Pod Save the World - Devastation in Syria and Yemen

Episode Date: August 8, 2018

Tommy talks with VICE on HBO correspondent Isobel Yeung about her recent reporting trips to Raqqa, Syria and Yemen. Isobel talks about what it was like to interview two of ISIS's most brutal foreign fighters and to witness heroic efforts by average citizens to rebuild the city and find loved ones taken by ISIS.

Welcome back to Pod Save the World. This is Tommy Vitor. I am back from All Things Wedding. Excited to be back talking with you guys and recording an episode of Pod Save the World. And what an episode it was, I talked to Isabel Young, who is an Emmy-nominated correspondent for Vice News. She is incredibly impressive. She's reported from locations like Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, the Philippines. She just got back from trips to Yemen and to Syria, specifically Raqa, which was recently liberated by coalition forces, but the rebuilding process has not even started. So we talked about her trips to those areas, what it was like being on the ground, what it was like to interview two of the most notorious evil ISIS members who have been arrested by coalition forces. And then we talked about Yemen, which is unfortunately a desperate, desperate situation that is, not getting enough attention increasingly, not reported on or focused on by the U.S.

So I have enormous respect for the work she does. I'm grateful to reporters like Isabel for helping us understand what's happening in situations where there is no government infrastructure on the ground, either local or really even U.S. presidents that can help us understand what is happening and what we can do to push the U.S. to respond to it better over here. So here's the interview. Isabel, thank you so much for doing the show today. You just got back from Yemen. You've also traveled to Raqa, some very challenging places. I want to start with your trip to Syria. What's it like on the ground in Raqa right now? And what did you learn during your time there about life living under ISIS's rule? Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Tommy. Yeah, so Raqa itself, I mean, is completely devastated. I mean, I think that a lot of us have seen those drone images going over. the city. I think about 80% of the city is destroyed right now. And despite that, I mean,

it's been nine months or so since the city itself was liberated. And so there are thousands of people, tens of thousands of people moving back into the city. And people are kind of starting to pick up their lives again. But it is in, you know, sort of the remnants of what is left. And there was a real struggle to get enough international aid. People are really struggling to pick up their lives. And it's not just obviously the physical destruction, but also tormented by kind of the ghosts of what was left behind from ISIS. One of the things we're reporting on is the many, many families that we spoke to who are looking for missing members of their families or relatives.

And sadly, they're still looking for them, those who are taken by ISIS and or who were killed in the airstrikes and the battle itself. So it's a really desperate situation and it's an incredibly underreported and fascinating place to be. Yeah, I agree. I mean, about some of those people heading back into the city and struggling to clean up average citizens, you start the piece talking to a man who is demining a house. He is in street clothes. He's wearing open-toed sandals. It seems like he's basically working with kind of a jury-rigged headlamp and maybe an iPhone for light. And then he has a wooden stick to search for wires and explosives. Why is this in the piece Anonymous Citizen the one demining a house? Yeah, I mean, firstly I would say that this guy who did at the time ask to be anonymous and we did hide his identity has sadly since passed away just a couple of weeks later. Oh, God. I received photos of his body, sadly, as he was diffusing a mine exploded in his hands.

He is a guy that we met, a volunteer who goes around who, along with many thousands of other residents in Raka, feels like there is not the international aid and support that they need in order to. clear the still hundreds of landmines that have been left by ISIS in homes on the street, in the mass graves even, all around the city in public spaces as well. And so it's kind of down to some of the residents like him. And I've spoken to his wife and his family since then, and I'm sure they wouldn't mind me saying his name, which is Abadi al-Shokhan. And yeah, I mean, he was kind of a hero because they desperately needed people to be clearing homes so that they can attempt to move back in and pick up their lives. And that is kind of the sad state of affairs in Racker at the moment. God. Yeah, I mean, he is a hero. Yeah. But it's heartbreak. I mean,

you're talking to him and I could barely watch him do his work. I mean, you were talking to him about how even your palms were sweating in the stifling heat, watching him, knowing he was inside. But then you asked him how he felt, and his answer was so heartbreaking. He said, I didn't feel anything. My heart is dead because of everything I've seen. Children carrying corpses and seeing dead people. It kills me inside. I mean, Again, he is a hero, but like you said before, 80% of the city is uninhabitable. He's basically doing the work that the government should be doing, the international community should be doing and yet felt totally hopeless and was killed because that work is so dangerous.

