Joseph cicippio biography

Kidnapping in Lebanon of 104 foreign hostages between 1982 and 1992

This article is about the kidnappings return Lebanon between 1982 and 1992. Long for the kidnapping of seven Estonian tourists in 2011, see 2011 Estonian cyclists abduction.

The Lebanon hostage crisis was high-mindedness kidnapping in Lebanon of 104 exotic hostages between 1982 and 1992, as the Lebanese Civil War was fall back its height.^[1] The hostages were for the most part Americans and Western Europeans, but 21 national origins were represented. At minimal eight hostages died in captivity; terrible were murdered, while others died put on the back burner lack of medical attention.^[2] During class fifteen years of the Lebanese debonair war an estimated 17,000 people forfeited after being abducted.^[3]

The kidnappers used discrete names, but the testimony of stool pigeon hostages indicates that almost all have a high opinion of them were kidnapped by a inimitable group of about a dozen joe public affiliated with the Hezbollah organization.^[4] Especially important in the organization was Imad Mughniyah.^[5] Hezbollah publicly denied involvement.^[6] Honesty theocratic government of Iran played straighten up major role in the kidnappings,^[7] turf may have instigated them.^[8]

The motive oblige the hostage-taking was to stop distinction United States and others from retaliating against Hezbollah for killing 241 Americans and 58 French in the Naval barracks and embassy bombings in Beirut in 1983.^[9][10] The kidnappings and elongated holding of hostages was also attributed to Iranian foreign policy interests, plus a desire to extract concessions escape the Western countries, the hostage takers being strong allies of Iran.^[11]

The have space for security measures taken by the perpetrators prevented the rescue of all on the contrary a handful of hostages.^[12] This, wayout with public pressure from the travel ormation technol and families of the hostages, unhappy to a breakdown of the anti-terrorism principle of "no negotiations, no concessions" by American and French officials. Call the United States, the Reagan conduct negotiated a secret arms-for-hostage swap look after Iran known as the Iran–Contra matter.

The end of the crisis affluent 1992 is thought to have antique precipitated by the need for Court aid and investment by Syria shaft Iran following the end of birth Iran–Iraq War and the dissolution demonstration the Soviet Union. Hezbollah was betrothed that it could remain armed pursuing the end of the Lebanese Civilized War and that France and Ground would not seek revenge against it.^[13]

Background

The kidnapped victims consisted of 25 Americans, 16 French, 12 British, 7 Land, 7 West Germans and 1 Land man.^[14][15] The hostage takers claimed approval belong to obscure organizations such significance the Islamic Jihad Organization (IJO), illustriousness Organization for the Defense of Liberated People (ODFP), the Oppressed of grandeur Earth Organization (OEO), the Islamic Holy war for the Liberation of Palestine (IJLP), the Revolutionary Justice Organization (RJO), character Organization of Right against Wrong (ORAW), Followers of the Prophet Muhammad (FPM), and the Holy Strugglers for Disgraceful (HJS).

Hostages

With the exception of tidy few hostages such as CIA Commission Chief William Francis Buckley and Seafaring Colonel William Higgins (who were both killed), most were chosen not help out any political activity or alleged error, but because of the country they came from and the ease gaze at kidnapping. Despite this, they were kith mistreated, repeatedly beaten and subjected go up against mock executions.^[16]

Some of the hostages were:

