The Jordan Harbinger Show - 217: Matthew Schrier | How to Survive in a Secret Syrian Terrorist Prison

Episode Date: June 27, 2019

Matt Schrier is an American photographer who survived seven months as an Al-Qaeda captive in Syria before escaping, and the author of The Dawn Prayer: A Memoir. What We Discuss with Matt Schrier: How Matt Schrier was captured by Al-Qaeda just 45 minutes away from the border on his way out of Syria in 2012. How making his captors laugh on day one of his captivity got him special treatment from a usually unforgiving crowd. What Matt did to survive and plan an escape in spite of an unhelpful, self-sabotaging cellmate. Why Matthew feels betrayed by the FBI and the US government for putting intelligence gathering over the safety of Americans imprisoned by terrorists. Why, even after becoming the first American to escape from Al-Qaeda and his feelings of betrayal from his own government, he has no regrets about going to Syria in the first place. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://jordanharbinger.com/217 Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! Why do people keep resisting new things? That's the question the Pessimists Archive podcast tries to answer. Each episode travels back in time to the moment a new technology or innovation was introduced and explores why everyone was freaking out about it. Give Pessimists Archive a listen here! Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with my producer, Jason DeFilippo. Today's guest went to Syria to cover the war and ended up getting kidnapped by Al-Qaeda. I know. We went right into this one here today. No point in bearing the lead, am I right? We'll hear this incredible story, how he survived and eventually escaped. Of course, we'll also learn what it took to survive in a Syrian terrorist prison and the skills it took to generate the opportunity to escape. This is a really interesting story-based episode. I just thought this guy really went through it, especially a Jewish kid from Long Island or whatever. It's just, you don't really expect that kind of guy to come out swinging, you know?

So I really enjoyed this episode here with Matthew Shrier. I found him through my network, as always. Six-minute networking is how I teach people how to do that. Go to Jordan Harbinger.com slash course, teach you how to make connections and maintain them and get amazing people in your life. It doesn't matter if you have a podcast, doesn't matter if you have a business. This stuff works for personal and professional reasons.

Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. All right. Enjoy. Explain the situation. So why did you go to Syria? Because, of course, people at first are going to go, well, you know, you're an idiot. You went to Syria.

What's your problem? What do you, one of those? You were asking for it. But, you know, you had a reason to be there. Well, I think the only reason why somebody would, you know, be able to say that and have any validity in saying that is if I didn't agree. with them. But you know what I mean? I can say like, yeah, no, I don't deserve anyone's pity. I went

over there on my own volition. And I went over there to photograph the war. It was my second time there. I was there a month before photographing the refugees. I was in southern Turkey. I went into across the border into Syria for the first time, into Azaz. And I was in Northern Jordan at the Zatari camp. So I'd been in the country before, but not deep because I was testing the waters and, you know, feeling things out. Because I don't do anything record. or Willie Nilly. Everything is very well thought out and planned out, which is why I lasted 18 days and got grabbed literally 45 minutes from the border on my way home.

It's just, it's so, it's such a bummer. Bummer's an understatement, but like you were already done. It wasn't like you're in the middle of this battlefield and then you got taken and it's like, well, you know, I was in the middle of a tour. You were, as always, as always these things seem to happen. And it happened at the end. And I've got theories about this. Like maybe people are so glad to be going home.

Because I've heard of multiple people getting kidnapped, not just in Syria, but in other places. We had a guy who got kidnapped by Somali pirates. And he kind of got nabbed sort of. It was either the beginning or the end. And it's always they just know that people going to and from the airport. It's just ripe with victims. And it's easy to get them because they're in a car.

And half the time their guard is down because they're like, oh, I'm done. You know, the worst part's over. Right, right. I was on my way to the airport, though, but my guard was down. I have said that that was like my only mistake was not waiting for my fixer. I asked the guy, the host, who I was staying with to arrange the ride. And he did a brilliant job and set me up.

I mean, he did a really good job. He used the cab driver who had been driving me around for three days without incident, so it wouldn't seem out of the ordinary. He gave me a note that he said was, you know, this is my address in Arabic. You know, just keep it with you. So when you get married, you can give it to the cab driver when you come to visit with your wife. And meanwhile, obviously, it was a note to my kidnappers that I couldn't read that I was carrying around in my wallet. And he did a really good job and set me up.

And, you know, it just so happened that, of course, it's on my way home after I got all the photographs I wanted. After pretty much I made sure that all the money I invested in the trip was going to come back. And that was wrong. well first of all what did the notes say i don't know it was in arabic oh you never found out what the notes said no no my god that would keep me up at night he he wrote something and he wrote his address in english and he's like and i'm going to write it in arabic too so you know you can give it to the cab driver when you come back to visit when you're married and i'm sitting there thinking like i'm not even engaged but uh you know but arabs are very hospitable people so he was like you know hiding under

that guys and uh you know whatever was on that note, I know was basically like he's a CIA agent, you know, I mean, I can guess what it was. He's a CIA agent. He's asking questions, which is really just, you know, me being inquisitive because I'm there to, you know, document the war. But that's, that's pretty much what was on it. And you're not working for a major news bureau, right? You're freelance. So you don't have an infrastructure. You're not checking in with your editor every day. You don't have insurance for this stuff. No. No, no. I mean, I had people that I was checking in with so they'd know, you know, if you don't hear from me in two weeks, you know, something went wrong. And, you know, I hit up, I hid every aspect of me being Jewish online. Like I went on Facebook and I took down everything and on my website, anywhere that I went like Auschwitz and where there were photographs of. I took that stuff down. So it wouldn't arouse any suspicion. So I was prepared for a worst case scenario. The only thing was is I was assuming that it would be the government that took me prisoner. Right, yeah, yeah, that's an interesting point.

You're thinking, hey, if Assad's forces get me here while I'm taking photographs, at least they won't be like, oh, he's Israeli. They'll just think this dumb-ass American guy will trade him. You'll be in a prison in some city, Damascus, whatever, where you're at least reasonably safe and probably not being tortured, but you're just in a hole. But this was far, far worse, of course, getting kidnapped by the people that got you. And I want to get the story. You're getting kidnapped on your way home. It's bad luck. But tell us the story of how this went down.

So I'm staying in Aleppo and I just got done working in Carmel-Jabelle, which is like the worst part of the country. You can't get worse than that. It's like it looks like Stalingrad. Like every building is just leveled. And I was photographing them doing house-to-house fighting, which is how the book starts out. And when I got the photos I wanted, which were really, you know, they were some kick-ass combat photos. I was like, all right, I'm out. So I asked the guy to arrange a ride because all the phones were down, or at least he was pretending they were down.

I don't know which one it was. And he was like, sure. So the next day he arranged a ride with a cab driver. And we get out of the city, okay? And we're cruising past the military academy, which was taken right before I entered the country. And boom, like this silver jeep Cherokee just cuts across from the oncoming lane and forces us to a stop. And I was just like, whoa. And I smiled because I thought we just like averted a serious car accident.

the doors popped open and they got out and my smile was gone that's when i said the guy in the front seat you know it's called head to toe in black he had an a k in his hand dude in the back seat just this pock-faced guy sweater with a chrome pistol in his hand they jumped out and i knew exactly what was going on and i was just like in shock and i just sat there like whoa and dude in the black came over opened the cab door very gently takes me by the arm takes me out leads me over to the cherokee puts me in the back seat he gets an after me. I looked at him. He reaches up. He pulls the ski cap I was wearing because it's cold in Syria in December. This is New Year's Eve. He pulls it over my eyes and leans me forward and presses

the barrel of the rifle to my head. And we took off a couple of seconds later. What at this point are you feeling? Are you really scared or are you thinking, you know what, this can't nearly be that bad? Or are you just sort of like hyperventilating or not even thinking about future projection? You're just thinking about the exact moment you're in because of fight or fly. Like what what's going on in your brain? I was pretty calm, believe it or not. I do believe that. Oh, yes, you have experience. Yeah, but in what's weird is it's a weird calm. It's like a focus. It's not calm, maybe not the right word. It's like hyper focus because you're so vigilant. You're thinking about, I'm thinking about what am I going to say when I get to where

I'm going. I realize that that speaking or begging or doing anything like that at that point was just a waste of time and energy. And so I just kept my hands up, you know, because I got a gun to my head and my head down. Then I just focus, all right, what am I going to say? How am I going to present myself? And, you know, I had a lot of connections in the Free Syrian Army, like high-ranking connections, generals and whatnot. And, you know, in a lot of past conflicts in the Arab world, when somebody has been taken prisoner and they give their references and they check on these references and the guys say, yeah, we invited him. Typically, they hand them back, you know, out of respect. Syria obviously changed that entire spectrum and of how that works. So I was

optimistic that given, you know, the very high-ranking people that I knew, I would be, they would check with them, they would vouch for me and they would hand me back. So that, that's what pretty much kept me calm and kept me focus on how I'm going to present this case. It was like a 10 to 15 minute drive. And then we got to the place and I get out of the cab, the cab, the Cherokee. And there's just feet everywhere because you know i can only see till about you know till about the knees and there's kids all over the place because you could tell by the colors and how small the feet are and it was as if they were like waiting for me as if they knew i was on my way and you know two guys just went on each side of me they led me into the building down the stairs up

the hallway uh told me to take off my shoes which i did and then they just sat me down uh in basically in the office in front of a desk wow at this point Are you still thinking I'll be out of here by the end of the day? Or this is going to take it. I'm thinking it's possible. I'm thinking it's possible. I mean, nobody mistreated me. I mean, yeah, they put a gun to my head, but it's Syria.

I mean, that's, that's every day. Yeah, nobody hits me. Nobody screamed at me. Because even if you don't understand Arabic, you know when somebody's threatening you. Of course. So nobody was really acting hostile except for obviously taking me against my will. So I'm sitting there. And there's a lot of people.

in the room and, you know, somebody offers me a glass of tea. And I was like, you know, that threw me back a little bit. And I accepted it, obviously, because, you know, Arab hospitality is, you know, it's something they take a lot of pride in so you don't want to say no. And I took the tea, hands it to me. I'll be very careful. It's very hot. And I'm like, all right, you know, I'm sipping my tea. Yeah, like, don't burn your hands. Oh, and also don't move or I'll shoot you in the head with an AK-47. Yeah, I know. And there's a guy like five feet away wearing a suicide belt. But yeah. I'll be careful with this tea. Wait, there was a, you saw a guy with a suicide belt, or you're just, you're just messing around?

No, no, no, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's, uh, he walks over. So, you know, at the end, after they take off my blindfold, but we're getting ahead of ourselves there. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Because I'm, all right. Because once you see a suicide belt, aren't you thinking, wait, wait, wait, regular soldiers don't wear bombs on their waist?