I mean, is there any sense of who is going to fix the city and help with this cleanup process? Is there any help coming from the international community? I mean, that is obviously the question on everyone's minds. I mean, I can't say that we didn't see any international support. I mean, there were various NGOs who were. attempting to do something. It's just that, I mean, the pure scale of devastation there is shocking and there's just so much to clear up. And so even though, I mean, we were there towards the end of May, which was seven months after it was liberated, there was still

people coming into the hospitals on a daily basis with either injuries or sadly fatalities as well. And so there is just, it seems overwhelming. I mean, the US did put a freeze on some of the funding that was actually going into clearing those areas for a brief period of time. I don't think it's really helped that the US has kind of been flip-flopping on their policies in Syria. But there is some international aid coming into there. It's just been incredibly limited, unfortunately. For RACA residents, obviously, they just don't feel like they have the time to wait for that aid to come in and they don't really have anywhere else to go. You mentioned at the beginning that you talked with a bunch of families who were searching for

loved ones. You join a mother on this desperate search for any information about her missing son. At one point, she was literally going room to room reading notes on the walls that were scribbled by former ISIS prisoners who were, you know, she was searching for any sign or any message from her son. I mean, it is truly heartbreaking. And, but it's also, I think, notable that her frustration and her anger and frustration and anger from people whose homes were destroyed isn't just at ISIS. You heard widespread anger at the international coalition for what they believe were indiscriminate air strikes. Can you talk about some of the people you met who were searching for loved ones and others who were not happy and in fact were very angry about how the operation, the coalition

operation, was conducted? Yeah, I mean that was one of the most striking things that we were hearing on the ground, which is that so many of the people that we spoke. to were looking for missing family members and there really seemed to be very, very little help for them to do so. I mean, part of our documentary was following Monet is the lady's name as she was searching for her son who'd gone missing a year and five days before we actually met her, who was taken by ISIS on suspicion of collaborating with the coalition. And her search is sort of typical, unfortunately, of so many Rackan residents as they sort of go door to door desperately seeking any kind of help. I mean, the Raka Civilian Council has been set up,

which is sort of an ally of the Syrian Democratic forces, which is kind of ruling that area of northern Syria right now. But there's just, I mean, they're overwhelmed. They have very little funding. It's an incredibly isolated part of Syria within Syria itself. And so there's just not really the resources there for them. So a lot of our piece was actually trying to document how people like moni can even go about that search. And we went to one of the mass graves. I mean, there was at least nine mass graves and they were uncovering one as we were there. And there are hundreds and hundreds of bodies being dug up.

And within that, there just aren't the international forensic tools that you need to really identify those bodies and to really know what happened. I mean, they're literally just kind of strolling down physical traits and the sex of someone to try and help people identify their missing loved ones. So it's so, so basic. And obviously that, along with the pure scale of destruction and the level of devastation that the airstrikes themselves caused, which was led by the US coalition,

is really concerning because a lot of the frustration and anger on the ground was coming from that rather than from, yes, the pure hell that ISIS put these residents through during the years that they were ruling Racker. So it was really devastating to see both the anger and frustration towards ISIS and what they did to the city as well as towards the coalition and the devastation that was left behind. It was hard to watch this woman moaning. I mean, she's searching for her son Muhammad and she goes to all these places

and even to a police station to talk with this top military commander. And this guy just, he had no empathy. there was no, his response was essentially, there's no hope for your son. It just, you know, it breaks your heart watching this woman go through this process that I'm sure thousands and thousands of other moms and brothers and sisters are going through in Raqa right now to try to find loved ones. Yeah, you know what? I actually spoke to that commander, like right after he spoke to Moni and informed her that, you know, most likely your son is dead, which is not an easy thing to tell anyone. Right. And it did seem like he had no empathy.