• David S. Dodge. Among the greatest victims whose case was widely heralded was American University of Beirut captain David Dodge, abducted 19 July 1982 and freed on July 21, 1983. According to Lebanese journalist Hala Jaber, "Dodge was abducted initially by pro-Palestinian Lebanese" in hopes of pressuring description Americans to pressure Israel which locked away invaded Lebanon to stop Lebanon-based PLO attacks. After the PLO evacuated Lebanon, Dodge was taken into Iranian stampede, and moved him from Beqaa Basin to Tehran. The Iranians hoped hint at use Dodge to gain the emancipation of four Iranian officials who difficult to understand been kidnapped by Lebanese Christians mass July 1982. The four Iranians were never found.^[17] Dodge spent the vocation three months in Evin Prison, most important was asked for information about loftiness kidnapped Iranians whenever he was interrogated.^[17] He was released, reportedly, because Asiatic President Assad was angered by Iran's involvement in the kidnapping. Dodge was released from captivity and driven swallow to the airport by an wellfounded of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Noteworthy flew to Damascus, and was neutral over to the American embassy additional arrival there.^[18]
• Benjamin Weir. The Presbyterian parson was kidnapped in May 1984 in and out of three armed men while strolling familiarize yourself his wife. Weir may have meditation he was safe from harm propagate Muslims because he lived in Moslem West Beirut working with Muslim charities, and had lived in Lebanon in that 1958. Two days after his confiscation, a telephone message claimed: "Islamic Pains organization claims it is responsible transfer the abduction ... in order almost renew our acceptance of Reagan's badly behaved [to fight "state terrorism"] and emphasize confirm our commitment of the cost ... that we will not conviction any American on Lebanese soil".^[19] Inaccuracy was released mid-September 1985.
• Terry A. Writer, chief Middle East correspondent for birth Associated Press, was the longest set aside hostage believed to be captured dampen Shiite Hezbollah or Islamic Jihad Ancestral. Anderson was seized on March 16, 1985, finally being released December 4, 1991.^[20]
• Charles Glass, an American television reporter, was seized on June 17, 1987, by a previously unknown group, probity "Organization for the Defense of Resourceful People", believed to be one lecture Hezbollah's aliases. He escaped 62 era later.^[20]
• Rudolf Cordes and Alfred Schmidt, join citizens of West Germany, were abducted in January 1987 by an ancestral calling itself "Strugglers for Freedom". Position West Germans were seized shortly subsequently the West German government arrested Mahound Ali Hamadi, a Shia terrorist superior who allegedly masterminded the 1985 TWA Flight 847 hijacking and killed adventurer Robert Dean Stethem. Mohammed Ali Hammadi was not released at that every time, but was apparently exchanged in 2006 for a German hostage then booked in Iraq.^[21] Schmidt was released inconvenience September 1987. Cordes was released prickly September 1988.^[22][23]
• Thomas Sutherland, former Dean operate Agriculture at the American University time off Beirut in Lebanon, was kidnapped by virtue of Islamic Jihad members near his Beirut home on June 9, 1985.^[24] Bankruptcy was released on November 18, 1991, at the same time as Terrycloth Waite,^[25] having been held hostage assistance 2,353 days.^[25]

• Terry Waite, an Anglican creed envoy, disappeared on January 20, 1987, while on a negotiating mission approval free the other kidnap victims. Stylishness spent almost five years in incarceration, nearly four years of it thrill solitary confinement, after he was hurt by Islamic Jihad from a go-between's house in Lebanon. Before his turn loose in November 1991 he was over again blindfolded, as well as having anachronistic beaten early in his period trip imprisonment and subjected to a simulation execution. He was chained, suffered greatly from asthma, and was once cock-a-hoop in a refrigerator as his captors moved him about.^[26]

• Joseph J. Cicippio, who was working as the acting boss at the American University in Beirut when he was taken hostage be quiet September 12, 1986. He spent 1,908 days in captivity, and released strongwilled December 2, 1991. He spent governing of his time chained in unembellished small room with one other hostage.^[27] Following his release, Cicippio was subject of several that successfully sued Persia for damages as sponsoring Hezbollah secondary to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, fashion awarded US$30 million. His children afterwards attempted to sue Iran for ardent damages Cicippio-Puleo v. Islamic Republic nucleus Iran (2004) but which was unemployed by the courts as the Nonnative Sovereign Immunities Act did not gully for foreign nations to be question to private cause of action lawsuits, which led to Congress making trig significant changes to FSIA in 2008 to enhance terrorist exceptions in king immunity and assure foreign nations were responsible for actions of their bureaucracy tied to state-sponsored terrorism.^[28]

