A captive reporter's story

Phil Sands, a British freelance reporter who was held captive by insurgents for six days in Iraq, tells his story in the Washington Post.

Sands, who writes frequently for British GQ, was kidnapped the day after Christmas:

A pair of sedans blocked the empty road I was traveling down with my driver and translator; men in balaclavas clutching AK-47s jumped out. Tied-up, blindfolded, my mobile phones taken, I was bundled into the trunk.

Sands goes on to describe his time in captivity, and describes the relationships he formed with his captors. He was freed on New Year's Eve when U.S. troops, on a routine raid, searched the house where he was being held. He writes:

Over the next days and weeks I learned more about the fate of the two men who were with me when I was kidnapped. My translator and friend, Salam, was taken hostage, too. Held separately from me, he was also found by the Americans, who treated him as a suspect. He endured six further weeks of custody in Abu Ghraib before being released. He talks of his time there as every bit as frightening as that spent with the mujaheddin.

My driver was apparently not a hostage, and investigators believe he may have delivered us to the insurgents. If so, I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he had no other choice -- perhaps his family had been threatened.

I harbor no hatred toward the people who kidnapped and threatened to kill me. There was, and still is, a mixture of fear, sorrow, fondness and anger in my sentiments. If I think about them now, in all likelihood suffering the misery of Abu Ghraib, I pity them. They are almost certainly being treated worse by their captors than I was by mine.

Sands also answered readers' questions in a live chat on the Post website. An extended version of his story appears in this month's issue of British GQ (not available online, unfortunately).