Story of Iraqi Man Who Survived Own Kidnapping
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Gay bashing, out in the open in front a video. We'll tell you where. You heard them spar, question. Are we all more passionate than ever about politics? He's a maverick Republicans. He's our Sunday spotlight. And Lindsay Lohan, this time really in trouble with the law. Details in the CNN NEWSROOM. And hello again, everybody. I'm Rick Sanchez here in the CNN NEWSROOM. Found out some new video that's coming in from really all over the world, but the first place we want to take you to is Venezuela. Thousands of people started clashing with police. There, you see some of the water cannons that police had to bring out. That was about an hour ago when last we checked. We've been monitoring the situation all night long. It's about a television station that President Hugo Chavez wants to shut down in about two hours. But really, it's a whole lot more than this. It's really about a government that's been taking over many parts of the private sector there in Venezuela. And those who are opposed to Hugo Chavez have been reacting with protest. We're going to give you a lot more on this. We're going to be filing a live report from Caracas in just a minute or two. First though, more overseas news, big news in fact. And make no mistake, it impacts us right here in the United States big time. Diplomats from the United States and Iran are going to be sitting down at bargaining table in just a couple of hours. This is the highest level talks between our country and Iran since 1979. That's 27 plus years. The topic, Iraq, and what will come of it. Your guess may be as good as mine, but I can tell you this. We're going to get a report from the only Western reporter in Tehran in just a little bit. OK, now to Iraq. And we have new pictures to show you there. U.S. troops acting on a tip overnight, stormed an al Qaeda hideout. They reached 42 Iraqi people who had been kidnapped, held there for months, and reportedly tortured.</s>LT. COL. CHRIS GARVER, U.S. ARMY SPOKESMAN: Some of the hostages had been held as long as four months. There is evidence of torture. And some had broken bones. Some stated that they had been hung from the ceiling. And one boy in the group stated his age was 14, as the evacuation of these prisoners was going onto the treatment facility.</s>SANCHEZ: Well, kidnappings are nothing new in Iraq. People vanish and turn up dead across the country every day. Really sad and violent reality of the ethnic and religious strife there. One Iraqi man was lucky enough to survive his own kidnapping two years ago. Here's CNN's Ryan Chilcote with his story.</s>RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They threatened to kill him.</s>ARSHAD MOHAMMED, HELD HOSTAGE IN 2005: They put the pistol in my head. I told them just I want to say...I witness that is there no god but Alla. And then if you want to kill me, I'm ready.</s>CHILCOTE: Fourteen thousand dollars, $6,000 under the average price the police quoted me on his freedom. Arshad, like many here, says kidnapping is as big a problem as the violence. Many Iraqis have fled. Many like him have stayed on to fight.</s>MOHAMMED: All of Iraqis families, I mean as you know, they are frightened for them. They cannot go to their job. They cannot do anything.</s>SANCHEZ: Now the numbers. And those heartbreaking numbers that we hate to report, but they're the harsh tally of this war. The U.S. military reports the death of two more U.S. soldiers Sunday. That brings the total American death toll for this month alone to 103. Since the war started 3,454 U.S. military personnel have died. In about four hours from now, the U.S. diplomats going to be meeting for the very first time in 27 years with their Iranian counterparts as we have fore mentioned. But just ahead of these historic talks, the Iranians are hurling a major accusation at the United States, saying that they have uncovered a matrix of U.S. run spy rings. CNN's Aneesh Raman is the only Western journalist in Tehran. I asked him about these latest accusations. Here is his take.</s>ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This caught a lot of us inside the country off guard. I mean, Iran has made allegations like this before, but this is the first time it has officially protested to the American government via the Swiss ambassador in Tehran. We know very little. Yesterday, the Intelligence Ministry said occupying forces of Iraq have been backing spy networks in Iran. Today, the Foreign Ministry leveled the charge directly at the U.S. They are only saying government officials that agents have been found in the south, southwestern, and central parts of the country. And then more information is forthcoming. We don't know, and what we're waiting to see is whether this is linked to the recent arrest and imprisonment of</s>SANCHEZ: Exactly. And I'm wondering what effect this might have on those talks tomorrow? And will this be an opportunity for them to try and go in a different direction?