Paul Refsdal, Journalist and Filmmaker HARDtalk

Now on BBC News, it's time for HARDtalk.

Welcome to HARDtalk with me, Stephen Sackur.

French newspapers will no longer publish pictures of the perpetrators

of jihadist atrocities in an effort to ensure they are neither glorified

nor humanised. My yesterday is a journalist who sees his mission

differently. Norwegian Paul Refsdal have spent 30 years filming up close

and personal from inside militant groups. He was held hostage while

filming with the Taliban. Last year he spent weeks with would-be suicide

bombers in Syria. Do we really need to see the West's enemies this

close-up? Paul Refsdal, welcome to HARDtalk.

Thank you. Let's start with the motivation, the compulsion that

throughout your career has taken you beyond "Enemy lines" to spend time

with militants, with killers. What is it? Well, it started in

Afghanistan. It was more a political reason than journalistic so to say.

I wanted to do something for the Afghans fighting the Soviets and I

just got stuck in Matt Wrack. Out of sympathy, you definitely had a side?

Yes, it is something to do with the underdog thing -- with that. I was

fascinated with the Indians in North America and the struggle against the

white man, so it is something to do with that. And you know, I found

that this is a very underreported field in war. I mean, insurgent

sides, terrorist sites or whatever you want to call it. That is a very

interesting proposition, that you would I guess therefore say that

your job isn't to be entirely objective, to be neutral, you have

sympathies, do you? Well, in a way you could say that I see the need of

shelling the other side. If you have 99 journalists going with the

government forces, I want to be the one going in with the insurgents and

showing their point of view. With a view to a positive view, or...? I

would say a neutral view. I don't want to make propaganda. Still, you

see that in war... I mean, the media is not objective. We don't get our

enemies the fair treatment that they should get if we were 100%

objective. So, I think, you know, my job would more be to balance you

know the coverage. Well, I want to come back to that, issues of balance

and propaganda, but I think to get your story straight for everybody

watching and listening, we need to explain how he penetrated into this

group who were formerly known as al-Nusra. They have changed their

name very recently. Essentially, the same organisation committed to an

extreme form of jihadis, affiliated to Al-Qaeda until very recently. How

did you get their trust? Well, actually, the first time I noticed

that Al-Qaeda let's say like me would be when they published some of

the letters that they captured from Osama Bin Laden's computer. In one

of these letters I was mentioned as a Norwegian journalist who went with

the Taliban and show that they were human beings. So apparently I am on

some kind of Al-Qaeda... Approved list? Yes. Isn't it a terribly

worrying place to be, on an Al-Qaeda approved list? They see you as a

kind of propaganda tool. No, I think the lack of let's say fair treatment

they are getting in Western media just makes them happy that someone

is willing to go and listen to them... It is an interesting... Fair

treatment for a group who committed the 9/11 atrocity, who have killed

countless civilians around the world. I am not quite sure I

understand what you mean by fair treatment? Well, the fair treatment

in the group I went to in Syria is just showing what they are actually

doing, not showing the history of the group that they are affiliated

with. I mean, I am never going to defend, you know, flying planes into

buildings or blowing yourself up in subway stations - never. But what

you see in Syria is, maybe, I am saving may be, the new Al-Qaeda, an

Al-Qaeda which works as an insurgent group against, you know, the

regimes, or their -- authoritarian regimes. Last year over many months

you got permission to go into the al-Nusra territory and you got

permission to film, sort of fly on the wall, over many, many weeks,

with a small group of men, some of whom were would-be suicide bombers.

How ready were they to accept your presence and talk openly about what

they were doing and their motivations? Well, actually, when I

had a -- approval to fill with them it was a matter of asking

individuals, would you participate in a film? There was a British man

in a film. First he wanted to participate, then he didn't want and

then he wanted again. So it was not... I mean, if he would have

declined, I would have to respect that and I could not have use the

footage that I had. So it is, you know, there is nothing automatic

that happens with these groups. We will just look in a second at a

couple of clips, and just by way of practising it, one of the

extraordinary characters you came across was a Saudi man. Now, he is a

father of two, he spent a couple of years in Syria on jihad, having left

his family behind in Saudi Arabia, and he was on a list, and he was

about, he thought, to be sent on a suicide operation. And you filmed

him as he introduced you to the truck that he believed was going to

be his route to suicide and to mass murder. Let's have a look at a clip.

I mean, watching that, it is chilling and it is also very bizarre

that he can, with such relaxation, talk you through the process of...

Of a massive explosion that he knows is gonna kill many, many people.

What was he really like? Well, he is a person who I would say... He loves

life. He loves life? Yeah, he is very social, he is very funny. He

has a beautiful voice. I mean, when he sings you think you are, you

know, on the Syrian show for what you call it? X-Factor. Something

like that. And also he loves food. LAUGHTER Well, I have seen the film.