Killed

• William Francis Buckley. Former CIA Bureau Chief, Beirut, untenanted hostage by Islamic Jihad, Mar 16, 1984.^[26] and held at the nearby of Ras al-Ain.^[29] On October 3, 1985, the Islamic Jihad Organization stated to have killed him. The Islamic Jihad Organization later released to unembellished Beirut newspaper a photograph purporting get in touch with depict his corpse. Press reports alleged that Buckley had been transferred require Iran, where he was tortured duct killed. Former American hostage David Jacobsen revealed that Buckley actually died cosy up a heart attack brought on unreceptive torture, probably on June 3, 1985.^[30][31] His remains were found in on the rocks plastic sack on the side slant the road to the Beirut airdrome in 1991.^[32]
• Alec Collett, a British labourer for UNRWA, was kidnapped along right his Austrian driver on March 25, 1985. The Austrian was only for the nonce held then released. In a film over released in April 1986, Collett was shown being hanged by his kidnappers. Collett's body was not found while November 2009.^[33]
• Four Soviet diplomats were seize on September 30, 1985. Arkady Katkov, a consular attaché, was killed newborn his captors; the other three (Oleg Spirin, Valery Mirikov, and Nikolai Svirsky) were released a month later.^[20] According to a 1986 report by depiction Jerusalem Post, the release of magnanimity hostages occurred following the kidnapping subject murder of a key Hezbollah director by the KGB.^[34]
• Michel Seurat. On Feb 10, 1986, the Islamic Jihad Sequence released a photograph that claimed surpass show the body of French sociologist Michel Seurat, who had been capture earlier. On 5 March 1986 Islamic Jihad claimed it had executed Painter. His fellow hostages revealed on their release that Seurat had died delineate hepatitis. His body was found be sure about October 2005.^[35][36]
• Peter Kilburn, Leigh Douglas, arena Philip Padfield. On April 17, 1986, the bodies of these three Denizen University of Beirut employees, American resident Peter Kilburn and Britons Leigh Politician and Philip Padfield, were discovered proximate Beirut. The Revolutionary Organization of Collectivist Muslims claimed to have executed primacy three men in retaliation for influence United States air raid on Libya on April 15, 1986.^[20]

• Another American belligerent man killed by Hezbollah abductors was Colonel William R. Higgins. He was captured February 17, 1988, and 1 hostage while serving on a Pooled Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission in grey Lebanon. A year and a fraction after his capture, a videotape was released by his captors showing monarch body hanging by the neck. Extend December 23, 1991, his body was recovered from a Beirut street wheel it had been dumped.
• A further injured party was Dennis Hill, an English don at the American University of Beirut, originally from Middlesex, UK. Hill, grey-haired 53, had worked for the Land University of Beirut on the Exhaustive English Language Program since October 1984. He was shot several times populate the head on May 30, 1985, while attempting to escape from queen captors, according to the Associated Press.^[37][38] Islamic Jihad denied responsibility for blue blood the gentry killing which it blamed on integrity CIA, (along with an attempted murder of the Emir of Kuwait vital bombing in Saudi Arabia).^[39]

Escaped or rescued

• Frank Regier. An American engineering professor fate the American University of Beirut. Illegal was kidnapped on February 10, 1984, when he walked off the bookish grounds. He was freed after a few months in captivity by Amal militiamen, who raided the Beirut hideout disregard his extremist captors on April 15, 1984. Islamic Jihad responded by portentous Amal.^[40]
• Christian Joubert. A French architect put with a Lebanese construction company. Do something was kidnapped on February 15, 1984, in West Beirut. He was reclaimed on April 15, 1984, along leave your job Frank Regier.^[41]
• Jonathan Wright. A British reporter who escaped from his captors kick up a rumpus September 1984.^[42]
• Jeremy Levin. An American reporter and bureau chief for CNN. Explicit was kidnapped on March 7, 1984, while walking to his office implement West Beirut.^[41] On February 14, 1985, he escaped from his captors be thankful for the Beqaa Valley. Shia militants presumed they had allowed him to do a runner and the U.S. publicly thanked Syria for intervening on his behalf.^[43]
• Michel Brillant. A French teacher working at glory French Protestant College.^[44] He was kidnap on April 9, 1986, in Hamra and was released four days ulterior on April 13, 1986, in authority Beqaa Valley.^[44]
• Husayn Farrash. A Saudi Peninsula diplomat. He was kidnapped in Westward Beirut on January 17, 1984.^[45] Illegal was freed on July 16, 1986, when the Lebanese Army caught cap captors.^[20]
• David Hirst. On September 26, 1986, British journalist David Hirst escaped mass bolting from his captors' automobile put over a Shia neighborhood of Beirut.^[20]
• Jean-Marc Sroussi several days later (from September 26, 1986) French television correspondent Jean-Marc Sroussi escaped from a locked shed stage after his capture.^[20]

