Islamic State’s Kiwi hostage: Inside the top-secret rescue effort

Monday, 15 April 2019

For the first time, we can reveal a top secret mission in Iraq code named OPERATION ROCKS. Members of Operation Rocks included elite soldiers from the SAS, spies from the GCSB and SIS, and senior officials from police, defence and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Their mission was to look for any opportunity to bring Kiwi Nurse Louisa Akavi home safely after years in Isis captivity. Now Stuff can finally tell their story.

The top secret group of senior government ministers and military and national security elites were about to make a life and death call.

Should they ask American and Kurdish forces to attempt a rescue of a Kiwi nurse held hostage in Syria by Islamic State for a horrifying four years?

There were a series of hastily convened meetings and phone calls over a period of about two weeks some time around late 2016 to early 2017. Follow developments in our live blog.

**READ MORE:

* Special feature - The Secret Hostage

* Louisa Akavi, the hardy nurse with the skills to survive

* Why we've waited five years to tell Louisa Akavi's story

* Louisa Akavi - the Kiwi nurse taken in Syria

* Why Islamic State takes hostages like Louisa Akavi

* How Islamic State rose to power, created a caliphate, and lost it

​* Islamic State's foreign hostages: Propaganda tools and bargaining chips**  

The pressure on the group was enormous and the price of failure steep. Its members are believed to have included freshly-installed Prime Minister Bill English, Foreign Minister Murray McCully, Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee, and key members of the national security agencies – GCSB, SIS, defence, and the security arms of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

As told to Stuff by one insider, it was a decision that weighed heavily on all of them.

'It's still draining even thinking about that time,' the source later said.

'If it had been successful we would have been heroes – and if unsuccessful we would have been done for.'

Information received suggested the nurse was in a house where Isis soldiers were holed up at Tabqa Dam, 40km west of Raqqa, Syria.

The group of ministers and officials knew they may be asking the US to send its soldiers to their death. A failed raid would be just as disastrous for the nurse at the centre of the hostage drama – a humble and unassuming Otaki woman, Louisa Akavi, who had survived countless war zones during decades of humanitarian service.

There had been a failed attempt to rescue Akavi and other Western hostages in 2014 by US Navy seals; another unsuccessful attempt could sign her death warrant.

There had also been false alarms in the past; Stuff has been told about soldiers readying for a raid to rescue Akavi before it was discovered to be a case of mistaken identity.

The decisions made by that select group did not just involve US soldiers. In a move that was tightly held, the Government had authorised a small but elite team of SAS soldiers to operate out of a US military base at Erbil, 350km north of Iraq.

But this was not until some four years after Akavi was taken.

Some soldiers had travelled to Fort Bragg in the US, where they trained alongside the crack Navy SEALs who would likely carry out any extraction on New Zealand's behalf.

The official line was that this was part of the usual joint military training schedule, but Stuff has been told the purpose of the trip was to put them alongside the US forces with whom the New Zealand SAS would play a support role should there be an opportunity to get Akavi out.

That support role in Iraq included other functions; they were to gather intelligence that might pinpoint Akavi's location for an extraction, and keep 'eyes' on Akavi's likely whereabouts to feed into any decisions made by coalition forces on the ground.

Finally, they were to carry out planning for a possible support role if a rescue mission was launched. The SAS would not be part of the initial raid, but would likely be involved in giving Akavi safe passage once the Navy SEALs got her out.

According to one military source, their role would be to act as the 'welcome party'; a friendly face from home for Akavi once she was freed.

Secrets and risks

Because of the secrecy surrounding Akavi's desperate plight, it has not always been possible to confirm dates with certainty.

British news reports referred to badged NZ SAS troops being sighted operating on the frontline in Iraq in mid-2016.

The story blew up because the Government had publicly and explicitly promised that New Zealand troops would only operate behind the wire in Iraq.

The then-foreign minister, Murray McCully, phoned around and told select journalists the purpose of their mission was to find Akavi. But military sources have told Stuff Cabinet did not authorise the deployment till 2017. That is one of many anomalies.

This anomaly may not be surprising due to the chaotic situation on the ground.

Captured in 2013 and kept prisoner by Isis, Akavi was believed to have been on the move with senior Isis leaders for much of her time in captivity.

Initially held in the same cell block as other Western hostages whose brutal deaths horrified the world, it was thought she was spared execution because she had something that was of value to Isis – her nursing skills.

'Chasing a ghost'

As sporadic intelligence reports were filed back to New Zealand it appeared Akavi was being kept close by the Isis leadership. When they moved, she moved.

But little else was known of Akavi's captivity and what intelligence trickled in was never conclusive.

Isis deserters or prisoners would talk about an English-speaking nurse – sometimes they used her name, Louisa, but it was believed she was also known by several Arabic names. Stuff encountered a lot of sensitivity about divulging those names.

In late 2016 or early 2017 there were reports of Akavi at Tabqa Dam, where the Isis command was holed up. These reports seemed more solid.

There followed a series of decisions with one aim in mind – to mount a rescue mission.

A senior military source has described to Stuff the two conditions that had to be met: 'proof of life' would be needed before any raid was launched; and there had to be 'conclusive' evidence that Akavi was there.

There was uncertainty, meanwhile, about Akavi's state of mind or attitude toward Isis after so long in their hands. Stuff has since confirmed a decision was made not to proceed with the rescue mission but it is not clear where that decision rested.

According to senior defence sources, the intelligence was never conclusive enough to justify the risk.

'There was some evidence she might be there and that was never moved past the likely stage,' a military source told us.

Another source said Isis retreated before a mission could be mounted.

