Richard Engel Quotes

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Richard Engel

Profession : Journalist

Birth : September 16, 1973

Foreigners who speak Arabic in the Middle East are often assumed to be working for the C.I.A. or Israel's intelligence agency, the Mossad.

Richard Engel

Kidnapping is always a threat in this life of reporting on men hurting one another because of religion and politics.

Richard Engel

An Egyptian newspaper once publicly identified me as the C.I.A. station chief in Cairo. It seemed so stupid at the time. I was only 24, a little young to be a station chief, and, of course, I was never with the C.I.A.

Richard Engel

I had some training on how to cope with hostage-taking.

Richard Engel

After literally hundreds of firefights, Chosen Company became increasingly battle-hardened. And they also became increasingly suspicious of their Afghan counterparts, believing - with their lives on the line at the end of the day - that they could only truly rely on themselves.

Richard Engel

Everyone knows what can happen to soldiers who are in front line units.

Richard Engel

By 2007, Iraqi society had completely collapsed.

Richard Engel

There is no Afghan Awakening Movement.

Richard Engel

The Taliban mostly attacks international and Afghan security forces. They rarely carry out attacks in markets.

Richard Engel

For years, Lebanese have known that Palestinian camps like Nahr al-Barid and Ain al-Helwe - hopeless slums crowded with generations of disenfranchised Palestinian refugees who can't go home because of Israel, and can't work because of Lebanese laws - are awash with gunmen, criminals and, since the war in Iraq, al-Qaida inspired jihadists.

Richard Engel

Under a decades-old agreement, Palestinian refugee camps are supposed to administer and police themselves. Lebanese troops are technically not allowed to enter them.

Richard Engel

Lebanon does not have a powerful army.

Richard Engel

Under Islamic law, adoption is difficult.

Richard Engel

There are clearly many Egyptian free-thinkers and intellectuals - lots of wonderful Egyptian artists and architects and scientists.

Richard Engel

ISIS is in many ways a creation of the Syrian regime.

Richard Engel

The Syrian border town of Qa'im was the main gateway Islamic radicals used to go to Iraq. Syria became the passageway for extremists from Egypt, Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other Muslim nations to fight a jihad against American forces in Iraq.

Richard Engel

In October 2008, American commandos launched a cross-border raid into Syria to capture an Islamic militant known as Abu Ghadiya. He was accused of being one of al Qaeda in Iraq's main smugglers of fighters and money between Iraq and Syria.

Richard Engel

Rockets fired by the Taliban generally aren't guided.

Richard Engel

Many governments are quick to condemn Assad, but a dwindling number of them would celebrate a rebel victory in Damascus.

Richard Engel

Putin believes Russia is back, and he may be right.

Richard Engel