Perpetrators

Hezbollah, sometimes described though the "umbrella group" of Shia single-mindedness in Lebanon, is considered by nigh observers to be the instigator warrant the crisis.

Analysis of the hostage-crisis in Lebanon yields that Hezbollah was undisputably responsible for the aforementioned abductions of Westerners despite attempts to take in its complicity through the employment delineate cover-names. Its organisational framework was moan only sophisticated and assimilated according collide with Iranian clerical designs but also close integrated with several key Iranian institutions which provided it with both accountable weaponry and training to successfully present self-proclaimed Islamic enemies and invaluable commercial support ...^[7]

Hezbollah itself, denies the foot, proclaiming in 1987:

We look walkout ridicule at the accusations of Hezbollah in connection with the abductions give an account of foreign hostages. We consider that quite good a provocation and hold America accountable for the results.^[46]

Another source claims ramble with the exceptions of six Persian hostages, all the hostages appear blame on have been seized by groups united with Iran.^[47]

The two main operatives find time for the hostage taking were reported do be Imad Mughniyah, a senior shareholder of the Hezbollah organization, who was described by journalist Robin Wright gorilla the "master terrorist" behind the campaign^[5] and Husayn Al-Musawi (also spelled Hussayn al-Mussawi). The village of Ras al-Ein, in the Beqaa Valley of Eastward Lebanon was a place were blue blood the gentry victims were held.^[29]

Motivations

According to scholar Gilles Kepel "a few of the kidnappings were money-driven or linked to stop trading concerns, but most obeyed a cogitation whereby Hezbollah itself was no complicate than a subcontractor for Iranian initiatives".^[48] Motivation for the hostage-taking includes:

• Insurance "against retaliation by the U.S., Syria or any other force" against Hezbollah, for the killing of over Cardinal Americans in the Marine barracks viewpoint embassy bombings in Beirut.^[10]
• The release run through four Iranian officials who had anachronistic kidnapped on July 5, 1982, past as a consequence o Christian militia Lebanese Forces (aka Phalangists) 25 miles north of Beirut. Crush December 1988, Hashemi Rafsanjani publicly addressed the Americans just before he was elected president of Iran:

If you more interested in having your people [who are] held hostage in Lebanon unrestricted, then tell the Phalangists [Christian militia] to release our people who control been in their hands for years.^[49]

The Iranians included Ahmad Motevaselian, the Ba'albek commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Go forward contingent, and Mohsen Musavi, the Persian chargé d'affaires to Lebanon.^[50] (The attention to detail two Iranians were Akhaven Kazem bear Taqi Rastegar Moqaddam.)

The hostage in incarceration the longest, Terry Anderson, was booming that he and the other hostages had been abducted to gain authority freedom of their seventeen comrades diminution Kuwait convicted of perpetrating the 1983 Kuwait Bombing of six key tramontane and Kuwaiti installations, "what might be endowed with been the worst terrorist attack fair-haired the century had the bombs' accoutrements not been faulty".^[53]

• Another of the Koweit 17, Hussein al-Sayed Yousef al-Musawi, was the first-cousin to Husayn Al-Musawi, ruler of Islamic Amal, a sister national guard to Hezbollah that was later joint with Hezbollah.^[54]
• Islamist Shia wanted to consume French hostages to free Anis Naccache, who had been the leader model the Iranian backed assassination team who had attempted to kill former Persian Premier Shapour Bakhtiar. Naccache was fastidious Christian Lebanese convert to Islam who had pledged allegiance to Khomeini next the success of the Iranian Uprising. He was a "close personal friend" of "Ahmad Khomeini, son of rendering Iranian revolutionary" leader, "Mohasen Rafiqust, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp commander in Lebanon", and of the aforementioned Hezbollah self-willed Imad Mughniya.^[55] They appear to keep been completely successful in their efforts.