at all and I asked him, you know, how can you say this with so much bluntness and how can you say this so directly to a woman? And he said, look, I have hundreds and hundreds of women coming to me and asking me where their sons are. I have hundreds of other people coming to me asking where their mothers are or where any of their family members are. And I just don't know. But what I do know is that I saw the level of devastation that ISIS was committing. And I saw that they were just beheading and slaughtering hundreds and hundreds of people, especially in those last weeks of ISIS rule in Raka. And I'd prefer not to provide a glimmer of false hope for this woman. I'd prefer to tell her as it is. And obviously that was completely heart-wrenching.

Yeah, heart-wrenching. But I also imagine that, you know, what he is seen is probably could break you inside too. So I should have empathy for him as well. Yeah. I mean, that was kind of one of the recurring themes, the same as the D minor that we met, is that people have been hardened and they've seen so much. And he himself said that he lost a niece who was taken by ISIS and he doesn't know where she is. And so what seems to us as complete lack of empathy and complete hard line here is just sort of having lived through this for the last few years is sort of unimaginable. Yeah, truly unimaginable. One of the most chilling parts of the piece you did for Vice on this trip to Raqa was you talked to two former ISIS members who were half of a four-person group

that was known as the Beatles. They got that nickname from the hostages they kept because of their British accents, but they were notorious for their cruelty. They used tasers. They did mock executions, waterboarding, and were responsible for public, gruesome beheadings. We're going to tee up a clip from that conversation. Do you have any regrets over the level of executions, torturing beheadings that took place there? The Islamic State Police Force or the judicial system is not exactly the most transparent in terms of

what happens to the person after arrest. And do you denounce that now? Denounce what? God's law. Do you denounce the fact that there were countless executions and beheadings taking place under the Islamic State? I support Islamic law fully. Anything from God's law, I support it 100%.

What I experienced then, Islamic State wasn't what is widely broadcasted in Western media. I shared good moments and I met some of the best people that I might ever meet while I was there. Can you talk about what it was like sitting across from those individuals and what you learned from that conversation about ISIS? It was a pretty chilling experience.

One of the things we didn't show was the hour or so of negotiations that went back and forth before we actually were able to convince these guys to talk to us on camera. And during that time, they sort of complained about their conditions. They talked about the fleas in their cell. They made sort of lewd jokes about Trump, about the royal family, about all manner of things that they missed in the UK. They refused to look at myself and my female producer and talk to my male cameraman, even though it was me asking the questions. It was a very awkward encounter, which they clearly felt very uncomfortable with. And when they did agree to actually talk, they suddenly became extremely difficult.

offensive. When I asked them about any kind of accountability, they were absolutely unwilling to do that. They also struck me as very calculated. These guys are smart. I mean, they seem like they know their legal standing. They know how to sort of play this game. They know that it's going to be very difficult to bring them to a criminal court and to prosecute them successfully and given the controversy around them and given that it's so difficult to actually collect evidence, given that so much of it has been lost in all this destruction around them to find witnesses who are still alive, who are able to attest to some of the atrocities that they are likely to have committed. And they came across as frankly pretty arrogant and cocky when it came down to it.

Who would charge them? Would they have to be brought to the UK or the US? How would that work, do you think? Yeah, well, that's up for a debate right now. I mean, essentially they're under the control of the SDF right now, which sort of controls that region and the SDF is allies with the US. So essentially it sort of comes down to the US to decide what happens to them. It's interesting because at the moment the UK government has said that they may well extradite them to the US, but they haven't issued any assurances that the pair

wouldn't receive any death penalties if they are tried in the US, which is interesting not only because the US journalist James Foley's mother has said that she does not want them to be held up as martyrs if they were to receive the death penalty because these guys are actually playing a pretty clever game. El Shafi El Sheikh, who is one of the Beatles. His mother spoke out and said that, you know, this isn't fair and then this sort of caused a bit of a pause in the trial and that the UK government is no longer able to share information with the US government.