After the flight from Tabqa dam, fresh intel suggested Akavi was on the move again with her Isis captors, this time to the Euphrates Valley, where Isis was relocating itself.

In 2017, the senior military source told Stuff there was still a 'belief, rather than certainty, that she's still working as a medical professional … but we probably, if anything, have less degree of certainty than we've had for quite a while as to where she might be.'

But that changed later that year. As the fighting intensified around the Euphrates Valley it seemed unbelievable that Akavi might still be alive. And yet sources confirmed at various times during that period they had a degree of confidence that she was still alive and with the same cabal of senior Isis militants.

Others were unconvinced, however. Stuff has been told there was never more than 70 per cent confidence that the person sighted was indeed Akavi.

'My greatest fear is we've been chasing a ghost for five years,' one former insider told Stuff.

Some of those who were in the loop privately believed she may have been killed early on in the conflict.

In early 2019, when US President Donald Trump announced American troops would be pulling out of Syria, he took our Government by surprise, and Akavi's fate seemed to hang in the balance.

But Trump's deadline seemed to galvanise efforts on the ground.

By February, Isis was close to falling, and the Government believed Akavi was still there as the last fanatical band of militants made what looked like their final stand in the village of Baghuz. But after Baghuz fell there was no sign of her – or Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

It has long been suspected that Akavi and other Western hostages were being kept close to al-Baghdadi.

Were chances missed?

So did New Zealand miss earlier chances to rescue Akavi?

Former foreign minister Gerry Brownlee insists they never stopped looking for any opening to rescue Akavi. But for much of her time in captivity there was a lot of uncertainty about whether she had survived. It seems, in fact, that at one point she nearly fell through the cracks.

Stuff has been told by two different sources that it became clear over time that US forces on the ground had little day-to-day awareness of a Kiwi nurse being held hostage alongside the other remaining Western hostages.

Akavi had been in captivity for so long the institutional knowledge of those who had initially been aware of her plight slowly diminished with each fresh deployment, a source said.

Over many years, Stuff has spoken to several members of the inner circle of government ministers who were in on Akavi's story, as well as senior defence and MFAT officials.

At various times over those three years they seemed pessimistic that Akavi could be alive, with no fresh intel coming to light.

That was one of the reasons for the decision to put our own eyes and ears in Erbil – they were, in effect, Akavi's advocates with coalition forces.

Filling in the gaps

But why did the then-Government wait so long – four years – to put boots on the ground for Akavi?

In the initial stages of Akavi's captivity, it was not yet clear who had her, and Isis was only newly on the rise.

She was captured before Isis had serious control of territory within Syria, and passed through a number of groups before ending up in its hands.

There was also a reliance on the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and US forces to do most of the heavy lifting at the beginning. The Red Cross had expertise negotiating the release of hostages and had successfully arranged for a number of its people to be freed.

It also had people on the ground and third party contacts in Syria. New Zealand had none of those channels.

It is only in recent days that the ICRC has agreed to talk to New Zealand media to fill in some of the gaps.

Its director of operations, Dominik Stillhart, says the search for Akavi and the two Syrian national, abducted at the same time – Alaa Rajab and Nabil Bakdounes – had consumed the organisation.

'At times, we've felt Louisa's freedom was close at hand. At other times, the trail seemed lost. We sadly lost track of Alaa and Nabil shortly after their abduction, but we've never stopped looking for the three of them.'

Stilhartl says in the first years of Louisa's captivity, in late 2013 and 2014, the ICRC was in active communication with the Islamic State group.

'We were not able to persuade them to release her and that communication fell off.'

It also tried other options.

'Given the work that the ICRC does, we have relationships with armed actors around the world, and we tried as many avenues as we could to reach a positive outcome.

'We tried to reach out to and influence the [Isis] leadership by speaking to sheiks in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. We spoke to prisoners in the Middle East who might be able to guide us towards fresh information.

'One thing we always kept in mind was that Syria wasn't a void into which our colleagues disappeared. This has been a dynamic conflict from the beginning. Territory frequently changed hands. We followed developments and assessed opportunities and risks. There are so many unknowns in hostage situations – circumstances constantly evolve – but we've never lost hope that they would resurface.'

Stillhart says they continued to learn new details over the years.

'We know Louisa was moved around a lot, including to Raqqa. A breakthrough for us came in late 2017, with the beginning of the end of [Islamic State's] broad control of territory, when people fled that region.

'We spoke with people in IDP camps in Iraq who had been treated by Louisa in Syria. From this we understood that she had been in places like Al Susah and Al-Bukamal (a.k.a. Abu Kamal) in late 2018, close to the Syrian-Iraqi border near the Euphrates River, the last concrete information we have on her whereabouts.

'This was incredible information to receive, apparent confirmation of her location, that she was still alive and that she was still doing what she is trained to do and has long done: providing medical care in a conflict zone.'

Every effort made

Spoken to after National left office, Brownlee was confident the Government did everything in its power to make sure Akavi was not left behind.

Codenamed Operation Rocks, the 'NZ Inc' effort in the Middle East in support of Akavi encompassed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Police, Defence, the Government Communications Security Bureau, and the Security Intelligence Service. At any one time there were at least four members of the SAS at the US army base in Erbil.

But Brownlee says the Government only ever had imperfect information to operate with.

'I always liken it to Osama bin Laden; they were looking for him for years and then there was a slip up somewhere with his identity and his location was found and they went in and got him and even that was a pretty traumatic event,' Brownlee said.

'These guys, if they had her and we knew that they had her, and we had positive identification, would not have given up easily. It would have been a pretty messy operation. And not one that New Zealand could mount on its own.'