Uh, well, I mean, by that point, because, you know, I, I still didn't know who had me. You know, like, I, I, I was just like. There's so many different possibilities in Syria. It could be al-Qaeda, which is Al-Nosur Front, which is who had me. It could be the Free Syrian Army. You know, they're not all kosher, those guys. It could be a gang. So, you know, the way to figure out who had me was I asked for a cigarette because, like,

pretty much everyone in the Free Syrian Army smokes and anyone in the gang will smoke. And when they told me I can't smoke, that's when I knew I was in really deep trouble with the Al-Nosa Front, which is al-Qaeda. and also whenever I cursed, which I do often, they would get upset, which is another sign because, you know, smoking's a sin and profanity is a sin. So within a couple, really a couple minutes of the conversation starting,

I was able to figure out who had me. So at this point, you're like, hey, let me get a cigarette and they're like, no, no smoking. Were you just like, oh, shit? Pretty much. Yeah. Oh, man. Pretty much, man.

And that's when I started thinking like, all right, how do I avoid being tortured? because these guys are definitely going to torture me. And I said, well, I have to make them like me. How do you make terrorists like you? And I said, all right, I got to make these guys laugh because nobody tortures the guy that makes them laugh. Nobody dislikes someone who makes them laugh.

And pretty much immediately upon formulating that, somebody sat down beside me and he looked at the blindfold slash cap from my eyes. And I shot him tight so he wouldn't think I was peeking. But he was holding it up because he wanted me to look. And then I opened them very slowly and sitting next to me was this. pretty intense dude. He was a very commanding figure. Not old. He was in his early 30s,

maybe a few years younger than me. And he just smiled at me. And then he lowered the cat back over my eyes. So I was just like, all right, this guy seems approachable. And I asked him, I was like,

can I ask you a question? And he's like, yes. So I said, are you going to kill me? And he just paused briefly and replied, nah.

And I let a few seconds go by. And then I just threw up my fist and I screamed out, happy New Year. and leaned over when I did it, and he was just like, what the hell is going on here? And he jumped back a little bit,

and then everyone in the room started saying, you know, what do you say? What do you say? Because General Muhammad, that's his name. He was laughing at what I did. And he's like,

he translated. He said, Happy New Year. And they all started laughing. So I was like, all right, good job, man. You broke the ice. Keep it going.

Keep it going. A few minutes, a few seconds later, Mohammed, you know, he asked me my name. I told him, my name is Matthew, because you never say Matt in Arabic. It means dead.

So I would always say Matthew. and he renamed me. Don't give him any ideas, right? Yeah, the last thing you want to be known as is dead. That's how I look at it. Literally. Yeah. In that country.

So he looks at me and he's like, no, now your name is Juma. It means Friday or holiday. Do you like it? And I'm like, yeah, you know, who doesn't love Friday? And that's very significant over there. Like Juma is a very sacred day to them. So for him to name me after that was a sign that, okay, this dude likes me. And I'm off to a good start.

Is that how you got your Skype name? I won't give it away on the show, but is that how you pictures? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's really funny. Yeah, because there was a later on in the book, there's a character called Pops, and he would always call me Mr. Friday. And so that's kind of where my Skype name came from. It's not Mr. Fridays for anyone listening, so don't even try it.

But, yeah, that's where it came from right after I came home. So after a few minutes, they brought in a translator to interrogate me, and basically they let me know that, you know, we had, you know, reports that there are CIA operatives in the area, and we have to, you know, find out who you are, which was totally ridiculous. Anyone who speaks to me for like five seconds realizes that I'm not in the CIA. Especially, you don't speak Arabic, like you have a freaking iPhone or an Android and nothing else in a camera. It's like, it's just ignorant ass country bumpkin BS with these guys.

It's just paranoia. And it's funny that you say that because every FBI agent and CIA agent carry blackberries and I have an iPhone. So that's that right there. And they think, and it's funny, because they think anyone with an iPhone is CIA. They associate iPhones with CIA. And people who walk around that country, it doesn't matter who you are, if you're an Arab or if you're an American, whatever. If you have an iPhone, you're suspect, unless, you know, they know who you are. So he asked me, and this guy's a Canadian, by the way, who's doing this interrogation.

So he should know better. He should be like, hey, you know, back at Canada where I grew up, even though I'm a traitor and deserve to be hung, a lot of people have iPhones and they're not spies. Exactly. But no, he's kind of beyond that point. He's brainwashed by now or if he wasn't always. But so this interrogation goes on. You know, I'm just answering basic questions who I knew and basically giving them all the information they need to contact people in Syria, in Jordan, in Turkey to verify like who I am. and at the end of it,

they left up my blindfold. And that's when I was just like, all right, you know, what's going to happen next? You know, usually you'd expect them to slap me around, beat me,

torture me, you know, show me how things work there. But instead, Muhammad gets up and so showing off his gun collection to me. I mean, and he had like these really

pretty sick guns that were, you know, the type of shit you see in like a SWAT scene in a movie. And he was very proud of the American ones. A medican. And that's when some little dude walks. So we're wearing this pinstriped suicide belt.

And he's just like, he looked like an Arab Woody Allen. He was like this little nerdy guy. And he's just like standing there strutting around wearing it. And that was the first time I ever saw one. And I was like, I never seen one of those before. You know, pinstripes, huh? Yeah, like if you're going to blow yourself up, at least get some props before you click the button.

Go Yankees. Yeah. So, and it's funny because like, like once you're a few weeks, in, you get so used to seeing them that you realize that these guys actually wear them as fashion accessories. And that's not an exaggeration. Like Muhammad's kid had one.

He was like 12 years old. He had his own little custom-made suicide belt. They all have them. And they wear them, you know, in situations where they know they're not going to blow themselves up. They're in their own territory on a base surrounded by hundreds of these guys.

And they're just walking around wearing one. You know, God forbid they slip on a puddle or something. Well, that's what I'm wondering is, wouldn't you be, I mean, these guys sound like they're so stupid. Throughout the whole book, you're just like, these guys are all idiots. But don't you, I would just think I don't want a bunch of semtex or whatever's in the explosives around my waist at all times, where if I, like, sit on the toilet wrong, I blow up myself and all of my friends. Exactly. Like, there's a part where, you know, I'm brought outside, and I'm like talking to Muhammad. And, you know, custom there, you kiss both.

and then like the shoulder. And I do that when I'm blindfolded, and he jumps back because he's wearing his suicide belt. And I got, I got like too close to it. So it's just, it's such a ridiculous, you know, custom that they have, if you can call it that. But it's, it's one of the grim realities of the environment. All right.

So at this point, how old were you at this point? I was 34. Oh, man. And you said you hid the fact that you were Jewish online. But I assume you hit it there too. I don't know what would really be a giveaway. That was one of the first questions they asked me. It's just like, you know, what is your background?

And I was just like, well, you know, I'm 34 years old. I'm from New York. He's like, no. He's like, what is your background? What religion are you? What are your parents? So I was just like, I'm a Christian. And my grandparents all came over.

Great grandparents all came over from Germany. And they love that answer for obvious reasons. And one of the guys is like, ah, German. And I'm like, yeah, you know, German. Meanwhile, I'm all. Is that like a Holocaust reference? I don't even get it. Yeah.

Basically, that's what I knew they would love German. If there's one white, you know, race that these people would actually like, it's Germans. So that's why I said it. Plus, my last name sounds German. Meanwhile, I'm of mostly Russian descent, which is, which makes it even worse because Russia's backing the regime, supplying them with their weapons. And, you know, it's not the country you want to be associated with, along with America and Judaism. Right. So you could be like a Russian Jew, but I live in America.

And they're just like, just kill him now. Just kill them right now. Get the video camera and the jump suit out now. Yeah, I literally wouldn't have lasted like two weeks. So after this interrogation, they take me, they're like, all right, we're going to take you to your room, which is what they call a cell, take you to your room. Take you to your room. And that's when I said to myself, all right, you might be here for a very long time. You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Matt Schroen,

We'll be right back. Thank you for listening and supporting the show, and to learn more and get links to all the great discounts from our amazing sponsors, and to help keep the show going, visit jordanharbinger.com slash deals. Don't forget, we have a worksheet for today's episode so you can make sure you solidify your understanding of the key takeaways from Matthew Shrier. That link is in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com slash podcast. If you'd like some tips on how to subscribe to the show, just go to Jordan Harbinger.com slash subscribe. Subscribing to the show is absolutely free, and it just means that you get to. all the latest episodes in your podcast player of choice as they're released so you don't miss a single thing from the show now back to our show with matt schreyer how was that conversation with yourself

you know that that had to be kind of hard it was you know it's a surreal situation there's you know it's like capture shock i'm sure you've heard of it not really no tell what is that it's just like when when you get kidnapped or like a soldier gets captured or something there's like there's like this shock that comes over the body where you know most a lot of people aren't thinking or you're not paying attention um to things that you should be paying attention to like when you go in and out of the buildings you know you should be paying attention below your blindfold like are their chairs set up are there tea kettles you know so if you can if you get out of your cell can you escape from this this area and you know like my sensors weren't on because

because of that and this is where i started i guess basically like coming back to earth because of just the surreal situation I was in. And I started pacing back and forth. And I said to myself two days, give yourself two days. Because they said they were going to investigate me. And if I was telling the truth, they were going to let me go. So I was just like, all right, two days is way long enough for them to contact all my contacts in the Free Syrian Army in Hedatan, which is a town northeast of Aleppo. And, you know, look at my photographs, do their investigation, and let me go.

So day turned into night, night turned into day. I got a visit from Muhammad. he brought me a bottle of urinate in, which was against the rules and an extra blanket. So I was actually like thrown off at first. I got to admit like every time he would come in the room, you know, usually Abdul was there because Muhammad could speak English a little bit, but not not fluently.

And I even said, I was like, you know, you guys are pretty nice. I was like, you're nothing like what you see in the movies. And they started laughing. And they were just like, yeah, you know, it's your government. That's the bad guys. And I'm like, yeah, all right, whatever. But they were being really cool to me. And I was just like,

right, maybe this isn't going to be so bad. And then day turns into night, night turns into day. And, you know, the window is blocked off. So once the sun goes down, I'm in darkness because they rip out the light switch. And then the sun comes up, cracks a lighter lighting the room. And that's when I start hearing people getting tortured up the hole. And you just hear whack, whack, whack. And they're screaming and begging for mercy and yelling out Al-Aqbar without ever getting an ounce of any mercy.

And that's when I was just like, where the F am I? and I just kept pacing and pacing I'm waiting my turn because like if anyone's going to get it you figure the American but it never came instead Muhammad keeps visiting me and he's bringing me food you know or making the

making the punks bring me like hot food the same stuff they cook for themselves he's giving me the bottle he's you know he's basically coming in there sometimes and he's like it's going to be okay it's going to be okay Juma and I'm just like all right man well when are you going to let me go soon inshallah which means by the

guide. Basically, this goes on for a few days. And on my fifth day there, I started getting the impression that they were testing me to see if I had training to deal with the situation. So I was like, all right, I got to do something to prove to these guys that I'm not trained CIA operative. And I just said, all right, you got to lose it. Yeah, lose your shit a little bit.