And it should be said, your film, Dugma: The Button, it can be

downloaded by people across the world on the Internet. I have seen

it and in a sense, when I talk about chilling, what is so strange about

the film is that he these men are, intent on as I say mass killing, but

they are portrayed by you in a very human way. You see them enjoying

food, we see him entertaining children. You, in a sense, are

inviting us to be sympathetic to them. But you have to remember

that... You have to distinguish between killing civilians and

killing soldiers. I mean, this group al-Nusra, they use these weapons

against military targets, which is just... They don't kill civilians?

They do kill civilians. They have killed civilians. They are killed...

According to this area network of human rights they have killed 356

civilians in five years of war. And if you compare that with the regime

killing 183,000 plus, you know, that is not a lot of civilians.

Nonetheless one of the points about your film that struck me is you

never pressed him on the possibility that his massive truck bomb might

well kill women and children. You never asked him that question. Well,

when you see the film, you also see that he is speaking with one sheik

who told him that he has to go and see the place he is gonna bomb. You

know, even if he has 100 times. And when we went on one of these

missions, he wanted to see at first because as I said he didn't want to

kill any brothers and sisters in this operation. This is the same

danger. If a tornado pilot drops a bomb on something he thinks is an

Islamic State target, that is the same danger, you could kill women

and children, but that is not the intended target of al-Nusra. IDSA,

if you interview the pilot of the US plane, you would ask him that

question, but you did not ask the same question of these guys --I dare

say. But I think, you know... Were you controlled or censored in any

way? No. There were some restrictions, filming buildings from

outside, buildings that could be geo- located and presumably bombed.

They didn't want me to do that. And certain people didn't want to show

their faces either because they had some job that was secret or because

they had family in the regime controlled area or Islamic State

controlled area. Let's turn to your second key character, you have

mentioned him already, known why his Arabic name. It has since become

clear that he is actually a British - an American citizen, Lucas Kinney,

who lived for a long time in London. Now, he talked to you for a long

time, over weeks, but as time progressed it became clear... And he

got married as well, it should be set. It became clear he was having

doubts about being on the list of would-be suicide bombers -- said.

And you pick away at the rising level of doubt. And this clip will

illustrate that. Let's have a look. It was a very big change. Not to

sound cliche or anything, but really you feel before a part of you was

incomplete and now you have found apart to complete that. Has it had

any, let's say, effect on you to get married, that there are things you

wouldn't do any more in jihad? Can you give an example? Well, I have

heard that you are on the list. Have you talked with your wife about it?