So it's a whole debacle and it's interesting to see how that plays out. It's also very ironic that these guys are actually using democracy to their advantage in a way to actually say, you know, we can't be tried for this and this and this. They're playing a very clever game. Yeah. It's hard to watch them. It's hard to watch them because you don't get any sense that there's remorse or rehabilitation as possible.

No. I mean, they're sitting there in their comfortable clothes. And it was one of the most actually comfortable interviews I did whilst I was there in physical terms. And that they were on a nice sofa inside an air-conditioned room. Whilst, you know, most of the other interviews that took place for the couple of weeks that we were out there were, amongst ruins they very may well have been responsible for. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there are thousands of ISIS fighters now being detained in Syria.

If their perspective and lack of remorse is representative, even a small sample of the rest of them who are in prison, I mean, what happens to these fighters? Do you think they'll be tried? Is there a sense of tried by whom? Right, yeah. It's interesting. There are hundreds of foreign fighters, often European, who are still kind of in SDF custody in various prisons around northern Syria. And they're in an interesting position. I mean,

not just geographically, but I mean, you can see that they are sort of surrounded by enemies on nearly all sides. And so there's a concern for how they get tried, who they get tried by, and sort of each country is playing that game a little bit differently. And the SDF, when we spoke to the officials there, they were concerned that they're kind of going to get lumped with hundreds of these guys and they don't really know what to do with them. It's also concerns that if something doesn't happen relatively soon or if there aren't moves for something to happen that the security of the region is somewhat tentative and those prisons themselves are vulnerable. So, yeah, there's a great deal of pressure and incentive for the US, which is the SDF's biggest ally to

sort of rectify that situation pretty sharpish. Yeah, boy, we got to get our act together on that front. Switching gears a minute to Yemen, the other, you know, beautiful vacation destination hot spot you were traveled to recently. Yeah, I'm having a good summer. Yeah, you only go to the fun places. Civil War has been raging in Yemen since 2014 and 2015. The U.S. has been fully supporting a Saudi-led coalition that has decimated the country with airstrikes. They've led to massive civilian casualties. Recently, that coalition is blocking access to a critical port, which is exacerbating the famine, which puts at risk an estimated 8 billion people they could starve. Why did you go?

What did you see and how desperate is a situation? Yeah, so I've been twice actually in the last couple of months. It is a pretty desperate situation, as you said. It's now entered its fourth year of a very brutal and bloody civil war that we don't really hear that much about compared to some of the other conflicts going on in the world. There's over 10,000 people who have died in the last few years as a direct result of the conflict. millions and millions of people are facing famine and it is likely to get a lot worse

which is kind of the reason it was interesting for us to go at this time the battle for Hidah is where 70% of the goods come into the country and that includes a lot of aid and basic goods and so what happens in that port city could very well determine what happens in the civil war

which is interesting given that it's kind of been those front lines have been pretty stagnant for the last three years or so. Yeah. You also reported on how the country's civil wars affecting women specifically. Why was Yemen an important place for you to look into the relations between conflict and gender inequality? I guess I mean, Yemen itself has been largely sidelined as a conflict. And one of the things that we hear even less about is what's happening to women.

And the more I researched into it, the more I found out that women are suffering disproportionately. And there's about 14 million Yemeni women who are extremely vulnerable to abuse and exploitation that they weren't necessarily vulnerable to before. I mean, Yemen is frequently rated the worst place in the world to be a woman. But at the same time, since the outbreak of civil war in March 2015, things have just got considerably worse. And we just never really see that story told through the eyes of women. And I really wanted to tell a story that wasn't solely depression and starvation, etc.