Yeah, because I was being way too cool about everything. because I've been, you know, I got locked up when I was 16, which is a long time ago. And I've been a model citizen ever since. And I was just like, all right, I got to like, you know, I got to show these guys that I'm a normal guy. And I don't have training for this. So I just sort of wailing on the door and screaming and yelling and cursing and crying. It was like a Daniel Day Lewis type performance. So you're your method acting, right?

Yeah. And I'm the worst actor that ever lived. It's amazing what you can do with a gun to your head. Yeah, well, I mean, I don't know how much acting you had to do being locked in a basement in Syria with al-Qaeda. Yeah, with people being tortured up the whole. But, I mean, it's not like I can just make myself, like, do this in a believable way. I mean, anyone can just bang on the door and screen, but to do it in a way that actually, you know, proves that you're not trained and gets you sympathy and pity from these guys who really are born without it. you know, it's something that I'm, to this day, I'm surprised that it worked because I was banging on the door and doing this for like a half an hour.

And nobody does this there. You got to realize I was at this place for over two months and nobody ever did this. And I'm banging on the door. And finally the key turns and I hear it open. And I was just like, oh, man, what did I do? You know, like I seriously regretted everything that I just did. So I put my head to the wall because that's protocol. Whenever somebody comes in the room, you got to put your head to the wall and you can't.

turn around until they give you permission and the guy's like yellah and I was just like no you know what I was like I changed my mind I don't want to talk to anybody anymore I'm cool and he was like yellow you know and he's like yell I and he doesn't understand a damn word I say because it's like the kid that you know feeds me to the bathroom so he takes me out into the hallway and now I'm really freaking out because I'm like they're going to torture me I was like they're definitely going to torture me and I'm like done just put me back in the cell please please please please I will do you you should have peed yourself that would have been believed oh man No, somebody else does that later on, who I get locked up with.

But, you know, there's no bathroom in myself anyway. So I can't even clean myself up. But I'm freaking out. And then I hear Juma. And that's how like Muhammad would always greet me in this like jovial, enthusiastic way. And he's like, Jumah, and he comes up behind me. And he literally lifts up my leg and removes my shoe. His friend comes around the other side, does it to my other leg.

And they lead me into the room. And like, I'm telling you, my world is spinning. I'm like, what the hell is going on here? You know what I mean? And he sits me down by this stove. This is the office. The office is like this huge room. They have an office in the corner.

And then there's a hot stove with like a chill area with mattresses on the floor. And they sit me down. They take off my blindfold. And Mohammed like slams a glass in front of me and pours me tea. You know, that's a sign of respect. He serves me first. And he serves his friend, then himself. And you know, and they're actually trying to calm me down.

And, you know, and in the process, he's like, he takes out his Glock. He pops the clip. He hands it to me to play with. Abdullah comes in. He's the Canadian that speaks English. He sits down. And we just start hanging out. And they're like throwing all these ridiculous propositions at me trying to, you know,

they're feeling me out, as if they can turn me to help me smuggle stuff into the country. And of course, I'm like, yeah, I'll do it. You know, why not? As if I'm not going to run away two seconds after they let me go. Yeah. What are they thinking? Or is this just all trickery? Like, no, they're feeling me out.

I mean, you got to, you got to contextualize everything and compare this treatment to what everyone else, especially the Americans went through. You know, from James Foley to my future cellmate. And none of them got, got this kind of treatment. And they're literally feeling me out. And this is all because of Muhammad. Muhammad liked me. And, you know, I didn't realize how important he was till later on this evening. but, you know, he was the, he was the reason why all this happened.

He ran the jail, is what I basically found out, and made the rules. So he's putting, obviously telling people that, you know, like, I like, I like, I like, this guy's cool, blah, blah, blah. And they're not buying my, uh, they're not buying it. So this goes off like 45 minutes. I'm hanging out with these guys. And as soon as they see that I'm calm, all right, they're like, all right, I'm like, we're going to bring it back to your cell.

And, uh, you know, Because me and my brothers were very busy. And I'm like, doing what, man? I'm like, can't I just go watch TV? And I was like, I'm not going to try to escape. And he's like, no. So I was like, well, if you put me back in there, I'm going to do it again. And he's like, don't do it again.

So I was like, I'm going to do it again. So he puts you back in there and I do it again. This time they take me out for like five minutes and they start screaming and yelling at me. And I'm screaming back. And I'm like, there's no light. It's going to be dark soon. He's like, I'll give you a candle. And I'm like, we'll give you a bath.

I stink. And he's like, then you'll have to, we'll give you a shower. He's like, but you have to do it in the cold because the power went out while I was blindfolded. And there was no hot water. And I was like, I'm not doing that. I'm going to get sick. It's cold. And he's like, and don't bat.

And they threw me back in my cell. And like literally like 60 seconds after they locked me in there, the door opens up and somebody throws something in the room. I turn around and it's a candle. A couple hours later, it gets dark. Somebody drops to my dinner. They light the candle without me even asking. Before that candle even burns out, somebody else comes in the cell. tells me to roll my blankets and follow them.

I do it, cover my eyes, and he locks me in a new cell with 18 regime POWs so that I would have company and not flip out anymore. Wow. And it was during, it was while taught, I learned from these POWs that the reason why I was given all this preferential treatment was because of Muhammad. Muhammad went in there before,

about an hour before I went in there, and he told them you're going to have a new cellmate. He's an American. Nobody mess with him. And he said it in a way where they were afraid to talk to me at first because Muhammad is not the guy you want to piss off. When he likes you, you're good. But when he doesn't like you, I mean, you can hear the people screaming from up the

hall. And it took a little while for me. Because I walked around the room, I introduced myself to every prisoner there. I shook their hands. And, you know, that's when one of them told me, you know, we're not supposed to talk to you. We were given a warning. So they let their guard down after about, you know, five minutes to a few hours with some of them. And after that, these guys literally turned out to be the best friends I ever had in my life.

I mean, they didn't hold anything against me, not being an American, not shooting with the FSA, who are their sworn enemies. They were just like, you know, we're all in the same boat here. We eat together. We live together. And, you know, it was a privilege to know these guys. So these guys, these guys were regime soldiers, right? So they were fighting for Assad? Yeah.

And then you'd been captured by al-Qaeda, which is known as Al-Nusra Front in Syria. And then FSA Free Syrian Army is what? Soldiers that defected from the regime forces informed militias that were fighting the regime? Is that what that is? No, the Free Syrian Army was the main fighting force at the time. They were the ones that the U.S. government was backing. They were like the opposition, minus. minus the extremist ties.

So they were like the ones trying to overthrow that, you know, they're the ones who rose up after all those protests started and the shootings at the protests. They're the ones that rose up to fight against the government. So they were like considered the good guys with a lot of bad guys in it. And the Al Nosa Front had a lot of, you know, infiltrators in there. And the FSA was allied with Alnosa because they needed them. Because Alnosa was a smaller faction at the time,

but they were the best fighters in the country. country, you know, bar none when it came to the opposition. So they were, they were allied with each other. And but, you know, but the, you know, the guys you didn't want to be taken by, because this is all before the rise of ISIS. At this time, Alnosa was the number one power at the time. And they had, you know, this, this group of prisoners was hands down, you know, the most valuable in the country at the time. One of them was, uh, the cousin of Rami McClough. And Rami Kluf is the richest guy in Syria. He's related to Bashar Assad through marriage. And he's worth $6 billion at the time and controlled 80% of the Syrian economy. So me being with him, you know,

signifies how important this group of prisoners were. There were two colonels and another, one of the colonels was, you know, part of a very prestigious family, which is friends with the Assad's. So it was not just a random group of soldiers. Gee, I'm surprised the whole Syrian army was not out combing the streets for you guys at this point. Then if you had those, if they had those two super high value targets, they must have been pretty worried about them. Yes and no. I mean, one of them came home. The one who's related to Romney McClough came home in an exchange, but the other one never did.

I mean, they were so secure. This was like one of the most secure. This was like, you know, ground zero for the headquarters of Alnoster Front. It was a whole complex of hospitals. And at that time, I guess the regime was sticking to the code where we don't bomb hospitals, which is obviously why these guys always set up bases in hospitals. So they were snug in an area where they couldn't. And, you know, there's a part of the book where you remember where there was an assault on the hospital.

And they beat it back. And I was rooting. I was rooting for the regime because, you know, I was in a different cell by this point. But I was just like, these guys up the hall, there's no way. going to be kept prisoner. They'll release me within like a week, you know, with all those guys vouching for me, but they beat it back because, you know,

they are a formidable adversary. Yeah, they're, I mean, they've been trained by, I'm going to get hate mail for this, but they were trained by Pakistan. A lot of these guys, probably. Well, I mean, I don't know about that, but I mean, Muhammad fought in Iraq. A lot of

these guys are battle-hardened soldiers who fought in Iraq against Americans. And we have the best training in the world, but if there's any training that can compete with ours, it's just throwing somebody onto a battlefield to fight Americans. Yeah. Because if you live, that means, that means, you know, either you ran away or you really learned how to fight and survive.

And Muhammad is not the type of guy to run away. And him and most of the upper echelion of the Alnosa Front, that's where they all made their bones in Iraq. So you're in the cell with these guys. how are you able to stay sane during this time? How long were you in there? It was, it was hard. I mean, I was only in there for five days until, and it was hard.

Like, that's when I was, you know, because the lights would go out and these guys didn't have a window. And darkness is a bitch. Like, it really messes with your mind. There's really no getting used to it for some people. And these guys would just, as soon as the lights would go out, they'd go to sleep. And it was amazing. And I could never just tune out like that.

My mind is just too active. And five days in, they threw in 13 Shabihaha. And Shabihah are militants, civilians who pick up arms and fight on the side of the regime against the opposition. And they hate them the most. Al-Qaeda, ISIS, the FSA, they hate these guys the most because they consider them traitors to the revolution. They should be fighting with us. They're civilians. So they threw 13 of them in with us.

And the cell was like really overcrowded. So Muhammad had to move me into solitary and, you know, they set up the cell for me. There were five blankets on a mat on the floor. And I had four already. So I had nine blankets now. Everyone else gets one or two. And I was basically, I was given a room with a light, which obviously increases things in terms of comfort. And I was kept in solitary for 13 days.

And after 13 days, somebody just comes suddenly to my. my door at night tells me to follow them. And now I'm wearing a quilt because I washed my pants and they were drying on the doorknob. So I just, I grab my pants and I go with him. He lost me back up with the soldiers, but only for like 15 minutes. And after like 15 minutes of being with the guys, they all welcome me back. And it's pitch black in the room. We hear a whole bunch of jihadis assembling outside the door.

