In a Daesh prison, he had no hope - but then he heard the drones

Arbil, Iraq: Before Kurdish and US commandos arrived at his cell door last month, Hassan Abu Ahmad had not seen daylight for five months.

Held in a Daesh prison near the northern Iraqi town of Hawijah, the 46-year-old was accused of being a spy and regularly tortured.

Sometimes a plastic bag was placed over his face until he nearly suffocated. He was electrocuted, beaten with plastic pipes and whipped with electric cable. There were mock executions.

“They’d put a gun to your head and [say] we are going to kill you now, and then shoot next to you,” Abu Ahmad said. “We always feared execution.”

Two prisoners held in the facility described life in a Daesh prison and the mission that set them free. The operation, which a Kurdish commando also detailed, freed 69 detainees and was the first confirmed time that US troops had directly accompanied Iraqi forces on the battlefield in the fight against Daesh.

But the raid also claimed the life of a US soldier, the first killed in combat since troops returned last year, highlighting the cost the United States faces amid a Pentagon push to expand military involvement in Iraq and Syria. Defence Secretary Ashton Carter recently summed up the new US strategy against Daesh as the “three Rs”: Raqqa, Ramadi and raids. Raqqa is the group’s stronghold in Syria, and the Iraqi city of Ramadi was captured by the terrorists earlier this year.

The raid in Hawijah was supposed to be led by Kurdish forces, but US troops were called in when they were pinned down.

Kurdish authorities had received intelligence that captured Kurdish soldiers, known as peshmerga, were being held at the makeshift prison. A mass grave measuring about 20 yards long had been dug on the prison’s grounds, and it was feared the detainees would soon be killed.

The operation was planned over five days, said a Kurdish commando who participated in the raid and spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing security protocol. The United States was asked to play a “logistics and support” role.

On October 21, the day before the raid, Abu Ahmad said he heard drones buzzing overhead from the cell he shared with dozens of other prisoners who had run afoul of Daesh’s draconian laws.

Abu Ahmad had been accused of supplying information to Kurdish authorities, something he admits he had done.

“I was giving information to people here because we wanted our areas to be liberated,” he said. “Eyewitness observation of what was happening in the area, numbers of Daesh people, whether they had any intention to attack,” he said.

Abu Ahmad’s frequent trips to the nearby city of Kirkuk, outside Daesh’s territory, had raised suspicions. When the terrorists seized control of Hawijah, about 150 miles north of Baghdad, in June 2014, he had resisted pressure to join them.

“They knew me personally very well, my family, my tribe,” he said. “They were looking for influential people to join.”

Life in the town went from “white to black” when the militants took over, he said.

In May, five armed Daesh members appeared at his house to arrest him. After he was blindfolded and driven to prison that day, he did not see daylight for another five months.

He said he prayed for rescue but had little hope it would come.

But at 2am on October 22, Kurdish special forces launched their mission — accompanied by about 30 US troops. US Chinook and Black Hawk helicopters also took part.

Abu Ahmad heard the helicopters draw closer. When the guards started shouting, he realised that a rescue attempt was under way.

“Paratroopers, paratroopers!” the guards yelled in the confusion, he said. US and Kurdish officials say no paratroopers were involved, with helicopters landing about 30 yards from the prison.

In another cell, Qasim Awad, 36, was jolted awake by the shouting guards.

“We heard the helicopters,” he said. “We were all scared and went to the bathroom and hid.”

Awad said he was in prison for attempting to escape Hawijah with his two wives and 10 children. He had been in prison for about two weeks before the rescue attempt.

The prisoners’ accounts of why they were held could not be independently verified. A Kurdish security officer was present during their interviews, which took place in a security building in Arbil. Two weeks after the raid, the former detainees are still being processed by Kurdish and US authorities, with concerns that some may be Daesh sympathisers who were arrested for minor offences.

Awad said the prison’s main interrogator, a terrorist from neighbouring Diyala province, was called “Abu Hajjar.” Awad, a truck driver who had served in the Iraqi military, said he lost some of his hearing after being beaten on the head with a plastic pipe.

“I confessed,” he said. “I couldn’t handle the torture. Other prisoners told me about the electric shocks, and I couldn’t handle it. I decided death was the best way out, but then they came.”

Awad had put his fingerprint to a written confession, though he doesn’t know what it said because he was blindfolded at the time, he said.

He said he had been told that he was awaiting judgement from a Daesh court, but he was expecting to be executed.

On the night of the raid, the Kurdish commando said his team came under fire from the prison guards as soon as the helicopters landed. The plan was for Kurdish forces to take the lead.

“They attacked us straight away,” he said. “At that stage we were leading the offensive.” The Kurdish forces fought back, killing two guards, he said. His team attempted to enter one of several buildings in the prison, formerly a house.

But then they came under fire again. “We were involved in an intense firefight so we requested support [from the Americans],” the commando said. “During that intense firefight, it was unfortunate that the American officer was martyred.”

When the US forces and Kurdish forces reached Awad’s cell, he said, one prisoner who spoke some English cried out, “Please help us! Please help us!” The prisoners were searched and handcuffed before being sat on the grounds to wait to be airlifted out.

Kurdish forces searched for their peshmerga colleagues, but none were found.

Six Daesh terrorists were arrested, according to Kurdish authorities, and 20 were killed. In a video released in the aftermath, Daesh said just six militants had held off the attack, which it described as a “failed operation”. Twenty-five prisoners were killed, it claimed. The video showed four peshmerga being executed on the bombed remains of the compound in retaliation for the raid.

“Obama, you have learned a new lesson,” a masked Daesh terrorist said in the video. “You did not gain anything, you returned to your bases, and with losses and humiliation.”

The American killed was Master Sgt. Joshua L. Wheeler, who had served 14 tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was 39.

His actions and those of one of his colleagues protected those who were involved in breaching the compound and made the mission successful, Carter later said.

“He was a capable officer. He will leave behind a gap,” said the Kurdish commando.

— Washington Post