How to Avoid Being Killed in a War Zone Read online

  /TEA AND COFFEE

  Countries of the Middle East, Asia and the Orient each have their own obsession with tea and coffee. It varies from country to country, and even from town to town.

  In the Arab world the tea might come in a tiny cup, but after hours of brewing and often ladles of sugar, it will pack a punch. The coffee is delicious, cardamom-rich stuff in some areas, and just plain strong in others. It is not usually filtered, so don’t gulp down the muddy end of the cup. They will tap it out when you are offered more…and you will be offered more, and more and more until you can barely remember what it was like not to have every half hour and meeting punctuated with the ritual of pouring. It was when I totted up eight strong, sweet coffees in a day in Iraq that I knew it had to stop.

  Ian Mackinnon is a freelance journalist, now based in Bangkok, where he used to be the Guardian newspaper’s Southeast Asia correspondent. Before that he spent years earning his stripes as Jerusalem correspondent for The Times newspaper, and as a Delhi freelancer in and out of Afghanistan and Pakistan. He told me about his various tea and coffee experiences:

  ‘Accepting chai (in India), hot sweet tea in Afghanistan, tea with mint in the Palestinian territories, or sweet ‘mud’ coffee is an occupational hazard. You’ve no choice but to accept as it’s part of the hospitality, and to refuse would be impolite and rather militate against breaking the ice. In martyrs’ mourning tents accepting seems doubly important. Drink slowly if sweet “anything” would be your last choice because your cup will be refilled again and again. You’ll get used to it eventually and may even develop a taste for it.

  ‘The problem is that after the fifth or tenth interview of the day, and many more during the week, you’ll risk getting fat. Worse, in the short term you’ll be bursting for a pee, even in the heat of an Afghan or Gazan summer when you’re sweating buckets. It’s a bigger problem for women, as they’re forced to brave filthy loos. Even for men there are perils to peeing al fresco. In Afghanistan don’t be tempted to wander off the road to pee modestly under a tree. The lurking landmines might take off your foot and spoil the whole day. Standing to pee against a wall is offensive too in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and risks offending local modesty, where it’s polite to squat down. It’s no mean feat.’

  FAILSAFE RULES IN ISLAMIC COUNTRIES

  /WORKING WITH THE MILITARY

  There are two options when dealing with the military: blend in with them and be a legitimate target in the eyes of any opposing force, or stand out from the green or khaki crowd and potentially become a target just because you look different. You might be targeted just because you are a medic, teacher or journalist, and your injury or death is more valuable than the average soldier.

  You have to find a way to remain independent while firmly hugged in the arms of the army. I always chose to wear my scruffy press uniform – an enormous shirt and sagging trousers – when I was out on the occasional foray with British forces. Another essential piece of kit was the look I perfected of sympathetic innocence any time we went through the badlands of Basra. I would try to catch the eyes of boys throwing stones and smile as they bounced off my helmet. When it came to winning the troops over, I always worked on making myself very small, almost invisible and out of the way. That is not always easy if you have a lot of kit. You are often reliant on the military for your safety. Don’t piss them off.

  Tim Albone told me: ‘Nothing, I imagine, annoys the military more than a scruffy journalist. Soldiers have to wear uniform, shave daily and have their hair cut above the collar: journalists don’t. Having someone hanging around asking lots of questions must be annoying enough. When they are dressed in baggy clothes, with long hair and unshaven, like I often am, it must be worse. When I first went on an embed [an attachment to a military unit in combat] an older, much more experienced journalist told me to cut my hair, tuck my shirt in and have a shave. It was pretty good advice. The more you blend in, the more likely it is that soldiers will open up to you.’

  Julius Cavendish is the Independent newspaper’s correspondent in Kabul. He spends a lot of time under canvas on embeds with the military of one sort or another. And, as he explained to me over lunch one day in London, he is learning how to adapt all the time. ‘Putting sniper tape over shiny karabiners and wearing more military-issue clothing so you blend in better with soldiers works. It’s a matter of making the people around you feel comfortable because part of your job is, like a doctor, asking them to lie down and take off their emotional clothing. Otherwise, just try to be nice, despite whatever frustrations Western armies throw at you as you try to report. Being a pushy pain is the best way to alienate people.