And the door opens and everybody faces the wall. And I don't have my blankets because I could just grab my pants. So I had to leave my nine blankets. And all those guys are, they're infested with bedbugs. So I don't want to sit with them. So I just stand against the, against the pillar and leaned against it.

And they entered the flashlight, so like cutting through the darkness. And you just hear, Juma. So I was like, all right, mom, and I turn around.

What up? You know, I give him five. It's like, what are you wearing? And he's with all these, like, bad ass hardcore dudes.

Like, there's like, there's a bunch of them, you know, with the big beards and they got oozes and AKs. Like, these are like the real deal. straight off the front line fighters

and he's showing us off to them. Most likely they're from another group like most likely the Islamic State or they're just really high up I'll notice for guys and he's like showing off all the prisoners and he just lights up. He's like, Juma, come with me, come.

And we go out into the hallway and all these guys are following and no blindfold which is really rare because they blindfold you every time you leave the cell and he goes up to the cell next door. He's like, come, come.

So we all crowd around the door. And these guys, these maniacs, they all, they're all excited too. They want to see what he's, what he's going to show him. And he opens the door and he just leaps in and he's like, ah! And this poor bastard just jackknifes up.

He's terrified. He's bearded out, you know, down to his chest, babbling in Arabic as they shine their lights in his face and Muhammad's just messing with him and they're all laughing at him. And Muhammad just looks at me and he goes, American, American, like you. And I was just like, yeah, right,

because he's speaking Arabic, this guy. I was like, yeah, whatever, man. I was like, can I go get my blankets now? Go back in with the soldiers? And he's like, no, no, no. You can stay in here now. You have somebody to talk to. And that's when I looked through the muck on this guy. And I realized that he wasn't American. He wasn't joking. And that was the worst moment of my life because that was the second I realized they weren't letting me go. Oh, yeah. They had me for three weeks. They never let me see him. They never let me hear him. They kept him a complete secret from me, which meant, you. they were thinking about letting me go.

And as soon as they let me see him, I said, oh, shit, man. I was just like, they're not letting me go. Because you know what I mean, because it's just like now, if they didn't want me to know in case I got let go, I wouldn't be able to tell anyone he was there. And now I'm sharing a cell with him. And it meant that I wasn't going to be released. And I just, my morale just sank. and then I started talking to him

and it sank even more. What made you sink even more when you started talking this guy? Oh my God. Well, Muhammad, let me go get my nine blankets and then I set up and, you know, he was just like, I've been here for three months

and I was just like, oh, Jesus, three months and he's like, yeah. So he tells me his name and then he's got two names like straight off the bat. He doesn't really know which name to use and he's like, all right, I told him this is my name,

just use that name because the other one, I wrote a book with it and it's linked to Islamic extremism and I don't want them to know. And the thing that really pissed me off was, you know, he told me he was there to do a story about Austin Tice. And Austin Tice is the first American journalist to go missing in Syria. He's been missing for six or seven years already.

And as soon as I heard that, I was just like, you were here to do a story about Tice. He's like, yeah. And that means like, okay, so this guy, is a type of person who would try to make money off of what's happening to me right now. And, you know, it's just in regards to character, you don't want to be locked in a room with somebody who would try to profit off of your misfortune. And from there, it just went on, it just continued to go downhill.

Like, you know, he didn't know what year it was anymore. He knew how long he was there the date he was taken, but he didn't know what year it was because it was January of 13. He still thought it was 2012. And then he told me how he got captured And that was just like, oh my God Like it's the type of story Whenever I do is a speaking engagement

And people ask how he was taken They all say the same thing after I finished They go, you can't make that shit up Yeah, well how do you get captured? Well, basically He goes in to do a story about Austin Tice Which he doesn't want to admit Even though there's documentation in my book proving it

And he doesn't have any contacts in Syria. So what he does is he rents a room in some $10 night hotel in southern Turkey where Syrian refugees are known to congregate. He meets a nice Syrian boy named Osama with blonde highlights running through his black hair. Kids about 19, 20 years old. Tells Osama he wants to go into Syria. He wants to go into Syria and research Tice. So Osama's like, all right, let me get some of my friends and we'll be your guides. So they talk him into jumping the border, which he does, at night, so nobody knows now when he crossed or where he crossed into, and they stay in a house outside of Idlib, which is a city.

And the next day, he interviews them, and one of them breaks out a pair of handcuffs, and they beat the crap out of him and let him in on the fact that they kidnapped him. And I was just like, so you hired your kidnappers? He's like, yeah. Wow. And I was like, wait a minute. So you got kidnapped before you even entered Syria? And he's like, no, they kidnapped me after.

And I'm like, no, they let you in on it after. And it gets worse. It gets worse. So now he's kidnapped by these kids. They're all kids. They're like 19, 20 years old. And they don't know what to do with him. And he tells people that it was al-Qaeda.

But they're just really a bunch of punks. Yeah, they wanted like, they wanted beer money or whatever, basically. Yeah, they wanted money for hashish. So they're like, all right, what do we do with him now? We want $400,000, but they don't know how to collect it. So basically, they just like give him away. And he just ends up getting passed around from group to group like a puppy nobody wants. and eventually he ends up with these guys, you know, who he's handcuffed to at night while they go to sleep.

He slips out of the cuffs, sneaks out of the apartment barefoot, flags down a friendly vehicle, and this guy picks him up and drives him to the closest Free Syrian Army headquarters. And the FSA, they take him in, they feed him, they give him a shower, they buy him new clothes, they put him in an apartment that they keep special special. for journalists. And the next day after they do all this stuff, they go to the apartment and they say, all right, dude, what do you want to do? You want us to just give you a right to Turkey? Or you want to drive around and look for these guys? Oh, no. Tell my God, I know the answer to this question. And this idiot says, let's go look for him. Oh, my God. Okay. So now he's crammed into the backseat of a car

between two maniacs holding AK-47s, being driven by two people, being driven by somebody and somebody in shotgun with AKs, and they're driving around looking for these guys. And he spots the car, because apparently they had a very distinct car and he's like, there they are.

So you have to say they pull over and they're like, er, and they get out and they're like, yo, you kidnap this guy? And they're pissed. They're like totally on, you know, my cellmate's side. And the kidnapper's like,

no, I didn't kid. kidnap him. I arrested him. He's a CIA agent. And then there's this immediate shift and all the FSA guys go, they look at him and then they go back to the kidnapper and they're like, you want him back? Oh, man.

And just like that, the people who were going to drive him to the border hand him back over to the kidnappers. That night, they have a party. The kidnappers and the FSA guys and they torture him together. They waterboard him. They

They dig a hole and they make him think they're going to bury him alive. And then after that, they bring him to Babo Hawel, which is on the border of Turkey. And he's put through like some mock trial. And the star witness of the trial is the guy that he pointed out. So the guy that he pointed out comes in, says, this guy's a CIA agent. I arrested him. And that's when they hand him over to Al Nostra. It's not like, like he lies because it's so embarrassing.

like what happened to him he just says he was kidnapped by el nosa and the fs a you know after he went to their base they just handed him over after they knocked on the door and found him right away now that's not really practical in a city like that uh so basically that's when he's judged guilty in babo hawa they hand him over to the alnosa front he ends up in the trunk of like a SUV on the way to aleppo and that's how he ended up in the hospital you're listening to the jordan harbinger with our guest, Matt Schreier. We'll be right back after this. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers is what keeps us on the air. And to learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard so you can check out our amazing sponsors, visit jordanharbinger.com slash deals.

And don't forget that worksheet for today's episode. That link is in the show notes at jordanharbinger.com slash podcast. And if you're listening to us on the Overcast player, please click that little star next to the episode. It really helps us out. Now for the conclusion of our episode with Beardinherb. Matt Shreier. You know, it's unbelievable, but then the more you read about this guy, Theo, he's just the dumbest guy anywhere. And it's weird because he has a Ph.D. He's like this guy who has no common sense, no personal, no sort of interpersonal skills,

right. No redeeming qualities seemingly, but he's got a PhD and he speaks like five languages. But he's just a complete P-O-S, this guy. Yeah. And it's funny that you said that because two people who have met him came back to me and they said, like, is he autistic? That's what I thought. I was wondering that same thing. I was like, is he like on the spectrum or something?

Because he's just a horrible. Not that people who are on the spectrum all are like this, of course. But somebody who's this bad, you just think this isn't a normal person. Like this is a person who's got personality issues and is also an a hole on top of it. Right. Right. It's funny because the editor of my book had me put that, suggested we put that in there that he's on the spectrum.

And instead I said, you know, sometimes he just makes me feel like George Milton, who's from of mice and men. And it was just like, you know, the only way to describe him is, you know,

he was the equivalent to journalist of what Gomer Pyle was to Marines and full metal jacket. You know, he's just this guy who can't do anything right ever. You know, that raises the level of danger for, somebody like me in a situation like that. And one of the reasons why I chose to do this alone, because I met other photographers

in Southern Turkey who wanted to come with me was, and I said no, because I don't want to have to be responsible for anybody. And here I am thrown into this situation with this guy who just cannot take care of himself at all. Oh, man. He just kept doing all kinds of dumb stuff. Like, didn't he carve a star of David into the wall? Like, talk about just asking to get shot in the head.

Yeah. And, you know, because he's one of the things. these guys who thinks that he's smarter than everyone. And, you know, one of the things that I've always said way before I met this guy is the guy who thinks he's the smartest one in the room is usually the dumbest. And that has never been more true than with Theo. And I'm pacing. And this is like within the first day.

I think it's the next day when the sun came out or the lights were on. I don't remember which one it was. I'm pacing. And I see something carved into the wall. And it's abstract, but it's distinct. And I said, I was just like, is that a start? of David? And he's like, yeah. And I was like, did you put that there? And he's like, yeah, they don't know what it is. Oh, my God. They're sworn enemy for their entire life. They don't,

they never seen it. They share a border with Israel. I'm like, you don't think any of them have seen an Israeli flag? And I, and I actually, you know, I had to carve out my own religious symbol in a place where I needed faith the most. And I'm not the most religious person in the world. But, you know, nobody wants to scratch out their own religious symbol. I mean, it just feels disrespectful. And that was like the moment where I really realized like, like, this guy's got to be watched. This guy has to be watched. And I have to get out of here. And, you know, and that's kind of, you know, around the time where I started realizing, like, I have to escape. And it's not because of the bad guys only. It's because I got to get away from this guy too. And, you know,

And it didn't take too much longer until I noticed the mark he put in the door. And one night we're sitting there and, you know, just, you know, just matter of fact, I'm like, hey, what's that mark in the door? Because there was like this silver dollar sized impression that somebody carved into the door. And I'm sitting there thinking to myself, like, no, like he's not that stupid. He wouldn't do that. And he's like, I put it there. And I'm like, Jesus Christ. I'm like, why?

