Operation: Dard and Devotion

9 | Threats & Thoughtfulness

Without even thinking, I pulled the veil over my face as strange men made their entrance into the confessional room.

The depressed-looking camera man, who carried a tripod, eyed me briefly, taking in the fact that I was wearing the full niqab, and realized I was not meant to be stared at. Faizan and a few of Zaakhir's men stepped inside. Ahsan stepped ahead defensively; his gloved hand brushed over the AK-47 strapped around him, as Zaakhir came forward and strongly clasped my shoulders.

He ignored Ahsan. "Come now, sit here," he said to me, referring to the bench I had slumped in earlier. "Now, everyone else out."

Faizan and the others reluctantly exited the room, and apart from me, only Zaakhir, Ahsan and the camera man, whose ID card that hung from his neck read James, remained in the room.

"You too," Zaakhir told the cameraman, James. "But only after you set the camera on its stand."

James obeyed by defeatedly placing the video camera on top of the tripod, and pressed the Record button after setting it in front of me. James looked at me again with sympathy etched across his dreary face. Then, he left.

Zaakhir was about to sit beside me when he noticed Ahsan still standing there. "Do I need to give you a written invitation?" He snarled. "Get out!"

Ahsan did not look as though he enjoyed being yelled at.

His face tightened beneath the balaclava as he glared at Zaakhir. Before he hesitantly turned to go, his eyes darted towards me for a millisecond. Then he, too, closed the door behind him and I was left alone with Zaakhir and a video camera.

No, come back!

A stone fell in my heart as I watched Ahsan exit the confessional room. While he could be blunt and cruel, I had undoubtedly felt much safer when he was in the same room as I was.

I clasped my hands together, watching my knuckles tighten, while Zaakhir paced around me in a circle.

"Faizan said he fetched a good one, but I didn't think you'd be this good," he murmured to himself in awe. My face twisted in disgust beneath the veil.

Zaakhir adjusted the strap of his AK-47 so that it was in front of him, then faced the camera and spoke in a thick European-Arab accent. "I am back, Mr. President because of your selfish foreign policy towards Al-Tho'baan and because of your insistence on continuing your bombings, despite our warnings.

"I, and thousands like me, have forsaken everything for what we believe in. Our driving motivation does not come from physical possessions that this world has to offer. Our motivation is Islam," he said.

With my eyes fixated on the ground, I had the sudden urge to run.

Zaakhir and I were both Muslims. But certainly at a glance, it was plain to see that one of us is practicing religion very horribly wrong.

"Your democratically elected governments continue to commit atrocities against my people over the world. Their support makes you directly responsible just as I am directly responsible for protecting and avenging my Muslim brothers and sisters," he said, in an apparent message to Western countries particularly America.

"Until we feel security, you will be our targets. Until you stop the bombing, the gassing, the imprisonment and torture of my people, we will not stop this fight. We are at war and I am a soldier, now you, too, will face the reality of this situation," he said.

"And as they have let rivers of blood run in our countries, we will, God willing, erupt volcanoes of anger in their countries," he said slowly, letting every threat sink in. Zaakhir propped up the butt of his rifle on his knee. "This is my final warning to warn all governments that enter this evil alliance with America against the Al-Tho'baan to retreat and leave our people alone."