</s>RAMAN: Yes, well, both sides have told us that not only are they not going to raise the issue of detainees, there are at least five Americans being held in various forms of custody in Iran, and five Iranians being held by the U.S. in Iraq. They've said they're not going to bring up this issue. And they said that basically, they're only going to limit their discussion to Iraq. And Iran's only going to air its grievances. At the same time, keep in mind the context of this meeting, you have U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf. That is a separate track of diplomacy. Gun boat diplomacy, if you will. And Iran has its own second track in these sort of statements. So both sides are couching these talks with other avenues that they can pursue in case they fail. But certainly, the Iranians I'm speaking to are hoping that the two sides can come together, find some common ground, and use this as a basis for future meetings.</s>SANCHEZ: You know, I'm going to ask you this question again. I know every time you and I have a conversation, I ask you this question, because it's something that's been so important in the past. Is there still an opening for U.S. or other Western nations to be able to somehow reach out to the moderates in Iran that we hear so much about? Or are they too closeted right now?</s>RAMAN: No, there is. And we saw in the elections last December that the moderates really won big in the city council elections throughout the country. There is, from what I can tell, a majority of Iranians that want the West and Iran to find a way to decrease the tensions. The problem is there are just innumerable almost issues between U.S. and Iran. And the nuclear one really is the sticking point. Not just Iraq, but the nuclear issue. Until that gets resolved, really everyone here says nothing else can get resolved.</s>SANCHEZ: Aneesh Raman, the only Western reporter in Tehran.</s>SANCHEZ: All right, let's take you now from Tehran to Caracas. We told you a while ago about Venezuela, something that was supposed to happen in a couple of hours. Let's take some tape. This is what's going on, thousands of people taking to the streets and they've been protesting in the streets of Venezuela all day long. It's getting real heated right about now. Government troops went into the country's most popular television network and started seizing cameras and other equipment. These are live pictures that you're looking at now. You can see the police and the SWAT teams out on the streets. President Hugo Chavez is going to force the network off the air for good at midnight. A lot of people who not only support the TV and radio station, but also who are anti-Chavistas are out on the streets in full force. He's refused to renew the broadcast license. He's going to be replacing it with programming that shows - seem to promote more socialist policies. In other words, this is a television station point of fact that has been critical of him. Let's do this. As we look at the pictures, let's go to Carlos Guillen. He's a radio reporter in Venezuela. He's joining us live from Caracas. Carlos, what's the situation there now? And I ask you that, knowing that there have been reports that as we get closer to midnight, it might get more violent.</s>CARLOS GUILLEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, clock is passing by. And so far, people is on the streets gathering in protest against this shutting down of the signals, the final link of the license of the TV station</s>SANCHEZ: But this is really bigger, isn't it? This is really about the nationalization of part of the petrol industry, about land reform where people's land is being taken away, and given to peasants. Isn't this just a small part of a larger argument?</s>GUILLEN: So far, the government is in the argument that this TV station was involved of a coup state that was happening in 2002 that put Hugo Chavez out of his place by two days. So far, the argument is that they were part of a coup state. And that's why he is not renew that TV station license to be on air by midnight. So far, right now, people that's been in part and using civil defense alarm. You may hear right now this at the bottom of this conversation...</s>SANCHEZ: Right.</s>GUILLEN: ...in protest to that situation. Meanwhile, in the west side of Caracas, people supporting Chavez are gathering and celebrating the non-renewal of that license to RCTV. So far, people are using</s>SANCHEZ: All right, there's the different video. You see the one on the top right there. That's the video of police when they first came through with the water cannons. You'll see the water cannons shooting now. The video on the bottom is actually part of the video that we got earlier in the day as well, when police had to go in a couple of different angles of the people who were there on the streets. And the video you're looking at there on your left is video of what's going on live. Our thanks to Carlos Guillen. He's our correspondent. He's going to be following the situation there. Should anything develop, or should it become more of a real riot, so to speak, we'll take you back there immediately. Coming up, more protests. A gay parade turns ugly, real ugly. Speaking of ugly, remember this beating? Now the victim meets his assailant, face to face.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's hard to lie to my kids for the first time, you know, telling them that I might not make it home.</s>SANCHEZ: The best birthday gift of all, mom, in the flesh, a soldier's story. He says he's the only real Republican. Decide for yourself, when you hear presidential candidate Ron Paul in our Sunday spotlight.