Kidnapping

Back in 2006, I had a post about a movie, Proof of Life, which dealt with the use of kidnapping for not only financial but political purposes, and about the profession of those who work to get the kidnap victim back safely - K & R specialists. I was reminded of that post when I read an editorial in The New York Times today about the kidnapping of journalist James Foley. Here's a bit of it ...

[...] Kidnappings have been a staple of guerrilla warfare since they were popularized by Latin American revolutionaries in the 1970s, as has been the debate over whether to pay ransom. The United Nations estimated that about $30 million was paid out in ransom for political kidnappings in Latin America in 1973 alone.

The practice was exported around the world and especially to the Middle East, where many hostages, including journalists, were seized over the past decades. More recently, ransom income has played a major role in financing the Qaeda network — a recent report by Rukmini Callimachi in The Times found that more than 50 hostages have been seized by Al Qaeda over the past five years, and many have been ransomed for substantial sums paid by European governments.

Still, there have been changes in recent years. First is the cruelty of kidnapping foreigners purely to post their executions online. The beheading of Daniel Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter, by a top Qaeda operative in 2002 revealed the viciousness of the Islamic fanatics, a cruelty raised to new levels by ISIS .....

Speaking of kidnapping, I saw this in the news today - Hamas Admits To Kidnapping And Killing Israeli Teens