By Hamid Mir
Tuesday, august 1, 2006
Lebanon -- On my way back to Beirut from Tyre in southern Lebanon, I could see Israeli planes bombarding the southern suburbs of Beirut in the distance. I asked my taxi driver to proceed in the direction of the bombing.
He informed me that the bombing was taking place in the Dahiya area, which has been abandoned. I insisted that he take us there so that we could film the destruction from afar and promised we would not get too close to the action.
after receiving this assurance, the driver swerved the car to the left.
We soon saw a building not too far away being hit by Israeli bombs. We got out of the car and took shelter in the ruins of another building. as soon as cameraman Shabbir ahmed raised his camera to film the burning building nearby, we heard voices. We were confronted by a group of Hezbollah fighters pointing their guns at us and ordering us to come forward.
We ran towards them and showed them our press cards. But instead of looking at our credentials, the men snatched Shabbir's camera away from him. While our driver tried to explain in arabic why we were there, there was a huge explosion.
For some inexplicable reason, a frightened cat suddenly fell on us and began to meow loudly. The Hezbollah men grabbed us and took us to an abandoned building nearby.
The four men were informing their commander about us on their mobile phones. In a few minutes, a large man on a tiny motorbike appeared and jumped into the building.
The man examined our press cards and asked us in English what we were doing in this prohibited area. We told him that we wanted to film a building while it was being bombed.
He asked us if we had a letter permitting us to do so, which we did not. He then ordered his men in arabic to take us away and lock us up in the makeshift jail. We were asked to run to the building opposite us. as soon as we began to head in that direction there was another huge explosion. The men called us back. a few minutes later, an armed man led us running to the building.
When we got there we realized that there was already a man locked up there. He was from the Sabra Palestinian refugee camp nearby and was trembling violently with fear. Our interrogation then began in earnest.
My mind went back to the time in November 2001 when I was arrested by the Taliban in Kabul during heavy US bombardment. In august 2004, the Russian forces had arrested me near Grozny in Chechnya.
On both those occasions, however, things were not so scary. This time round, I was constantly reciting the Kalima-i-Tayyaba (article of Muslim faith) in my anxiety. Death seemed to stare at me. a Hezbollah fighter began to search me and took out my notebook from my jacket pocket. There were some phone numbers in the book. When he came across the name of the local Future TV correspondent Shahar Idrees he informed me that she lives on the next street but had abandoned her car and home and left the area. I asked him why people like him were still in this area. He told me that thousands of people had fled to safety and that the guerrillas were here to protect their homes and property. I asked him, very gently, why they had prohibited entry to journalists. He said that the Israelis were sending spies to the area in the guise of journalists. Dahiya, he told me, was their area and no-one could enter without permission.
Suddenly, there were four successive explosions and a large amount of debris fell onto the street outside. For the first time, even the Hezbollah fighters seemed apprehensive. after consulting each other the men decided to shut off their mobile phones. This precautionary measure made no difference as there was another explosion immediately afterwards.
I told our captors that I knew one of their colleagues, abu Jaffer, and had met him just the previous day. I told them to phone him, ask him about me and let me go. a man switched on his phone and called abu Jaffer who thankfully identified me. We were informed that we were now free and apologies were offered.
However, we were told that they would not allow us to leave because it was unsafe. Israeli aircraft were still flying over the area and they might target us. I pleaded with them to return our camera so that we could capture scenes of the bombardment, but the men told me that this would be very dangerous as the Israeli planes might spot the red camera lights.
We began to run towards our car when another spell of bombardment began. The cameraman asked the driver to stop so that we could film the bombing but this time I put my foot down. There was still the possibility of encountering more armed guerrillas in the abandoned buildings around us. Back in a relatively safer part of Beirut, I realized that one does not encounter Hezbollah fighters in the city as its men have gone underground. Despite this, they are very much in control of south Beirut.
In the evening, a Hezbollah member of parliament, Dr Hussain, phoned me to offer his apologies for our ordeal. He asked me to meet him the next day in east Beirut, which is a Christian-majority area.
Dr Hussain laughed and said that I must now have realized that while Hezbollah is nowhere to be seen, it is able to see everything.
Hamid Mir, a Pakistani Journalist, known of his interviews with Osama bin Laden, is reporting for the Geo TV from Lebanon now.
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