And he's like, I was bored. Now later on, he admitted that he was trying to make a peephole. the size of a silver dollar in the middle of the door. Because I guess he thought, you know, like the Saur-David, they just wouldn't know what a peephole is either. So I started examining the door and I'm like, all right, you know, if you could do this with a spoon, we have something to work with here. So it was just basically like your standard typical wood panel door.

So over the next few days, you know, I start stealing things from the bathroom. And the first thing I grabbed was a three-inch flathead brass screw. And I smuggle it back to the cell. And a few days later, I'm washing my hands in the bathroom. And what do I see? I see this flat iron bracket on the soap dish. And I stick it in my sock. And Theo starts bugging out.

He's like, put it back. It's a trap. They're going to torture us. You're going to get us in trouble. And I'm like, shut up, man. And he's like, no, put it back. And like the door's closed. And you can hear them coming.

And we're arguing. It's like that scene in a breakfast club where he steals the screw. And they're all yelling at him to put it back. And I'm like, shut up. And then finally, the door just opens. and it's Yassine. It's like the guard that I was cool with. And I woke, oh, what up, Yassine?

I give him a bump. And he takes us back to the cell. Theo is still flipping out. He's like, you're going to figure it out. And finally, I just, to shut him up, I stand on your shoulders and I hide in the light fixture. And they take some other prisoners to the bathroom, not too long after that. So we're pretty much in the clear. So now I take the bracket out when it's safe.

And we have a plan. And my plan was this. You know, the panels in the door are thin, like maybe a centimeter. meter thick the wood. So I put the screw at the top right corner of the bottom panel, which is about the length and width of a milk crate. And the bracket fits right into the screw, like a screwdriver. And I put the screw in and out of the wood in less than five minutes, barely make a sound. Now you have a real peephole. You can look through it and you can see who's out there by their shoes and a plan. And the plan is basically you just perforate all around this panel. And you

wait for an opportunity, and then boom, you kick it out with one shot, minimal noise, and you go for it. And it was a great plan. Like I talked to people in the military that train soldiers for these types of situations, and they're like, that was a brilliant plan. But Dio's like, nope, I don't like that plan. Yeah, that's because he didn't think of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't like that plan. I say we perforate around the doorknob, and then we punch out the wood and we reach through and turn the key. and I'm like, dude, you know, the wood is like, that's where the wood is solid. It's like three, four inches thick. And I'm like, we would need a drill to get through there. And even if we had one, they're going to notice, you know, two or three dozen little holes surrounding the doorknob and they open it up to feed us or take us to the bathroom. And he's like, well, then we're not going.

He's like, it's always going to be your idea or nothing at all. And I'm like, oh, my God. I'm like, all right, fine. Because I wasn't thinking clearly. And to be honest, I was just like, okay, he'll go back to my plan. And once he sees his is totally impossible. And as I'm sure you can guess. No, his ego gets in the way and he's stubborn and he doesn't want to admit he's wrong.

So you end up executing a really shitty plan. No, no. What it really was is that he was too scared and he just wanted to keep me busy by giving me some kind of impossible task. Oh, no, it's even worse. Yeah, yeah. No, that's what I figured out, you know, in the attempt that worked because he did everything to thwart that too. So he was just too scared to go. So he's like, all right, I'll tell him to do something that's impossible to keep him busy and shut him up.

up. And as I'm sure you can guess, like, you know, you can't get the screw through three inches of wood with a bracket. You wouldn't even be able to do it with a screwdriver, man. And every time you strip the screw, it makes a click sound. And within like two hours of this genius's plan, I try to turn the bracket and it strips the screw. And General Muhammad is right on the other side and he hears it. And he's like, stop messing with the door. so I obviously listen to him and I'm telling you within like three minutes the door opens up and General Muhammad busts into the room with like two other guys and he slams the door he's just examining it with a flashlight because the power was out

so he's examining it and he where does this flashlight fall Jordan right on that stupid silver dollar yeah right on this silver dollar sign sized impression that this guy made because I was staying along the steel plate that, you know, was around the doorknob because I knew that the marks wouldn't be, you know, detectable there. And we were making them for no reason. And as soon as he sees the impression, he turns around, he's like, Jamah! And he calls me over.

And I kneel beside him. And now this is the first time I've ever seen him mad. And there is no smile. There's just this darkness in his eyes. And he points to it. He's furious. Like he feels betrayed. that, you know, after treating me so well, I would do something like this.

So I just, I lift my hands up and I'm like, Muhammad, that was already there. I was just like, I was cleaning my nails out on the door, you know, because I, you know, if I was doing that, it would make a click sound, you know? And he just starts looking around on the floor. And he's like, looking for anything. And what does he find? He finds like this little piece of concrete that Theo put there because he liked to kick it around the room like a five-year-old.

And I told him to clean it up. like a hundred times and he was always like, shut up, mind your own business. And Muhammad picks up this piece of concrete and just my luck, it fits perfectly into the impression that he made and he grinds it back and forth. And then he looks at me and now he's furious, even more furious, because this is what he thinks I was doing. And I was like, Muhammad, it wasn't me. I swear.

And boom, he just throws the first punch. So I blocked it. He threw another one. I blocked it. He kind of grazed me. And then he stood up and he just like, smell. The concrete right down on my head kicks me in my abdomen, turns his attention towards Theo, grabs him by his collar, tosses him up against the back wall, and Theo just falls flat on his face and starts shaking.

That's what he would do whenever they touched him. He fell flat on his face and started shaking. That was like his defense mechanism or lack of defense mechanism. And Muhammad pulls out his Glock like he's just going to ice him right there. So I shook off the blow and I got up and I ran over and I'm like, you know, Muhammad, please don't do it. don't kill him. I was just like it was me. I made the noise. And finally, he holsters the weapon. And that's when he's like, I'm going to come back in a half hour and I'm going to beat you. And then I'm going to come back tonight. I'm going to beat you again. And he said it in Arabic while looking at Theo.

And then he grabs our beds. He's like, take their beds. So they take our beds and they leave. And I'm like, what do you say? And Theo translates what he said. And I said, well, I don't mean to be a dick. But what about me? Is he going to beat me too? And Theo's like, because, you know, he was looking at Theo when he said it. And they was like, I don't know. And I'm like, oh, man. So like a half hour goes by. And we hear a whole bunch of them assembling outside. And the door opens.

And there's like eight of them there. And they're just head to toe in black. You know, the same exact outfit as Jihadi John, the guy who cuts everyone's heads off. It's like they all have one. And they come in. One of them comes in. And he tells Theo to turn around. He cuffs him.

And brings him out of the room. They lock me in. And within like two minutes, you just hear him screaming his head off as you hear the whack, whack, whack, whack sound. And I'm pacing and pacing. And I know, I know I'm getting it. There's like, no. What are they doing to him?

Like, what are they whacking? Like, they're whipping him or what? I mean, you assume they're hitting the bottoms of their feet. But I've never actually seen it yet. And I'm just pacing, pacing and waiting my turn. And you got to realize, dude, it always, it sucks so much more to go second. Because you got to, like, sit there and listen to what's about to happen to you rather than just getting it over with. So, like five minutes of this goes by and then the door opens and they just

throw them in the room and he hits the floor like a sack of flour and just blood streaks all over from his ankles. And they tell me to turn around. Then I'm like, oh, man. So I turn around. They cuffed me, pull my hat down and they bring me up the hole into the boiler room. And that's where they torture people. I mean, obviously they choose it because it's just psychologically, you know, just, it's like a nightmare. That's why Freddie Kruger went down there, man. I mean, it's the boiler room. And I entered the boiler room, and I can see through the bottom of the cap, and it's packed

with these guys, there's kids everywhere, there's a guy hanging from a pipe by handcuffs, and they sit me down with my knees bent up to my chin, and they force a car tire around your knees. And they take like an iron rod, and they slide it over the tire, but under your knees, and the crook and that locks it locks it into place. And then they flip you over on your stomach. So you're cuffed and your feet are in the air and you can't move them. And they take this thick cable.

And at first I thought it was a nightstick because right before they flipped me over, somebody put something under my chin and they lifted my head so I can look out from under my cap and make eye contact with him. And I thought it was a nightstick, but it bent. And it was a, what it was, it was a thick cable about as thick as a nightstick. And that's what they use. and they take this thick cable and they start wailing on the bottoms of your feet. And let me tell you something, it hurts.

It freaking hurts. And I got 115 clicks. Does you count? No, the guy who was in charge, who I met like a week before, he was like above Muhammad. I called him the Buddha man because of the way he used to lie on the floor like the Buddha. And he said, give him 115. and he made sure to say it in English, so I understood. And they gave me the full 115.

I didn't keep count, but they basically do it in sets. Like they take turns halfway through. They'll pour a bottle of water on your feet to enhance the pain. If they really don't like you, like Theo, what they do is they lash the sides of your ankles. And that just bust them open, like the skin comes off like if you held a weed whacker to it. They didn't do that to me on this occasion. They just concentrated on the bottoms of my feet. and it was like the longest five minutes of my life.

And at the end, they took off the tire. And I was totally conscious, but I was just feigning unconsciousness or semi-unconsciousness, you know, just, I don't know. It was just an instinct. And two guys lifted me up. And, I mean, as soon as I put any weight on my feet, it felt like my knees buckled. I mean, my feet were numb, but they hurt at the same time. I don't know if that makes sense. Yeah.

It's like they're numb on the outside, but you feel the. pain on the inside. And they basically just supported me back to my cell and somebody opened the door and then through the hood, the guy looks at me and he goes, have you heard of Guantanamo Bay? And then they just laid me down on the floor, very gently, took off the cuffs. And that was the beginning, the beginning of our punishment. I think it's, you know, what's interesting to me is I'm glad that we got to this point because, in the story, because before it's easy to be like, oh, it's not that bad or like they you know they're only doing this you can rationalize it but this goes hand in hand with the anecdote from the book where you were showing them photos of refugees in syria their own people

that are like old women children people who carrying their dead relatives and they're they're laughing about it so these are not like freedom fighters even all this islamic BS if we want to create a get this is just bullshit these guys are just sociopathic assholes right i mean it it it it's It's basically a criminal organization, just like the Crips or the Bloods. Only there, only instead of having a blue flag or a red flag, they have a black flag and do it under the guise of Islam. That's how, that's how, it's not just, I'm not even going to say that's how you look at it. That's how it is. It's a criminal organization.

And it's run like that. You know, you have a Don slash Amir all the way down. And that's it. It's like a lot of these guys, like I said, fought in Iraq. They came back from Iraq and they were thrown in jail. You know, and that's where a lot of people, it doesn't matter where, here, there, you get radicalized, even more radicalized. And, you know, now once this revolution took over, these guys, you know, they organized. Hence, you know, organized crime.

