Elizabeth A. Kennedy
Associated Press via KOMO News
12/18/2012
This image taken from undated amateur video posted on the Internet shows NBC chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel, center, with NBC Turkey reporter Aziz Akyavas, left, and NBC photographer John Kooistra, right, after they were taken hostage in Syria. (AP Photo/Amateur Video)
BEIRUT (AP) – NBC’s chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel said he and his television crew were kidnapped for five days by pro-regime gunmen who subjected them to mock executions and kept them bound and blindfolded. They escaped during a firefight between their captors and rebels and reached Turkey on Tuesday.
However, it was not immediately clear whether all those abducted with Engel were accounted for.
Speaking to NBC’s “Today” show one day after the escape, an unshaven Engel said the kidnappers executed at least one of his rebel escorts on the spot at the time he was captured. He also said he believes the kidnappers were a Shiite militia group loyal to the Syrian government, which is fighting a deadly civil war against rebels.
“They kept us blindfolded, bound,” said 39-year-old Engel, who speaks and reads Arabic. “We weren’t physically beaten or tortured. A lot of psychological torture, threats of being killed. They made us choose which one of us would be shot first and when we refused, there were mock shootings,” he added.
“They were talking openly about their loyalty to the government,” Engel said. He said the captors were trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and allied with Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militant group…
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