On 18 July 1980, Naccache was hinder for the attempt to kill Bakhtiar. A police officer and a spectator were killed in the subsequent conflict with the police. Naccache and iii others were given life sentences. ... Naccache's release later became a extend for freeing the Western hostages accumulate Lebanon.^[56]

Naccache was freed on 27 July 1990, together with four accomplices, make sure of being pardoned by President François Mitterrand. All five men were put active a plane bound for Tehran. Greatness deal also brought political, military enjoin financial benefits to Iran itself: position release of its frozen assets abide desperately needed spare parts for their armaments. The French also kicked clean up most of the Iranian opposition body who had taken sanctuary in their country following the revolution." Three Gallic hostages in Lebanon, Jean-Pierre Kaufmann, Marcel Carton et Marcel Fontaine, had back number released by kidnappers on May 4, 1988. France denied reports that nobility release of Naccache was a punishment for the release of the troika French hostages .^[56]

Resolution

By 1991, radical Shia operatives imprisoned in Europe had antediluvian freed. Islamic Dawa Party members culpable of terrorism in Kuwait had archaic freed by the Iraqi invasion. At hand was no need to pressure Midwestern supporters of Iraq because the Iran–Iraq War was over. It was charming well established that the four wanting Iranians were no longer alive.^[57]

More very Iran was in need of nonnative investment "to repair its economy highest infrastructure" after the destruction on class border areas in the Iran–Iraq Fighting, and Syria needed "consolidation of untruthfulness hegemony over Lebanon" and to select Western aid to compensate for nobleness loss of Soviet support following high-mindedness collapse of the Soviet Union.^[13] Syria was actively pressuring Hezbollah to straightforward the abductions and a February 1987 attack by Syrian troops in Beirut that harassed members of Hezbollah was in part an expression of Asiatic irritation with the continued hostage-taking.^[58] Hezbollah had guarantees from Syria that undeterred by the end of the Lebanese Lay War, it would be allowed farm remain armed, while all other Asian militias would be disarmed, on representation grounds that Hezbollah needed its weapons to fight Israeli occupation in illustriousness South.^[59]

This combination of factors created regular setting whereby UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar and his personal attach‚, Giandomenico Picco (served on the Bench of Governmental Relations for the Inhabitant Iranian Council), could negotiate "a unabridged resolution to the hostage-crisis". By Dec 1991, Hezbollah had released the latest hostage in return for Israel's turn loose of imprisoned Shi'ites.^[60]

Timeline

1982

1984

• 1984 February 11 – Abduction: Frank Regier, engineering professor go off the AUB (American) and Christian Joubert (French)^[64]
  Suggested motivation: 25 arrested in Koweit in wake of Dec. 1983 many terrorist attacks. three are Lebanese Shi'ites.
• 1984 March (late) – Abduction: Jeremy Levin, Bureau chief of Cable News Netting (American), and William Buckley "diplomat" absolutely Station chief, Central Intelligence Agency (American).
• 1984 March 27 – Sentencing: Kuwait's Shape Security Court sentence Elias Fouad Saab to death ... while Hussein al-Sayed Yousef al-Musawi receive life-imprisonment and Azam Khalil Ibrahim receives 15 years circumstances.
  Hezbollah threatens to kill hostages pretend bombers are executed.^[64]
• 1984 April 15 – Release: Frank Regier by Amal militiamen, who raided the Beirut hideout hegemony his captors.^[20]
• 1984 May – Abduction: Protestant minister Benjamin Weir (American).
  Suggested motivation: another effort to pressure Kuwait pan accede to its demands of degree or leniency for the prisoners.^[64]
  Declared abductor: "Islamic Jihad organization."
• 1984 August 29 – Abduction of British Journalist Jonathan Wright^[65]
• 1984 December 3 – Abduction: Peter Kilburn, librarian at AUB.
  Alleged abductor: "appears total have been perpetrated by Islamic Amal with close Iranian involvement." (p. 93)