And so, yeah, so, I mean, they would, I mean, they did things to people that you wouldn't believe. I mean, they bit some guy's ear off. And I never met him. I just several other prisoners would be like, did you see the guy who's ear they bit off? And I'm like, no. But thanks for letting me know that they're doing that now. I knew my Tyson converted. I didn't know it was here.

Yeah. But, you know, and there's like the bathroom trips where there's just like these giant pools of blood on the floor that they would leave there, you know, to the point where they would dry up, basically. And, you know, and so back to the punishment for Theo's mark in the door. Hopefully, you know, at the time, we're thinking, all right, they're done. They got out of their system. But that's not how it happened. Within a half hour, they came. They took me from the cell first.

And now I'm walking on these feet, these battered, ruined feet. And they bring me upstairs and outside for the first time in over a month because now it's February 6th. And it's pouring out. I mean, it's almost as if it feels like a horror movie when I wrote it in the book because it's like everything that you would see in a horror movie was actually going on. You got a boiler room. You got a pouring rainstorm on barefoot. And there's jihadis everywhere, armed to the teeth. And they put me down on my knees.

And they were trying to make me think like they were going to execute me right there. So I'm just sitting on my knees and the rain is falling on my head. And some guy walks up behind me. He's like, you know, locks and loads. And I just, I didn't say a word, man. I just, just like when they grabbed me, I just closed my eyes. And I didn't want to give them the satisfaction of begging because I knew it wouldn't do anything. I just waited and I waited and I waited.

And finally, like some guy just bends my arm back and they pick me up and they put me in the trunk of an SUV where Theo was. And he's like, is that you? Is that you? And I'm like, yeah, it's me. And they cuff us together. And a few minutes later, engine starts up and there's this song that they go nuts for. It's like this jihadi anthem where it starts out with a horse. You hear the horse clopping on concrete and then it nays.

And the song starts and they start singing along and we start moving to that. And the ride was like an hour. And after an hour, we get to our destination, which is the Heditan Electrical Institute, which is basically like the dark side of hell is how I describe it in the book. I mean, this is where Al Qaeda takes you for punishment. And if you saw like a satellite image of this place, you would immediately realize that it's one of, if not the biggest jihadi base in the world at the time. Do you find yourself now, or at least in the recent past, going on Google Maps and being like,

where was I? Oh, I wasn't here, huh? I'm like looking around. I mean, I have screenshots of all this stuff for when I do speaking engagements because I like giving visuals. So I have pictures of everywhere that's possible. I have them like right on my phone and in, you know, presentations. but I found this place within a week of coming home because, you know, and just picture just to give people an idea.

Like picture like if a terrorist group took over like, you know, the University of Maryland or USC. Like that's how big this place was. And they controlled the whole thing with ISIS. Only they were number one at the time. You know, like they shared, they were sharing with them. They didn't know that they were going to get, they were going to become more powerful. And they take us out and they put us in this cell, this basement. sell this huge room. I call it the room of broken glass because there was this glass all over

the floor from the windows getting blown out. And there's nothing on the floor except glass, like two blankets and a sheet of paper. So once it was safe and they were out of the room, I picked up the paper and I gave the theater because he could read a little Arabic and I was just like, you know, what does this say? Can you read it? And he's just, I can just read one thing. It says, head of tan police station. So that's how we knew what town we were in. So after I got home, I found Hedatan on Google Maps. And literally, I found it before I was done zooming in. Like, while I was zooming in on the town, I saw it. That's how big this place was. And so we stay in this room for five nights. Every night, this guy comes in. Igor was his nickname.

And he whips us on the back with this thing cord. And he pulls down the blankets because he's not one of the dumb ones who does it over the blankets. He pulls the blankets down. I'm telling you, I was wearing a vest, like an Eddie Bauer vest, a hoodie, and a t-shirt. And he whipped me so hard the next morning I took off my shirt to hunt for bedbugs. And there was just blood speckled all over the back of my t-shirt. I didn't even feel it the night before. And finally on the fifth night, one of the dudes comes downstairs, one of the punks, and he's like, we're moving you to another building.

Cover your eyes, grab your blankets. So we go upstairs and outside. And we couldn't see because it was dark and we're blindfolded. So he let us take off our blindfolds because we were dropping stuff. and we walk outside and that's when I saw it for the first time and I couldn't believe my eyes. I mean, there wasn't a light on. There wasn't a soul in sight. It looked like an abandoned city, but you know it's not.

And in the 20 or 30 seconds, I had to scan it before he made me cover my eyes. I looked for a landmark that I knew I'd be able to identify with satellites. And I saw this really 60, 70 foot tall concrete tower that was totally round. And I filed it. And after I came home and I went on Google Maps, that's how I found this place and sent it to the FBI and everything. So from there, he takes us to a new building and we go up to the second floor. So now we're in a cell that's not in a basement for the first time. And it's like this little tiny room custom made for human suffering.

I mean, the light is ripped out. The floor is filthy. The window, they concreted it over it. somebody took concrete and wrote ghost on the wall in English. And this is where we really suffered. This was the worst month of my life, the worst part of my captivity. I mean, we were barely fed. We were just given enough to sustain life and not get too sick.

Infested with bedbugs while in the dark. So you can't even take off your clothes to de laos. And people don't realize, like, if you have bedbugs and you don't de louse, you will die. They drink blood. Eventually they're going to drink you to death. And, you know, they were blasting loud music outside our door for hours on end. One night management came by. And, you know, it was just really creepy night.

We heard them coming. And you can always, you can always tell when it's, when it's somebody important, as opposed to, like, just the guards. And they opened the door and they have a conversation. And it ends with Mosuer. And that means photographer in Arabic. So they're talking about me. And then they launch into another conversation. It ends with CIA.

And that means you're talking about Theo because they were convinced that Theo was a CIA agent because he spoke Arabic. And they're like, CIA, Yela. And he gets up and he walks out of the room and he just starts screaming his head off. And this was like, this is the scariest moment of my life. Because I again, I was just like, great, I'm going second again, man. I was just like, I was just like, what are they doing to him? And you just hear him screaming. And okay, CIA, CIA.

And then as soon as he confessed, they stopped. They brought him over and I'm praying the whole time, please, you know, keep him safe. And don't, don't let me be next. Please saying that over and over again. They open the door and they throw him in. And he lands on my leg and it freaking hurt, you know, 150 pounds just crashing down on my leg. And they slammed the door and spared me. So my prayers were answered that night.

Wow. And he was just like a mess. And he's like panting on me. Like he's just, and I'm like, are you all right? And he's like, don't move. he's just like, don't move. And I'm like, all right. And I'm like, what'd they do to you, man?

And he's like, I was like, did they give you the tire? He's like, no, they didn't have one. So they threw a rope up over a pipe and they strung me up by my ankles and started whacking my feet like that. And I can't even imagine like, like, like what that must have been like, you know, just in the dark with the flashlight swirling around your head and all these freaking maniacs. I mean, I just, I can't even imagine. I mean, nothing even happened to me, and that was like the scariest moment of my life.

So I can't even imagine what happened to him psychologically. I'm wondering, I know you got beat a lot. There were a lot of other interesting characters from the book, and Theo just gets worse and worse and worse. At what point did you come up with a plan to, like, fake convert to Islam to get out of, to curry favor? How did that come about? That was after the Moroccan got introduced. Yeah.

the Moroccan. So basically the electrical institute, we were there for 40 days and they transfer us back to the hospital. And everything goes back to normal for like two days. And Theo's like broken by now. He's just like hiding under the covers all day. He never comes out from under the covers, which is a real morale killer. And two days after they bring us to the hospital, the door opens one night and this big dude

hobbles in. And he's hopping on one leg and he's big. He's like 6-3, like 230 pounds, and he's a Moroccan. And as soon as he enters a cell, they lock him in. And I'm like, I woke up, I introduced myself, and he speaks perfect English. And he's like, you're American? I'm like, yeah. So he sits down and we start having a conversation.

And as soon as I tell him that I'm a photographer, he looks at me and he's like, you were tortured. And I was like, how'd you know? And he's like, I was there. I was like, you were there. He's like, after they shot me, because they shot him in the leg when they arrested him, they cuffed him to the bed and wheeled him into the torture room for a week, which I can't even imagine. I mean,

imagine being cuffed to a bed in a room where they're torturing people all day, every day for a week. And he's like, I heard you screaming animal swear, which means I'm a photographer. So I got along with this guy at first, which is really hard to believe because he was one of them, but he was too crazy to be,

to be accepted by them. And plus he was a liar. Another part of the story where people are just like, you can't make this shit up because he basically went over there pretending to be a doctor and was treating people. Unbelievable. And his favorite movie, and it's funny because at one point,

I was like, did you ever see the movie catch me if you can? And he's like, I love that movie. I'm like, oh my God. Like, he literally was doing what that guy did.

And he was brilliant. Like, don't get me wrong. Like, he wasn't an idiot. This guy spoke. English, Arabic, French, and Italian fluently. He was smart. He got in with Doctors Without Borders.

He was like a professional con man, this guy. It just stopped short when he tried to do it to a terrorist group. And, you know, I got along with him at first. Like, he loved American movies. He loved rap music. He even loved Curb Your Enthusiasm, which really threw me off because I wondered if that's why they shot him. And like two weeks in with this guy, two weeks in with this guy, he was like,

Like, you know, he was always like, you should convert. You guys should convert. And I was just like, no, no, no, you know, because you don't want to do it. You don't want to jump in because you don't want him to know you're faking it. So like two weeks in, he brought it up. And I was like, all right. I was like, you know, it feels like, it feels like God is in the room whenever you are praying. I was like, I'm down, man.

Let's do it. So he's like, all right, he tells me what to say. I say it. And he's like, all right, welcome to the club. And I'm like, that's it. And he's like, yep, you're a Muslim. Pick your name. And I'm like, I get to pick my name.

And he's like, yeah, he's like, this is a very important part of the process. What is your name going to be? So I was like, I was like, Nasser. And he's like, why? And I was like, after a great man, I met in Aleppo, Sheikh Abu Nasir. But that was just bullshit. The truth is, I'm a Naz fan. And I just thought I'd name myself after somebody that sins with every syllable that comes out of his mouth.

And he's like, great name. I was like, yeah. So from that point on, he called me Nasser. The guard's always called me Juma. And the funny part of this aspect of the story. is that Theo refused to convert. He's like, I'm not doing it. It's the principle of it.

And I'm like, you know, who cares? Like, none of this is real. Like, what are you talking about? Like, this is fantasy land. Like, you know, this is no, you know, saying you're a Muslim in this environment is no different than telling your kid that there's a Santa. I mean, who gives a damn? And he's just like, I'm not doing it.

