Austin Tice. All detainees were deprived of the right to a fair trial, no defence they made was seriously listened to whether in al-Nusra or FSA kangaroo courts.

Thereafter, condemned on no clear grounds aside from imputed political opinion, foreign nationality or despised sect, prisoners were treated to constant abuse including being made to run a gauntlet of beating, and spitting by sadistic abusers, among them many Turks and ‘cubs’ (pre-teen jihadis) when en route to the toilet. Collaboration with Islamist factions in the FSA was routine.

Torture methods included being chained in leg irons, hands manacled in tight handcuffs fixed in front of ,or behind, the body, being transported in the closed boots of cars, lain on the flatback of trucks in handcuffs without any form of support among the booted feet of the captors, the experience of a fellow prisoner being transported inside a diesel tanker not fully pumped clean of diesel, beating inside tyres with handcuffs fixed behind the back with the soles of the feet beaten, falaka, (Turkish style); suspension in Palestinian hanging variants, left wearing the same clothing week after week crawling with lice as were the blankets, neglected unwashed, ungroomed, pulled by the hair, reviled by various names such as ‘animal’, ‘filth’ ‘CIA’, ‘dog’ and in Arabic ‘oohlak’ etc. 5

Ongoing ill treatment included having the head shaven, force feeding, deprivation of water during transportation, being made to crawl between the legs of captors beating prisoners with cables, sticks, and kicked in the ribs, in the head, in the legs, walked on, stamped on by booted feet, given electric shocks from car batteries, left to listen to the screams of cellmates when taken to torture rooms, left alone or in solitary after cellmates were singled out for execution after they failed to return and so forth.

Mock executions included being buried alive in a hole with dirt dropped over his face and body before being brought back out while the captors mocked and laughed. All this came on top of having never been able to contact a family member to say what had happened or where they were held, let alone seeing a lawyer or making contact with any Embassy personnel. Pens and paper, books to read and all forms of mental diversification were also denied.

Ahmed al-Sharaa – the Great Dissembler

In the Prologue to his book where these experiences stack up, Blindfold: A Memoir of Capture, Torture, and Enlightenment Theo recalled:

“There were times when they led me from the cell in my blindfold, brought me to the room at the end of the corridor, then had me lie face-first, in my blindfold, on a cement floor. They locked down my hands and feet into a medieval device – an iron cloverleaf sort of thing I felt but never quite saw – behind my back. When they had me lying on the floor with my feet and my hands locked in the air in iron hoops – I rocked on my stomach like a bloody sort of hobbyhorse – they ripped off my blindfold. They seized my hair by the roots. They thrust their faces into mine. “We want you to see us” an interrogator told me in one such moment. He introduced himself. He introduced his friends. “We are from the al Qaeda organisation,” he said…

* *. *

No, there were never any Americans in the Al Qaeda Syrian franchise’s rabid holes of detention!

Some prisoners that were sent off with ISIS after the Al Qaeda saplings fell out among themselves would never return. Theo dedicated his book to these lost ones: to James (Jim) Foley, Peter Kassig, Steven Sotloff, and Kayla Mueller. “I wish you were here to tell your stories,” he lamented.

In consequence, expecting the Caliph of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, to tell the truth about what overtook Austin Tice is probably expecting too much. Al Sharaa ‘s world is not based on the same values.

Related posts:

Hostages to Jihad – Austin Tice, The Long Missing American in Syria – Part One Why CNN’s latest claims on Austin Tice’s death are unreliable Syria: The Hijacking of the Arab Spring: From ISIS to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham Sabotaging Syria Syria: Revisiting The Caesar Torture Victim Photographs Syria: A ‘Caliphate’ by Any Other Name — Would Smell the Same Stealing Syria Business with ISIS – Updated Syria: The Triumph of Terrorism Syria: The Truth Lies Buried beneath an Edifice of Lies