'Please help me,' Taliban hostage begs
Posted: Friday, March 20, 2009 12:25 PM
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Islamabad, Pakistan
By NBC News Mushtaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Pakistan – "I am Khadija Abdul Qahaar. I am a convert to Islam. I have been advised to make this video. I am going to be killed at anytime." So began a chilling video released on Wednesday by Taliban militants who are holding Qahaar, a Canadian woman, hostage somewhere in the tribal areas of Pakistan.
Qahaar, whose former name is Beverly Giesbrecht, converted to Islam after 9/11. A 55-year-old journalist from Vancouver, she tried to travel into North Waziristan – one of the most dangerous areas in the world – last November with two Pakistani reporting assistants.
She wanted to interview survivors of the first ever U.S. drone attack in Bannu, a town in the Northwest Frontier Province, and then travel on to Miranshah, the main city of North Waziristan.
But Taliban militants, who patrol the Bannu-Miranshah road, intercepted Qahaar's taxi and dragged her and her two Pakistani companions out of their vehicle at gunpoint.
The video released Wednesday shows Qahaar sitting in a dark room with a dagger pointing at her as she makes a desperate plea for help.
"The time is very short now and my life is going to end, so I need someone to help me – either the Pakistani government or my own country. I want to go home," she said.
She pointed to the dagger and said that the Taliban were likely to behead her – as they did to Polish engineer Piotr Stanczak in February – if a ransom of $2 million was not paid by the end of March.
"These people are serious. Please help me," she said.
Freelance journalism trip gone awry
Qahaar runs a Web site called Jijadunspun, which says its mission is to provide independent journalism about the Middle East and an "alternate voice to Western media."
According to Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper, she left Vancouver last April, spent several months in London and then landed in Lahore, Pakistan, at the beginning of August. She carried two letters verifying that she was on a freelance reporting assignment, the newspaper reported.
Shortly before she was abducted, she posted an entry on her Web site appealing for financial help to leave Pakistan.
"Pakistan is now erupting into a full scale war zone," she wrote in October, according to the Associated Press. "We have been in some very sensitive areas and even Islamabad (the capital) is now locked down. As foreigners, we must leave the country; however, we do not have the funds to get out."
In an earlier video, released at the end of February, two militants carrying AK-47 assault rifles were shown standing behind her. She pointed to the two men and said they were ready to kill her if their demands were not met. She begged the Pakistan and Canadian governments to accept the demands of her kidnappers so they would set her free.
In the latest video, she said her situation had not improved since the last video.
"Please do something to help me," she begged in a choked voice. "The responsibility of this will be on somebody's shoulders. I have done nothing wrong. Help me and save my life."