  ‘And take booze. It’s an easy way to buy yourself some friends, especially in countries like Afghanistan, where it’s hard to obtain. This doesn’t hold when you’re interviewing Al Qaeda-inspired fighters, who may be put out by the gesture.’

  Patrick Hennessey graduated from being a fellow cider fan with me at university to becoming the youngest captain in the British Army. He has served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and his bestselling book, The Junior Officers’ Reading Club, describes fighting the Taliban in 2007 and how his experiences actually pushed the army to change their rules of engagement. He’s now a civilian studying to become a barrister, and revisiting Afghanistan for various publications – a bit of an unnerving experience, given what he knows about the way the Taliban fight:

  ‘We find ourselves in an age of messy and complex conflicts in which the lines between combatant and non-combatant are blurred. Listening to intercepts of Taliban radio communications in southern Afghanistan provides chilling insight to how ruthless a modern enemy can be. Having noticed that medics often carry scissors somewhere immediately accessible, snipers are instructed to target anyone carrying first-aid kits or scissors at the start of an ambush. Perhaps of even greater concern to civilians is that the same commanders are well aware that anyone in “blue armour” is likely to be either press or some sort of visiting VIP, and is also to be targeted where possible. The highest protection in some conflict zones, it seems, is now afforded by looking as much as possible like a regular soldier, and although I was cursing that I no longer had a rifle, I was very glad I had my old, desert-cam body armour.’

  And Tom Coghlan offers one last tip for travelling with the ‘Allies’: ‘If you embed with US forces, one way to ingratiate yourself immediately is to turn up with packs of Copenhagen Black tobacco – the ghastly chewing stuff. Most American soldiers from the Deep South love it. They tend to be the majority in any army or marine unit. You are “in like Flynn” if you turn up with this stuff. British units are delighted with cheap cigarettes of the Lambert & Butler type.’

  /MAKING FRIENDS

  ‘In any foreign country,’ says Patrick Hennessey, ‘particularly one that may be hostile, making a friend might be the smartest tactical move available, which is why talking to anyone and everyone you meet is a good start.’

  Everyone I have ever known who went to a war zone talks of the friends they made there – quick friendships forged in fear, and slow-burning ones developed over many, many months stuck in the same foxhole…or hotel. Those friendships will inform your stay, help you remain sane and maybe even save your life.

  Zeina Khodr recommends: ‘Win over the people of the area. They are the ones who will save you, no one else. Except God, of course. In Tripoli, in Lebanon there are so many factions that it is hard to convince them you are independent. We took the time to get to know the hierarchy locally, in the shops, on the street. Halfway through a gunfight some people came up and put guns to our heads. A shopkeeper approached the men and said that we were good people and told them that I had been filming kids who were shot and that we were on the side of the people. They put down their guns and went away.’

  The locals have to know that you are on their side, as James Brandon discovered: ‘In mid-2004 I found myself stuck in traffic in a taxi near the Iraqi oil ministry. US troops nearby had set up an impromptu road
block on a main road that was holding up the traffic ahead. With the windows wound down, the Iraqis caught in the jam soon started talking to each other from car to car. Before long, they discovered I was a Westerner. To make friends, I joined them in complaining about the US troops who were holding us up. Temperatures rose and the traffic showed no sign of moving. Tensions soon began to mount. Complaints that were initially addressed towards the soldiers and towards the West in general were increasingly being addressed to me personally by the increasingly pissed-off Iraqis in the traffic jam. I had to show the Iraqis that I was in the same situation as them, and defuse the growing anger against me.

