Kevin Edminster

09/20/2015
English 2010
True Face Of ISIL
Beheading, executions, slavery, rape, racism, and torture as a hostage of the terrorist group known as
The Islamic State in Syria and Levant (ISIL) those were the things I saw almost everyday. I remember
one terrible day that stands out against all the other horrible days I endured. It was some time in early
January our captors took one young Arab man from the group of hostages, his name was Mauth ALkasasbeh and he was a pilot for the Jordanian Air Force but had been shot down while on a mission
against ISIL, after the guards took Mauth they came back and marched the rest of the prisoners out side
where we saw Mauth locked inside a cage wearing the same Orange jump suits that we were all forced
to wear. I almost immediately noticed that the guards had setup some filming and broadcasting
equipment and I knew right away what was about to happen. A man dressed entirely in black stood next
to the cage and started to speak in Arabic, which I dont understand, after a moment or two of speaking
the man took a can of gasoline and poured it all over Mauth then the guard stood to the side and took a
lighter out and set him on fire. I will never forget his horrible screams of pain and his pleas to save him.
As I watched this horrific event unfold in front of me I remember the first time I met Mauth. I had
already been a hostage for sometime although I dont know how long exactly. The guards brought him
in severely beaten yet Mauth still had spirit and even though he was injured he did everything he could
to care for and treat the other prisoners with what skills he had learned from the military.

I first came to the Syria because I wanted to help people in this war ravaged country, I came here
naively thinking that because I was here to help that I would be left alone by the various groups
fighting for control of this country. Sadly I was proven wrong. While I was sleeping at an aid camp
setup in Aleppo Syria when three armed men camp barging in the front of my tent and grabbed me, I
tried to yell but one of the armed men hit me in the stomach with his rifle butt and told me if your
arent quite we will kill you right now. At that time I didnt fully understand what was happening I
just thought to myself I am about to die over and over. The armed men took me to their truck and put
a bag over my head then whacked me on the back with a rifle again and this time I almost blacked out
and was in such a daze that I didnt know what was happening around me until the next day. When I
finally came to I saw I was in a room filled with men and women and the majority of them looked like
they were Arab. It took me a moment or two to notice that my hands were bound together behind my
back and I saw that everyone else was also bound and more then a few of the people in the room
seemed like they had been beaten very badly. The next day I was beaten by some of the guards so
severely that my right eye swelled up so much I couldnt see out of it and it felt like half my rib bones
were broken. After they beat me they forced me into an orange jump suit and paraded me in front of a
camera and forced me to kneel, a man wearing all black stood next to me and spoke English with a
British accent this man is now our captive and we will execute him unless our comrades held in prison
are set free. Days turned into weeks and each day was the same, the guards would come in and take
the men out one by one and they would beat us, electrocute us, water-board us and would tell us this is
what Americans do to Arabs(Castillo, 3) and while this was happening other guards would come and
they would pick a few women and put them in middle of the room and force the rest of the men and
women to the sides and they would rape the girls making everyone in the room watch, later I found out
that there were families, fathers, mothers, sisters in their watching their loved one be tortured and
raped. It seemed every few days some older and seemingly important men would come and they would

choose one or to girls usually the young one to take with them, when this happened we all knew what
was happening to these girls and our fears were confirmed when one day one of the girls they had taken
was thrown back into this make shift prison and she told us that these young women had been forced
into slavery and raped repeatedly and several had been executed for refusal to submit. (Wood, 6)

Each day we were given only a little food just enough to survive off of but not enough to ever end the
feeling of hunger. Every morning the guards would bring us a copy of the Quran in English and they
would tell us to read it, several of the prisoners converted to Islam in the hopes that it would get them
slightly better treatment from the guards but it never did. There was one man there his name was Peter
Kassig, he was a young American and he had served in the United States Army as a Ranger and had
done several tours of duty in Iraq. Kassig was different from the rest of the prisoners in that he
converted to Islam and changed his name to Abdul Rahman Kassig (Davidson, 4). Kassig made this
conversion out of a true belief. When the time came and the guards took Kassig to be executed they
told him Islamic or not you are still a Western dog. When our captors force Kassig to kneel down and
look at the camera, Kassig refused to beg for his life instead he held his head high until his last
moment.

Our only chance for news about the outside world is when the guards bring in another hostage. One
hostage that had just arrived was a Kurdish man who told us about the amount of land that ISIL had
manage to win in its war against Iraq and Syria. Sadly he told us of how ISIL had taken it upon
themselves to destroy every ancient ruin in the area especially in the town of Palmyra. He also told us
about how theyre a coalition of nation including the United States that have started to take more direct
action against ISIL, in the form of air strikes. However after witnessing such horrible things as
beheading, rape, slavery, and that terrible death by fire I cant help but think that the civilized nations of

the world need to take more direct firm action against ISIL. As a hostage you cant help but hope that
something will happen that will save you from the horrors you suffer. Each day I hope we will hear
news of strong military intervention against ISIL by the United States that will be able to set me and the
others free from the monsters of ISIL.

Work Cited

Castillo, M. (2014, September 1). Report: ISIS waterboarded captives - CNN.com.

Retrieved September 21, 2015,
Davidson, A. (2014, November 17). The Mystery of Abdul-Rahman, or Peter Kassig The New Yorker. Retrieved September 21, 2015,
Wood, P. (2014, December 22). Islamic State: Yazidi women tell of sex-slavery
trauma - BBC News. Retrieved September 21, 2015,