But I also wanted to show how it's often the women who are holding society together, also how they're kind of stepping up and taking hold of society and really pushing for change in areas that they hadn't been before. So I wanted to kind of tell a positive story about how women were actually running the country to a large extent. You did another interesting piece on migration. I mean, despite how bad things are in Yemen, there's also a migration crisis. Somalis, Ethiopians, eritrans, are going to Yemen, or at least through Yemen, en route to wealthy Gulf Arab countries in search of work. How is a country where the government is just completely broken down dealing with this influx of people coming across their border?

They're not, basically. I mean, as you said, Yemen is completely broken. and there's really no governance at all. And so with, I think it's about 87,000 or so migrants arriving on the shores of Yemen every year, they arrive in a hostile environment where conflict has been the only rule of law for the last few years. And they're not really doing a great job at it, quite frankly. They've set up various detention centres. And the thing that we explored in that particular report that you mentioned is the various abuses that take place at those.

detention centers and we uncovered corruption there. We had stories of human trafficking, of fatalities, of huge mistreatment of these migrants who really have even fewer rights than the countries that they're fleeing from. Well, the good news is you got some results. You got the crony in charge of this particularly egregiously bad detention facility fired. So that seemed like some progress in a desperate situation. Yeah, not going to lie, that felt kind of good. I bet. Yeah, by the end of it, you had his boss calling him a bad person and, you know, it was nice. It was like, all right. Yeah. Accountability. Yeah, he was fired immediately. There was

a warrant release for his arrest a few days after the release of our report. And then there was a UN investigation launched into him and the situation in terms of like the migration crisis in Yemen, which is, as I said, very desperate. Yeah, good. Fuck that guy. My last question for you. The challenge in Yemen is it has become this battleground for an ongoing proxy war between a U.S.-backed Arab coalition and Houthi rebels in Yemen who are aligned with Iran. Is anything being gained by this fighting? Does anyone articulate it an end goal to you that makes sense? Or is this just ongoing madness? Yeah, it's a good question.

Sadly, it just seems like ongoing madness. I mean, it's been going on for, yeah, over three years now. That doesn't really seem like any tangible end in sight. I mean, this battle for Hededa, if it happens, will be extremely bloody and could potentially mean the outbreak of an even greater humanitarian crisis in a place that's already considered the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. It's not immediately obvious who wins from this. I mean, a lot of the enemies we spoke to felt like this war was going on over.

their heads and that this was a proxy battle between outside players, including Iran, including the UAE, including Saudi. And they felt like they didn't really have a say in it. And they were just sort of watching their country crumbling to pieces. My real last question. I mean, you know, you have a camera person watching a demining operation. You're standing around in Raqa, one of the most dangerous places on the planet. You're in Yemen. Do you feel safe on these reporting trips? What is it like being in these countries that the rest of us are reading about for the end of periods of time? I mean, despite the dangers at times, it is a real privilege to be able to go to these places that not many people do get to go to. I always learn something about the incredible resilience of humans when I go to places like Rakhom, places like Yemen, and get an incredible sense of perspective from people who, I mean, I can't imagine the women who we interviewed in Syria.

we were standing in her son's home that was completely destroyed that was struck by mortars and an airstrike, I believe. And she just had no remnants of a home. She was standing. There's a very strong stench of dead bodies all around us. And I asked her, you know, what kind of home would this be for your son to return to if you ever do find him? And she said, it doesn't really matter because all that really matters is having family, having people that you love around you. and none of the materialistic things really count for anything. So, I mean, when you hear stories like that,

it does really give you such an incredible sense of perspective and shakes you up for a little bit and reminds you that it doesn't really matter whether my salad is the right amount of dressing on it or not. Yeah, well, thank you for the amazing reporting. Thank you for talking with me, definitely. Everyone should check out your work on Vice. A lot of it is on the HBO show,

but people can also find your work on YouTube and other places because you're right. It is places and people that don't always get their stories told, but it's very important. So thank you for doing it. Thank you so much. Thanks again for listening to POTS Save the World. If you enjoyed this show, don't forget to rate and review us in the iTunes store and check out Isabelle's work for Vice. You can see it on YouTube. You can check it out on HBO.

It's very much worth your time. So thanks again.