And I was just like, all right, whatever. And after I got home, I discovered the reason why he wouldn't convert to Islam was because he already converted to Islam. Years earlier, he got the idea that to make a name for himself as a journalist, because he spoke Arabic, he was going to move to Yemen, feign conversion to Islam, so he can infiltrate the mosques and madrasis and spy on these people, and then go home and write a book bragging about it. And that's what he did.

And he called the book, undercover Muslim. He's so lucky they did not find this stuff. Dude, he and he never told me about it. He let me convert. knowing that if they figured out who he was, they were going to accuse me at doing the same thing and make me suffer for months.

I mean, forget what you see in the movies. It's not going to be like they torture you for a few hours. They're going to torture you for months before cutting my head off to make an example out of me. And he never told me about it because all he cared about was keeping himself safe. And to go back to what you said is he's so lucky. The reason why they didn't find out who he was

was because he changed his name. That's why he had two names. After he wrote this book, he had to change his name to avoid being killed. And, you know, and he still had a Facebook profile page with that name. So if they put that name in and figured out who he was, the first thing that came up was a picture of him standing under a portrait of Bashar Assad. The second thing, the second thing was a picture of his book under a quote that says, I love Iran. Another one of their enemies. Yeah, their favorite people.

This guy's such an idiot. And he screwed up a lot of escape plans. Did you ever think of killing him? I think I would have maybe either tried or been like, hey, y'all should kill this guy. He's trying to escape. Like, I know that sounds callous. I'm not trying to be, I'm not proud of this. No, Jordan, the thing about it is, is that it's practical.

Like, we, like, and I'm, it's funny because I'm like a shame to say that I didn't think of it. Because it makes me feel stupid because, you know, I think anybody with. training would have done that because, you know, he ceases to be an American once he starts siding with al-Qaeda against me. Yeah. Which is what he did. Which is what he did. And I'll be honest with you, the thought never crossed my mind to kill him or get rid of him

or leave him behind. You know, and there are three reasons why. One is, you know, I love our country and I'm proud to be an Americanist. As cheesy as that sounds, and I wanted to uphold, you know, our values. And we don't leave our people behind. And I didn't want to be known as the guy who left him behind. That was like the main reason. The second reason was I wanted him to be held accountable for all the stuff that he was doing that we haven't gotten into.

Like he started siding with the Moroccan setting me up to be tortured, doing all this horrible stuff. And I wanted him to be held accountable for that. And third was he has a mother who was like 80 years old who never did anything to me. And she does not deserve to see her only son get his head cut off. So because of those things, I felt like I had an obligation to do my best to bring him home, no matter how bad he got, no matter how much of a problem he was, I always just wanted to get the two of us out. And, you know, he fought me every step of the way. And, you know, that's why, you know, only one of us ended up escaping. Yeah, I want to hear how this, you had an escape plan.

it gets botched, he decides he's going to basically rat you out, and then you decide, rightfully so, that you have to make him so miserable that he doesn't want to be in the cell with you anymore, and then you find another plan. So tell me about your final escape here. All right. Well, I don't want to describe the escape, because it's the best part of the book. Okay, fair enough. Yeah, that's fair. But I'll describe, you know, basically part of what you asked for. I figured out a way to escape, obviously. And he was the biggest problem when it came to doing it. Because it didn't work out the first time.

And as soon as it didn't work out, he was like, all right, I'm out. And I was just like, okay, fine. I'll do it by myself. And I go in the bathroom to get the bucket because I had to stand on a bucket because we were in a basement cell. And he says, if you knock on that door, if you touch that window, I'm going to knock on the door and I'm going to tell on you. And I just, like, my heart sank. And I was just like, you're going to wrap me out to Al Qaeda.

I was like, what kind of an American are you? What are you going to tell people when you go home? And he's like, I'm going to tell them my side. I'm like, which is? And he's like, you're endangering my life. And I'm like, I'm trying to save your life. And he's like, that's not how I see it. And I was just like, you know what?

F you. And I take a step towards the window. And he turned around and he knocked on the door. And he knocked loud. This is like an iron door. So when you knock on it, it echoes. And he knocked on it loud a bunch of times. And I just froze.

And I was going to hit him with the bucket. Yeah, I would have killed him. I would have killed him right there. That's the closest. That's the closest I came to just like completely finishing him off. And I controlled myself. I just like I pulled back and I was like, no, no, no, you got to get him back on board. You got to do this together.

You got to get him on board. And so how do you get a guy with no street smarts, no common sense? no guts and no balls to agree to break out of a secret Syrian terrorist prison. Conclusion, you make him so miserable. He'd rather die than spend another minute in that room with you. And that's what I did. And it took about three hours. You can be really annoying, obviously, when you need to be.

Yeah. You lock me in a room with you. It doesn't matter who you are. You'd be the Dalai Lama. I can make you pissed off within, you know, three hours. And he just couldn't take it after three hours. He's like, okay, okay, but he wouldn't follow any of my plan. He agreed to do it, but it was like, he was like, I'm going to do it my way.

You do your thing, your way. And I'm like trying to explain to him all these things that he has to do. Like, in order to get out, you have to go with two arms. And he's like, I'm not doing that. And I'm like, you're not going to fit otherwise. And he's like, he's like, no, I'm not going to do that. And I was just like, you have to. He's like, I don't have to.

I used to go slunking. And I'm like, what the fuck? He's splunking. And he's like, it's caving. I know how to contort my body. And I was just like, what are you? Out of your mind? We're trying to escape from a terrorist prisoner.

We have more to worry about to get in our arm jam between a rock and a hard place for 127 hours. And he's like, well, I never saw that movie. And I was just like, oh. And he just, I mean, I am under enough pressure as is in this moment. Like, you got to realize I'm the one who's planning out the entire escape. I'm the one who's staying awake and monitoring everything while he sleeps on the floor with his hands down his pants.

I'm the one who has to go first because there are snipers on the roof across the street. And it's my plan. So if anyone gets shot, it's going to be me. And he has no problem agreeing to that part. But, you know, he's just adding to the problems and fighting me on everything. And, you know, and it just got to the point where I gave up trying to get through to him. And I said, all right, you do it your way. I'll do it my way.

And I got out. He didn't. and the rest you're going to have to read the book to see, because it is one of the most intense chapters that you will ever read. Yeah, it was a good culmination to the story. And, you know, Theo, if people are like, wow, you're really callous, Theo, you know, he, like you said, he doesn't make it out, but he doesn't die there. He ends up getting let out later.

You sent me an interesting piece of news where he basically goes on Al Jazeera and starts smack-talking the people that paid his ransom. Yep. And I'm just like, this guy is absolutely, he has no principles at all for a guy who who did everything because he was so stubborn and principled has absolutely no principles whatsoever. He just does not care. And it's worse. No, it wasn't Al Jazeera. It was Al-Arabia. Oh. Because Qatar, the country of Qatar, paid his ransom.

And they own Al Jazeera. So their enemy is Saudi Arabia. So he went on Saudi Arabia's main news outlet. the people who paid his ransom and said they only did it because they want to use me to finance terrorism. And that just gives you a window into his character because he's making them out to be the bad guy. And he makes me out to be the bad guy. He says that, you know, I can't believe this is a real quote that a man would actually say, but he says that I was like the abusive husband and he was the battered wife, something like that. Yeah, he's just a complete piece of crap. And that was the Moroccan. The Moroccan treated him like that.

But at the same time, you got to understand he's friends with our kidnappers on Facebook. How is that even, I don't even want to get into that. That's just so ridiculous. Yeah. He's friends with them on Facebook. He sent out a tweet, the guy that sold him, the number two of al-Qaeda

in Syria, Katani. He said that he's, he's my homie. So the guys who tortured him and kept him and sold him are basically the good guys and I'm the bad guy and the people who paid his ransom are the bad guy. Even though technically speaking, yeah, they paid his ransom because they do finance terrorist

cutter. We all know that. But I wouldn't care who paid my ransom. You know what I mean? You know, Hitler can come back to life and pay my ransom. You know, I probably wouldn't say anything bad about him after that. Is this Stockholm syndrome or is he just like, I'll do anything for attention? I don't give a crap.

I think it's that. I want attention. And he had this sick desire to be accepted by these people before this. You know what I mean? For all I know, he was trying to be undercover Muslim in Al-Qaeda. And that's how he got, and that's, you know, the part of the story that he left out. But, I mean, he just, he has no loyalty. He has no loyalty to anyone or any country.

and he just basically wants attention and he'll say anything to anyone that will give him a microphone. Do you regret going to Syria? No. Why? Because, I mean, the soldiers who I get locked in a room with for five days,

I get locked in room with them again for a month and a half. And they were like my family and they were the best friends I ever had. And now that the story's over and I got home safely, I wouldn't change anything because that means I would never have gotten to know these guys. And out of the 18 of them, only five have come home.

So 13 of them most probably have been killed. And this book, even though it's not in Arabic or anything, it's just like, you know, it's a testament to the fact that they were once alive. And anyone who reads the book, it doesn't matter if you're in the U.S. military, because a lot of soldiers read my book, you will love these guys. they're just the best. And for that reason and the reason that

I get to give speeches to our soldiers and our Marines and that's just such an amazing feeling. I've always supported the military, but when the military actually supports you in that kind of personal way, it's extremely rewarding and humbling. I know you're speaking a lot to the military.

What were some of the intelligence gathering techniques you used when you got locked up that sort of ended up helping later on. Well, I was in the, and when I was locked up in the hospital, the windows were brand new. And it was obviously that they had just been replaced. And they all had manufacturers labels on them. So I did a pull up on the pipe and I memorized the serial number and the manufacturer. And I gave that information to the FBI so they can hack into the company system and find out who paid for it and is funding these guys where it was delivered and who it was delivered to, which is extremely important.

You know, financing is the heart of these organizations. And so that was one thing. What I mentioned with spotting landmarks and then using satellites to identify them, I did that very successfully. And, you know, just, you know, developing friendships, like with the soldiers who would send me, you know, videos of some of the guys giving interviews on Al Jazeera on their false names or other Arabs. other Arab stations. So there were a lot of things that I did in regards to that out of the top of my head, a lot of other smaller things that I probably haven't thought of in a long time. Do you think you'll ever see some of the guys that did make it out of the prison?

Do you think you'll ever see him again? I hope so. You know, it's kind of a mess over there. The way things are going, the regime will be back in control within the next. Who knows? I mean, it's funny because, you know, now that ISIS is gone, you got to realize the guys that held me, they control all of Idlib province pretty much. So there's still a force to be reckoned with and it's going to take a serious battle to get rid of them. Well, it's a great story. The book was

really interesting as well. And there's a lot of little details in there. Of course, we didn't get to nearly everything today, even though we went really long on the show here, because there's just so many details with like the personalities of the people and the cells and the different transfers and the escape, the final escape attempt and everything, it's just such a crazy mess over there. And, I mean, what are you going to do now besides speaking? Do you feel like, do you have like recurring nightmares about this? Like, do you ever wake up in the middle of the night and you wonder, am I in a basement in Syria? Or you kind of over that?