  ‘Taking a deep breath, I got out of the taxi and walked up to the US roadblock. In full view of the backed-up traffic jam, I had a loud argument with the troops on the inequities of their traffic policy, ignoring the soldiers’ guns that occasionally wavered towards my chest. The soldiers were, of course, unmoved by my arguments, but as I walked back towards the traffic jam, Iraqis gave me the thumbs up, patted me on the shoulder and offered me cigarettes. The moment of crisis had passed.’

  But remain wary of fake friends. People will lie to you in order to get close to your fat wallet of dollars. They’ll tell you the stories you want to hear, rather than the truth, in order to win you over. They’ll lie about fellow workers in order to see them fired. They will lie about their qualifications and background in order to get a job they think might get them out of the country. And, worst of all, they might get paid to be your friend, in order to spy on you or lead you down a path to danger. Hoda Abdel-Hamid, an Al Jazeera English correspondent, told me about her dodgy experience:

  ‘I went to Iraq thinking, “I speak Arabic. I look like an Arab. No one will get me,” but I was just as vulnerable. We almost got kidnapped and killed on an empty university campus. Some guys circled us as we were interviewing someone. A professor called out of a window to warn us. She told us they were mujahideen [guerrilla fighters]. So we had been talking politely to our potential kidnappers. They were well dressed, well spoken and they had no weapons. We were going to follow them. Then all hell broke loose.’

  Afghan jokes are impenetrable, so don’t try to make them. However, if you want to get in with a bunch of Afghans and they ask you any sort of question you don’t know the answer to, shrug and reply: ‘Because the sky is blue and the sea is green.’ When it is translated to them they will all fall about laughing and think you are quite the wit. Tom Coghlan

  3/ Getting Around in a Dangerous Place

  Be careful what you carry in a war zone. Take no detailed maps, no compass and no binoculars. Sebastian Junger, journalist and author

  ‘Let’s make it a journey,’ I said to my friend as we looked at the map of Mali and decided how we were going to get to Timbuktu for a music festival in the Sahara. There was a flight that would have plopped us a two-hour jeep ride away across the dunes. But instead it was adventure we sought, and boy did we pay for it.

  A price agreed over the Internet was dismissed by our guide Aly Guindo when he picked me up from the airport. He had ‘forgotten to include the petrol’ and that was going to cost us $800 extra. Haggling was worthless; his gang had a monopoly on four-wheel drives, so we had little choice but to pay and go.

  It was a beautiful morning as we rode through town, watching people set up their markets, crossing rivers busy with fishermen, passing mosques and churches sitting on top of each other. Aly talked of a four-hour drive to a world-famous mud mosque followed by four hours till dinner and sleep. Fourteen hot, sticky hours later he showed us our bed – a rooftop without a mattress or anywhere to hang a mosquito net. Or, we were told, ‘You can pay more money for a room.’ More money it was. And raucous laughter when we assumed the food was included (as they had told us when we made the deal).

  The next day it was 16 hours at 100 kph across a ridged desert road. We turned orange in the dust that flowed in waves through the door. It was like being tied to a mechanical digger with five other people, relieved intermittently by river crossings in the scorching sun.

  The final push was to Timbuktu. And our guide knew it was his last chance to get a tip. He told us he hadn’t been paid and that we needed to give him money so he could feed his family…and what seemed to us all to be a very heavy drug habit. We refused. Now everyone felt ripped off.

  Eventually we made it, paying again at the door for our pre-paid tickets, and walked into what felt like a refugee camp. Tuareg families huddled around fires. Fat tourists, wearing blue Tuareg scarves to cover their burnt foreheads, stumbled around in the sand. We joined them, looking for our part of the camp. I had the name scribbled on a piece of paper, but had no idea where it might be, or who I could call to find out. But we did find it and thought the organizers were lovely until they charged us double too.

  On the last morning, when our red-eyed driver turned up to take our bags to the car, we told him that he could give our seats to one of the six extra people we found sitting on the roof of his jeep. We had managed to get ourselves two precious tickets for a flight to Bamako, the capital of Mali. After three bone-rattling days on the road, followed by four in boiling-hot Sahara sunshine during the daytime and freezing temperatures at night, plus a good dose of food poisoning, we felt we deserved them.