Yeah. And what does she say? Like I said, if your wife is a believing

woman with strong faith, then she should help you in all aspects of

your life. Fascinating stuff. Do you happen to know whether he did kill

himself? As far as I know, he is still alive. As far as you know. I

wonder what his mother, who lives in London, makes of your film and

seeing her son in that way. Have you talked to her? We tried to contact

her, because we wanted to show her the film as a courtesy, but we

haven't managed. Let me ask you this, I want to broaden this out,

because it is very tempting to spend the entire interview talking about

what he found in Syria, because it is so interesting, and so rare, the

access, but in France recently I ensure you are aware their has been

a very hot debate, after the spate of horrible atrocities committed by

men apparently loyal to Islamic State, there has been a strong

debate about the wisdom of even providing pictures and names of the

perpetrators. The philosopher and anti- sort of jihadist outspoken

figure, Bernard Henri Levy, he said that the President on stable mix of

trivialisation and glorification of these people, in which we are told

that they are ordinary, that they happen to have hitched their fate to

a gettable acts, he said this approach, picturing them, naming

them, giving them a back story, will have the worst possible

consequences, a copycat effect. What do you say to that? Actually, I'd

agree. If you see these attacks which have

been in France recently, you see that there are mental, unstable

people. And I'm thinking about the phrase you had in the United States

in the 1970s, suicide like cops. That people are actually suicidal,

but want to go out in a blast. So in a way, yes. Are we not doing the

very same thing, albeit in serious so maybe we pay less attention to it

that in France? But aren't you doing the same thing, you are humanising

and in providing an ego trip, some vanity platform, to people who want

to kill themselves and kill others? Yes, I understand what you're

saying, but as I said these... They are not targeting civilians. If they

were actually... If this was Islamic State, and they were sending trucks

of explosives into markets, I would never have done a film. Wouldn't

you? No. Categorically? As a journalist, it would be a good

story. It is something that every journalist network around the world

would be interested in, but you are saying you have a system of values

that allows you to sympathise to a certain extent with people who kill

soldiers. Yes. Or intent to kill soldiers, even if they kill women

and children inadvertently. You draw the line at IS. Yes, yes. In a way

that they are doing these kinds of operations, yes. And that is kind of

a luxury I as a documentary filmmaker have, that may be people

in the newsroom don't have, because I can spend a lot of time doing my

project. I mean, I have been working with this project nearly three

years. And you have to do the story, you know, in the same day. So you

have to search for kind of the scoop, thing. What I can... You

know, I can consider these things, and let's say Islamic State, I

wouldn't touch them. I just wonder, even, I just wonder at the thoughts

that are coming out of France today about glorification and copycat

pavers, whether they are giving you pause? There is a psychoanalyst in

Paris who has said this, he has said that giving them publicity is a

quote really big boost to their efforts to make themselves

world-famous, even while their victims are anonymous and will

forever remain anonymous. So going back to your film, do you worry that

as more and more people download it and watch it around the world, there

will be some who are attracted to the notion of becoming a jihadist

suicide bomber? I think, you know, the angry Young second-generation

Pakistani sitting in London who want to do Jihad, he is not going to be

enticed by this film. I mean, he will want to have glorification, as

you say. He will want to have this action film you get from Islamic

State. This is not going to be a recruitment film. This is... The

audience he would be people, you know, Europeans and Americans, who

think that Al Qaeda is just black. It doesn't have any shades of grey.

And he will see that actually they have... They are human beings. It

sounds very banal but they are human beings, and that they have dilemmas.

You know, they have problems. They... Maybe sometimes they are

clumsy, they do mistakes. They are very human. And there has been a lot

of academic research into what makes a foreign jihadist fighter. There

has been a lot of talk about the comparisons with cults. You know,

people who feel lost in their society in which they live, who are

looking to belong, looking for a sense of meaning in their lives.

Would you... Now that you have spent a lot of time with his foreign

fighters, would you buy into that? Yes, well, maybe not necessarily Al

Nostra. With Islamic State I would agree there is a certain cult factor

that. -- Al Nusra. And I know some people who are in an Islamic State

now, with Al Nusra I think it is more honest, it is more honours.

They want to fight the regime, and they are fighting, as I said, you

know, in a very... What would I say? They are fighting and respecting the

world laws of war, you know. Both Islamic and I would say the Geneva

convention up to a certain point. You throughout this interview have

insisted on this idea that they have a value system that you can in some

ways respect. Yes. Let's talk personal things. You... You

undertake a lot of danger to get the stories that you get, whether it be

in Peru or Sri Lanka in the past, but more recently in Afghanistan and

the Middle East. There is no question you take enormous risks. I

just want to know, in terms of your family, you've got kids, whether you

really sometimes wonder whether it's worth it? Well, actually, I've got

kids. And I... They are adults now. I believe I am very careful doing

the things I'm doing. I mean, I'm not looking for the action. I don't

often go to the front line. I go to the front line from time to time,

but you know, what I really am looking for these days is not the

explosions, it's the people behind the explosions. Their psychology.

And you have to take a certain risk. And you know you have taken risks,

because you have had the experience of being taken hostage. You were

sold to hostage takers by the Taliban and they want at one point

$500,000 in ransom. Well, actually, he kept me. They wanted 500 thousand

dollars in ransom but we negotiated it down to $20,000. And... But the

money was never paid, because there was a lot of pressure within the

Taliban for him to release me. So actually it was solved in six days.

So six days you were out at the most extraordinary twist to that story is

that they are at one point confronted Ewan said one way you

could save yourself is to convert to Islam. And you did. Well, there were

four options. There was exchanged for prisoners, which was out of the

question. There was a ransom, which at that point was $20,000, and it

was converting to Islam, and the fourth option was heading. So I had

previously been talking about conversing and considering it,

actually, since I was in Chechnya -- beheading. So you could say this is

a bad time a good time, but I converted. It was certainly quite an

active prompt for you to consider it. It is the weirdest way to

convert. Are you now fully observant Muslim? Yes. So here is the question

for you. You have spent the last few years focusing on radical, militant,

jihadist Islam. You yourself are now unidentified Muslim. Yes. Is there

something profoundly different about the militants that are steeped in

this extreme form of Islamist ideology, that separates them out

from all the other militants you have worked with over the years, in

quite a Molik, Peru, Sri Lanka, Burma, you have met all sorts of

Muslims but is there something identifiably different about

Islamist jihadist militants -- Guatemala. Actually, not really. I

mean, you find... Let's say I was in Peru, the very extreme Maoist group,

and they in a way, in a sense they were like a religious cult. I mean,

they were speaking about a party, like it was heaven. That the

President was a messiah to them. So do something similar, you no, with

all these groups, and it comes down to the motivation. Of course, if you

are religious you know that you are going to have an if you die in the

struggle. If you are at an atheist, you just die. And all these people

that you're currently working with, or have been in Syria, the jihadist

to want to die, in your mind there is no doubt of their religious

conviction. They truly believe this stuff. Of course, yes. Otherwise

they couldn't have done it. So just to end, when you think about Syria

today and the confrontation between a start's forces, the various

terrorist groups but in particular the Islamist radical groups, where

it is the balance of power lie in your view? -- Assad's forces. Assad

has the power, but these people have the belief. I think Assad without

foreign intervention, without Hezbollah from Lebanon, without

uranium troops, without Russian air power, he would be finished quite

quickly. And then what would happen with Syria, I mean, I wouldn't know.

Will you go back to find out? Sure. Paul Refsdal, thank you for being on

HARDtalk. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed.