Richard Engel, Chief Foreign Correspondent for NBC News, and his two-man crew narrowly escaped from five days of captivity at gunpoint in Syria.
Engel was working in Syria with photographer John Kooistra and producer Gazi Balkeez when they were kidnapped with their Syrian rebel escorts by government loyalist forces aligned with Hezbollah. One of their rebel escorts was executed and the reporters were thrown into a waiting container truck.
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVlk34z2R7c[/video]
Engel and his crew, who were working in what they thought was a rebel-controlled area when they were taken, were held for five days. They were blindfolded and taken from location to location while being told to choose which of the three of them would be executed first.
The journalists said during an interview with NBC that they tried to keep each others’ spirits up by joking and encouraging one another when out of earshot of their captors.
All three men are now safely in Turkey.
