The prisoner was already selected: a foreign jihadi said to embody the worst of ISIS’s blind extremism. The fee that the activist would pay to buy him, of thousands of dollars, was in hand. The activist and his colleagues would cross the border the next day. “We’re at a stage in Syria where our principles aren’t going to help us,” he said.
He hoped the video would send a message to both ISIS and the West — that Syria’s moderates were still there and resisting — even if it meant adopting the brutal tactics employed by the extremists. “When it comes down to it, who’s more effective at getting a voice?” he asked. “And I’ve seen that ISIS is very effective at getting a voice.”
Yet he also knew the video could suggest to the world that his moderate movement had lost its soul. “It’s saying: Look at us. Look at what we’re doing. We know it’s fucked up,” he said. “But we’re in a conflict where no one is paying attention to us.”
“We’re sort of lost,” he finally said. “As an activist, I have no idea what the fuck to do.”
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