American journalist Steven Sotloff began his last journey into Syria with a surprise gift for his fixer, Yosef Abobaker. It was a small camera. "Happy birthday!" Sotloff told his guide, whom Sotloff had befriended a year earlier by interviewing Abobaker's father about the Syrian civil war. Then came the real surprise for the two men: about 15 masked ISIS gunmen jumped out of three cars and took them captive, beginning a dark tale that eventually led to Abobaker's release, but ended in Sotloff's beheading. In an interview with CNN this week, Abobaker provided a detailed account of how he, Sotloff and three armed guards were abducted in Syria by ISIS fighters in August 2013, but since then, never once did U.S. officials try to interview Abobaker about his first-hand experience with ISIS and its captivity of Sotloff.
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Sotloff fixer Yosef Abobaker says U.S. officials never interviewed him about ISIS
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FBI says it "is actively investigating the savage murder of Steven Sotloff"
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Abobaker says masked ISIS gunmen outnumbered him, Sotloff, three armed guards
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Abobaker believes a border guard informed ISIS about Sotloff's location
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A @placeholder family representative who kept contact with Abobaker before and after his captivity reiterated the claims, saying U.S. government or security agencies -- who were made aware of the fixer and his connection to Sotloff -- never talked to Abobaker.
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A Sotloff family representative who kept contact with @placeholder before and after his captivity reiterated the claims, saying U.S. government or security agencies -- who were made aware of the fixer and his connection to Sotloff -- never talked to Abobaker.
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Since Sotloff's decapitation, @placeholder has agonized over the fate of his journalist-friend and the fortune of his own release, as well as that of his brother and two cousins who went along as armed guards.
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Their harrowing abduction by @placeholder occurred just 20 minutes after Sotloff, Abobaker and his relatives as aides entered Syria, on August 4, 2013, Abobaker said.
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Their harrowing abduction by ISIS occurred just 20 minutes after @placeholder, Abobaker and his relatives as aides entered Syria, on August 4, 2013, Abobaker said.
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This trip wasn't the first time that @placeholder worked as a journalistic "fixer" -- or a jack-of-all-trades guide who does translations and arranges interviews.
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That was six months before his ill-fated encounter with @placeholder.
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The captives were held individually in separate rooms, and @placeholder overheard one captor asked Sotloff for his passport, Abobaker said.
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"They ask me, do you know who we are, and I said, yes, I think you are @placeholder," Abobaker said.
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Sotloff's family believes @placeholder paid as much as $50,000 to rebels who alerted the militant group that the journalist had entered Syria, Barfi said.
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"I go back inside (@placeholder), and I try to make information," he added.