  I broke every rule I know about travelling during that holiday, all for the romance of the journey. It started with not following my instincts when Aly Guindo began to barter with me from the moment I left the airport.

  /USE YOUR INSTINCT

  Your first and last tool should be your instinct. When you are on the move in a dangerous world you have to make snap judgements. Trust your instincts. If you feel something isn’t right although it looks like the perfect day for it, whatever it is, stop and turn back.

  Sherine Tadros told me a story that she attributes to diet-spurred guilt, but is probably as much to do with instinct: ‘Dr Atkins [of diet fame] saved my life. On the first night of the war in Gaza – 27 December 2008 – we were filming live shots from the main hospital in Gaza City. When we were done I was starving; we hadn’t stopped for 12 hours, since the first bombs started falling. There’s a great falafel stand next to the hospital, so I asked the team if we could stop and get a sandwich. When we got there I had an attack of food guilt: it was 11 p.m. – I shouldn’t be eating fried food and carbs. So we left it and went back to the office. A few minutes later we heard a huge explosion. The falafel stand and everyone in its proximity was blown up. Had we got the sandwiches, we would almost certainly have been killed. They say you should always trust your gut. Suffice to say that every decision you make in a war zone is vital and has consequences. Go with your instincts but realize that when it’s your time to go it’s your time to go.’

  /COMMUNICATION IS KEY

  You should have a communications system in place from the moment you arrive. And even if all is quiet, it needs to be enforced from day one. Regular calls into base and from base should be established, even if it is just to say hello three times a day. This is especially key when you are travelling. Your point person should know where you are going, when you expect to arrive, the route you are travelling, and the plane, train or vehicle you are using to get there. You should arrange a time to call them when you arrive, and if you haven’t arrived by that time, you need to find a way to call in before they begin to panic. Communication is a priority.

  Leith Mushtaq told me about the arrangements he made: ‘I made a deal with my base: “I will text you every hour. If I stop sending you texts, you must send help and try to find me.” And I keep drafts of two text messages, saying “We have been arrested” and “We have been kidnapped”. When we get stopped, before they take away the phone, I can send it.’

  Being able to communicate is also vital if or when your vehicle breaks down. Make a note of a safe taxi number, along with your hotel address in the local language. Use your hotel’s taxi service when possible.

  /TAP INTO LOCAL KNOWLEDGE

  The peo
ple you rely on from the area you are visiting will provide you with invaluable guidance on how to live your life in their world. You need to create a careful balance between respect for their opinion and faith in your own instincts.

  Tom Coghlan spent five years in Kabul as a freelance reporter. He worked with Afghan journalists, who risked their lives on a daily basis to bring news from their country to the world. As Tom admits, over time and through the forest of a long-established beard, it is all too easy forget that you are only a visitor:

  ‘In 2006 I pushed my fixer to come with me into a market in the town of Maiwand, near Kandahar, which he said was full of Taliban. I wanted a vox pop [soundbites from the man on the street] on the day the British announced their deployment to neighbouring Helmand. (It seemed appropriate because the town had seen the great defeat of British troops in 1882, during the Second Afghan War.) I overruled my fixer’s misgivings and we went in there, though I persuaded two local militiamen to come too.

  ‘The first person we tried to speak to looked at us with incredulity and terror, and said his shop was now closed. Although I was dressed as an Afghan and trying to be discreet, few locals seemed to be fooled. We quickly found a crowd building around us. Our so-called bodyguards looked increasingly frightened. A man gestured at me and I tried to shake his hand. He continued to talk and gesture, as a look of increasing panic and indecision came into the eyes of our bodyguards. My fixer explained later that the man and other members of the crowd were trying to persuade the guards to shoot me as a spy and enemy of Muslims. The guards were unsure what to do, but my fixer was assertive and quick-witted, and dominated the indecision within the crowd for the crucial minute it took to pull me out of there.