Jürgen Todenhöfer - My Journey into the Heart of Terror: Ten Days in the Islamic State

Numbers in bold refer to images

Abraham (prophet)

Abu Loth (escort in IS )

Abu Mariam ( IS fighter)

Abu Qatadah, see also

Abu Usama al-Gharib, see also

Achromejew, Sergei (Marshal)

Adnani, Abu Mohammad al- (spokesperson for IS )

Ahmad ( IS fighter)

Ahmed ( IS fighter)

Allende, Salvador

Almani, Abu Talha al-, see also

Assad, Bashar al

Aylwin, Patricio (Chilean politician)

Baghdadi, Abu Abdullah al-Rashid

Baghdadi, Abu Bakr al- (head of IS )

Barre, Siad

Barzani, Masud

Baudicour, Louis de

Baumann, Thomas

Begin, Menachem

Berg, Nicholas (executed U.S. hostage)

Bilal (prayer caller)

bin Laden, Osama

Blair, Tony

Brandt, Willy

Breivik, Anders

Brezhnev, Leonid

Burak (German IS fighter)

Bush, George W.

Cameron, David

Cantlie, John (British correspondent kidnapped by IS )

Carter, Jimmy

Cheney, Dick

Christian E., see also Abu Qatadah

Churchill, Winston

Clark, Wesley

David (King)

Deso Dogg, see also

Einstein, Albert

Flynn, Michael

Foley, James (executed U.S. journalist)

Gaddafi, Muammar al

Gandhi, Indira

Gandhi, Mahatma

Gauck, Joachim

Genghis Khan (Mongol leader)

Glucksmann, Andr

Goto, Kenji (executed Japanese journalist)

Habash, George

Hackensberger, Alfred

Hashim, Hasan Mohammad ( IS prisoner)

Hitler, Adolf

Hugo, Victor

Huntington, Samuel

Hussein (friend of the author)

Hussein, Saddam

Jesus

Jihadi John ( IS terrorist)

Julani, Abu Mohammad al- (leader of Jabhat al-Nusra)

Karzai, Hamid

Kassig, Peter

Kissinger, Henry

Krabbe, Gnter

Kujat, Harald

Maliki, Nouri al

Manal (U.S. Iraqi prisoner)

Masri, Abu Ayyub al- ( ISI leader)

Melek, Abdul

Merkel, Angela

Messi, Lionel

Mohamed Mahmoud, see also

Montalva, Eduardo Frei (Chilean politician)

Moses (prophet)

Muhajir, Abu Abdullah al- ( IS extremist ideologue)

Muhammad (Prophet)

Mullah Omar

Nasrallah, Hassan

Noah (prophet)

Nur ad-Din (Syrian regent)

Obama, Barack

Peck, Edward

Philip B. (German suicide bomber)

Pinker, Steven

Pinochet, Augusto

Pohl, Ines

Pol Pot

Powell, Colin

Rami ( IS fighter)

RamiAlLolah

Reagan, Ronald

Ribry, Franck

Robben, Arjen

Robert B. (German soldier, convert)

Ronaldo, Cristiano

Rumsfeld, Donald

Salah ad-Din (Saladin) (liberator of Jerusalem)

Salim (foreign fighter)

Sartre, Jean-Paul

Scholl-Latour, Peter

Shamir, Yitzhak

Sherbini, Marwa el- (Muslim murdered in Germany)

Siddiqui, Aafia (Pakistani terror suspect)

Solana, Javier

Sotloff, Steven

Stalin, Joseph

Steinmeier, Frank-Walter

Tocqueville, Alexis de

Todenhfer, Franoise

Todenhfer, Nathalie

Todenhfer, Valerie

Ustinov, Peter

Vogel, Pierre (Salafi)

Westergaard, Kurt (Danish cartoonist)

Yukawa, Haruna (executed Japanese hostage)

Zarqawi, Abu Musab al- (Iraqi terrorist, member of al-Qaeda)

Zawahiri, Ayman al- (bin Ladens representative)

Copyright 2016 by Jrgen Todenhfer
Translation copyright 2016 by A.O. May
All photographs copyright 2016 by Frederic Todenhfer,
except photographs 17 and 47, which are taken from IS videos
Maps copyright 2016 by Peter Palm, Berlin
Originally published in Germany as Inside IS by C. Bertelsmann Verlag in 2015

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a license from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For a copyright license, visit accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

Greystone Books Ltd.
greystonebooks.com

Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada
ISBN 978-1-77164-224-8 (cloth)
ISBN 978-1-77164-225-5 (epub)

Editing by A.O. May
Copyediting by Shirarose Wilensky
Cover design by Peter Cocking
Cover photo collage by Frederic Todenhfer

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the British Columbia Arts Council, the Province of British Columbia through the Book Publishing Tax Credit, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.

For Frederic, who made a huge contribution to the journey and to the development of this book. Without him this book would not exist.

IN THE MANY court cases I have been involved in, first as a junior lawyer and later in my short time as a judge, I often found myself on an emotional roller coaster. After the prosecutors arguments, I usually thought the accused was a scheming scoundrel. But as soon as the defense made its case, everything looked completely different. I was all for leniency. Assessing who was right and to what extent were the most difficult decisions of my life. One side is hardly ever completely without fault, and there are almost always arguments in favor of the other side. Rarely did I feel that the final decision was absolutely correct.

The lesson I took from this was that if you want to find the truth, you must speak to both sides. Even when the world has already pronounced its judgment. An important principle of Roman law is audiatur et altera pars (listen to the other side). So in the eighties, I spent time with different groups of mujahideen in what was then Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. Then I spoke twice with Marshal Sergei Achromejew, the head of the Soviet military in Moscow, even though the Soviet government had publicly declared that if they caught me, they would have me flogged and then shot. For hours we discussed whether it would not be smarter for the Soviet Union to withdraw from Afghanistan. Achromejew was a very open man and he knew how to listen.

It was Easter 1975 when I met with the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in Punta Arenas to negotiate the release of 4,500 political prisoners, most of whom were Marxists. But I was also there to understand the situation in Chile after the fall of Salvador Allende. After meeting with Pinochet, I flew to the capital, Santiago, to speak with the leaders of the opposition, the Christian Democrats Eduardo Frei Montalva and Patricio Aylwin. Back in Germany, I was subjected to a torrent of abuse for my attempt to build an objective picture of the situation. I was labeled a supporter of dictatorships. Even though many thousands of prisoners were later set free, this did not change the fact that for many years I was drowned out at large events by the chants of furious crowds waving banners depicting Pinochet.

Despite this, in my search for the truth I stuck with my strategy of speaking with both sides whenever possible. Mostly this strategy garnered indignant protests from those who pass judgment on the world from the comfort of their armchairs and are convinced that they alone are in possession of the truth. I spoke on numerous occasions with Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, but I also spoke with leaders of the Afghan Taliban. For countless deskbound strategists, such as the former chief of staff of the German armed forces Harald Kujat, I was from then on the mouthpiece of the Taliban. For others I was quite simply a terrorist sympathizer.