Never. That's good. No, I mean, I have more aggravation about, you know, the stuff that's kind of happened since I've been home in regards to dealing with the FBI and movie producers who basically all want to just screw me over as if I'm stupid and I'm just going to give them everything for free and, you know, making me famous is like a paycheck and I don't think so, you know, it's a business. And, you know, it's just one, one producer after another insulting my intelligence. What's going on with the FBI?

Well, the FBI, nothing now. I mean since we started fighting, but basically while I was in captivity, there was a Canadian cell within this organization who came in and took all my personal information, my financial information. And they stole over $17,000 from me and wire transfers through eBay and Amazon.com and iTunes and whatnot. And the FBI let them do it. They were monitoring the whole situation. This has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt through Citibank. and they let them steal all the money because they were buying laptops and tablets

and they were obviously putting software and GPSs in the laptops or whatever and then delivering them right into the hands of Al-Qaeda and infiltrating the enemy in a way that they probably never had before. And in the process, they basically hung me out to dry because that information was worth more than my life and statistically speaking,

I was never coming home anyway because nobody has ever escaped from these guys, and we don't pay ransoms. Oh, right. So you're thinking FBI went, well, he's as good as dead. He's not going to need the money. We might as well follow the money.

Yep, let's capitalize. And that's the thing about the FBI. They don't seem to get points for saving good guys. It seems like they only get points for killing bad guys. And, you know, it's just, it's really disheartening because I came home and I did everything I could to help them with the investigation, because I thought they were on my side.

And in the book, you'll see that I basically gave them the information to bring Theo home, that I kept my word. And, you know, he never obviously acknowledges this publicly. And the FBI never acknowledges it publicly. But, you know, and, you know, over time when I, the more difficult my life got because of them, that's when I started investigating everything that happened. And I found emails to my mom six months in telling her that I was okay. From the FBI?

Yeah, from the FBI agent, Lindsay Perodi, to my mother telling her that, you know, everything seems that Matt's the one using his bank accounts and his cell phone. That's insane. So she's lying to your mom, telling her that you're fine because she doesn't want to compromise her investigation. Operation. It's not an investigation. It's an operation now. I see. So they're modifying the laptops, I assume, that they had ordered and putting in data siphons and stuff and backdoor firmware.

Yeah. Yeah. And this FBI agent is so freaking stupid. She's documenting it in emails because she's so certain I'm never coming home. And my mom's an old lady. So she's not going to figure it out. And she's documenting this whole thing. I mean, like, dude, there are emails from Citibank saying she never froze your bank account. We did. And then there's an email from her saying, yeah, I froze your bank account. I mean, it's just, it's astonishing. And the FBI. You know, and you got to realize, like an operation like this is big and it's expensive. You're talking about the FBI, the CIA, the NSA. You're talking about the NGA, the National Geospatial Agency who control our satellites, the State Department, in America, in Turkey, in Syria, in Canada. This is three continents. This is something that was sanctioned way up top by Robert Mueller, of all people,

who was the head of the FBI at the time. So there is no way that the top of the top didn't sanction this. And because of that, they will not investigate any of this. Wow. They will not. They sent me a letter like three years after I, three or four years after I started making complaints saying, we're not going to investigate it. Your claims are whatever, BS.

And there was a signature on it that you can't read. Right, of course. Like I don't want this coming back to land on my desk I'm just going to scribble something on it. Yeah, yeah. It was complete nonsense. And it just shows you how high up it goes because, you know, this FBI agent, like her career is over

because of this. I did an interview on Fox. They had her name her face up. She'll never have a major case again. But if they fire her or admit that they take her off the case, that's like an admission of guilt. And she'll throw them under the bus if she does that. So they're in a position where they have to back this,

this dirty agent no matter what. And you know, you basically have Robert Mueller and then James Comey took over for Mueller. And that's why when I, when I talk about this, people think like, oh, he's like this crazy right wing guy. Hell no. I'm not this crazy right wing guy. I'm an independent who embarrassed to say voted for Obama twice because, you know, all this happened under his administration, so I feel betrayed. But I mean, this isn't an issue of right versus left. This is an issue of right versus wrong. And that's really all I'm interested. And I'm not political. The book is not political.

And I never will be. What do you think the ideal outcome, not ideal, what do you think the government should have done? Because I get not wanting to pay ransoms for terrorists and stuff like that because it does fuel the trade of hostages and all that. What do you think they should have done? Like even this agent, she sounds like a knucklehead, but I kind of like if I put myself in her shoes, I think she did the wrong thing and it was immoral, especially the line to your mom. But I also get her being like, look, we don't even. know if this guy's around anymore, we can at least track these guys and maybe save some other people's lives. I'm guessing that's how she rationalized it, you know? You're right. No, you're

right. I'm totally open to, you know, I'm a very rational person. Like, like, obviously what they did with the laptops, I would have done if I was an agent. My problem is these laptops were delivered to addresses in southern Turkey and two tablets in Canada under the terrorists' real name. Now, why weren't the doors to these locations kicked in? Why did they not wait for somebody to come out and grab him so they can get information to find out if I'm alive, where I am? I mean, these were major leads to, you know, what was supposed to be an investigation to help bring me home.

And they did nothing. What they did was they used the laptops to spy on them. And through that, they probably knew that I was alive. They knew who these Canadians were. Like I said, he mailed one of the mailed two tablets to himself under his real name in Ontario, I believe. I have the receipt. Oh, wow. Yeah.

So you know who this guy is now. You know who is. His name is Hemrick Feet. Okay. His name is Hemrick Feet. And he lives in Canada today, a free man. I can't even believe it. What the hell?

Yeah. Well, if they arrest him, what does that do? That creates a huge spotlight on this case. So the FBI who went through all this. trouble to lock this guy up is now letting him go because they don't want they don't want a spotlight on this case two of them that interrogated me are in custody for the past five or six years and the end and they were going to indict them but once i started fighting with them they didn't have a witness anymore because i was more against the agent than i was them them i understand what they

did and why they did it and i can respect it without respecting them you know what i mean yeah They're my enemy. It's their job to do that. Her, she's supposed to be on my side. And she's stabbing me in the back. That's worse. So then my anger is shifted to her to the one lying to my mother, using me to boost her career. So you have all these guys in custody, all these Canadians, and none of them are ever going to be indicted because of all the shit she did to lock them up.

Unbelievable. And the one in Canada, he'll, he's free. He's living a free. life. Another one, dude, this is the best part. You're going to love this. Took a selfie with Justin Trudeau and put it up on Facebook as his profile picture. It was all over the Canadian press because obviously I gave the CBC the information. And, you know, Trudeau just looked like the biggest jackass day. Yeah. Like, hey, he took a selfie with a guy who helped Al Qaeda kidnap an American. Oops. Yeah. And it's a big close-up. I can send it to you.

And that guy's free. They're all free. And you got to realize, like his house was raided. They, they, they, because I was flown out by the, by the RCMP. And I gave them a huge, uh, interview after the selfie happened because they were in big trouble with the press. And they basically, dude, they basically have these guys in an ironclad case. They raided their houses and they have devices bought with my money in custody. custody. They have a recording of one of them admitting they played it for me. He says Matt Schreier,

that was me while speaking on the phone. They played it for me, a confession, and they will not arrest anyone. Oh, man, I just, I'm like hoping that they've got some other sort of plan, but I don't say they probably just. I've been home six years, man. It's safe to assume. nothing is ever going to happen. Everyone got off Scott Free in the FBI and Al Qaeda. They're both guilty of serious shit, and they're all getting away with it to cover up for this dirty agent. It's so crazy.

This is so crazy. Man, do you ever look these guys up on Facebook, and you're just like, I just want to see what you're doing? Because I would fantasize about going up there and, like, cut the guy wide open. That I fantasized about because, like, what would they do if I went up there and just beat the shit at it? of him. Like, what are you going to do? Yeah. Okay, you'll arrest me. But then what are you going to do? Because the media is going to be all over it. Yeah. Like the RCMP said, they were like, this is going to be the biggest terrorism case in Canadian history. And they were so excited about busting these guys. Like, they said

there's 150 people working on this case for the past three years. And that was years ago when I went there, two years ago. And dude, that's tens of millions of dollars invested in this case. Like, you got of think of it. Like, Kent Starr spent, what, $39 million investigating a blowjob. Yeah. Imagine how much between America and Canada, I bet you're talking about over $100 million, way. And why couldn't Canada independently do something about this?

Because the FBI controls them. I mean, give me a break. He's not going to cooperate with any of this stuff, right? No, I mean, the FBI, they're like the FBI's lap dog. I mean, the FBI feeds them so much information about. about threats that come to them. And, you know, there was a spy a couple years ago for Russia and the FBI gave them the information so they can basically nab the guy who was in their Navy.

I mean, the FBI, you know, they have their tentacles and everything. No, nobody has the guts to stand up to them except, you know, the guy who was held to by al-Qaeda for seven months. But as far as getting anything actually done, I mean, you need political backing. And this is just one thing that nobody wants. to get their hands dirty with. The only person that had the guts to tell this story was Catherine Herridge

and her producer, Pam Brown, who did a phenomenal job on Fox. But because it was on Fox, everybody looked at it as it being political. And they didn't tell it in a political way. They told it straight up the way it was, and they did a phenomenal job doing it. This is such an interesting story.

Gosh, so crazy. The book, of course, we'll link in the show notes, man, thank you very much for coming on the show and being so open about all this. Hey, anytime, man. It's a great conversation. I never got interviewed by a fellow kidnappy before.

That's right. Yeah, it's pretty rare opportunity for me to. Grab a drink. You could give me the details on your dirty little experiences. Yeah, man. You got it. Great big thank you to Matt Schreier. The book is called The Dawn Prayer

or How to Survive in a Secret Syrian Terrorist Prison. And it's not really hyperbole. This book was an interesting read. It just really didn't want to be in that same situation as him. This book will make you think twice about adventure travel. Not that I was planning to go to Syria anytime soon, but man, this just really, this story was really harrowing. And the guy he was with made me want to murder him seriously.

That guy. I mean, seriously. I don't know how that guy's still alive. If I was Matthew, I would have, like, hunted this guy down and made sure that he had a horrible end. He's the most annoying person. Yeah. Even in interviews now, you see him. He's so punch.

You know what a punchable face is? Yeah. It's just that guy. This guy is the punchable. punchable face embodied is a terrible person. If you want to know how we manage to book all these great people and manage our relationships using systems and tiny habits to generate great guests for the show, create opportunities in business and in life, I mean, this is not some sort of vague skill set.

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