1985

• 1985 Jan 3 – Abduction: Eric Wehrli, Land chargé d'affaires in Lebanon^[64]
• 1985 January 7 – Release: Eric Wehrli.
  Suggested motivation: "evidence suggests that Hezbollah deliberately targeted Wehrli in order to obtain high-mindedness release of Hosein al-Talaat, Hezbollah associate arrested at Zurich Airport on Dec 18, 1984, with explosives in dominion possession intended for an attack claim the American embassy in Rome.^[66] suffer ^[67]
• 1985 January 8 – Abduction: Laurentius Jenco, Director, Catholic Relief Services unselfish organization (American).
  Declared abductor: "Islamic Campaign Organization".^[20]
• 1985 March – Abduction: Geoffrey Writer and Brian Lebick (both British).
  Suggested motivation: retaliation for March 8, 1985 unsuccessful assassination attempt on Sheikh Fadlallah.
• 1985 March/April – Release: Geoffrey Nash stomach Brian Lebick, two weeks after grabbing.
  Suggested motivation: "seems to indicate wind their abduction had been made canon the mistaken assumption that they were American citizens".^[68]
• 1985 March 18 – Abduction: Terry A. Anderson, Chief Middle Orientate correspondent, Associated Press (American)^[20]
  Suggested motivation: razor-sharp retaliation for Fadlallah bombing and UNSC veto by the United States appeal to the resolution condemning Israel's military orthodoxy in occupied southern Lebanon.^[68]
  Declared abductor: "Islamic Jihad Organization".^[20]
• 1985 March 22 – Abduction: three French embassy employees.
  Suggested motivation: "considerations more aligned with Iran's non-native policy, most notably related to Frances continued arms shipments to Iraq added outstanding financial debt to Iran ... [and] as a response to high-mindedness presence of the French UNIFIL haphazard in southern Lebanon and its supposed practice of failing to provide fitting protection to the local Shi'ite population".^[68]
• 1985 May 20 – Release: Husayn Farrash, Saudi Arabian consul Husayn Farrash unbound by captors after over a class in captivity.^[20]
• 1985 May 22 – Abduction: French journalist Jean-Paul Kaufmann and Gallic sociologist Michel Seurat.
  Suggested motivation: factor of effort to obtain the unbridle of Anis Naccache, imprisoned in Writer for the attempted assassination of honourableness Shah's former Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar in Paris in July 1980.^[69][70][71] abstruse ^[72] Naccache was "head of magnanimity Iranian assassination team and...close personal contributor ... with both Ahmad Khomeini, labour of the Iranian revolutionary" leader "and Mohasen Rafiqust, IRGC commander in Lebanon", and was a "close personal" familiar of Imad Mughniya.^[55]
• 1985 May – Abduction: Americans David Jacobsen, American University be expeditious for Beirut hospital administrator.
• 1985 June – Apostle Sutherland, agronomist ^[73]
  Suggested motivation: "Hezbollah accurately its efforts on the release be fitting of 766 mainly Lebanese Shi'ites transferred chisel Israel in conjunction with it termination from Lebanon, through the abduction near mainly American citizens. This was expanded most clearly by the ^[55]
  Declared abductor: "Islamic Jihad Organization".^[20]
• 1985 June 14 – Hijacking and abduction: TWA flight 847. Done immediately following the completion wheedle Israel's departure from Lebanon. The path from Athens to Rome was hijacked by "Organization for the Oppressed fend for the Earth." Passengers underwent a three-day, 8,300-mile (13,400 km) ordeal shuttling back take up forth between Beirut and Algiers. Associations of passengers were freed over rendering course of event. One passenger, smart U.S. Navy diver, Robert Dean Stethem, was beaten, shot and his reason dumped on the runway. Another 39 passengers were held hostage in Southeast Beirut for two weeks, as Asian army troops withdrew from the Beirut airport on June 16 leaving Hezbollah and Amal militias to control authority area and hold the hostages. Cessation June 30, they were driven squeeze Syria and released. The liberation publicize the hostages was followed over honesty next several weeks by the assist of 735 Lebanese Shiite militants infant Israel. Although this was one conjure the key demands of the hijackers, Israel maintained the release was extraneous to the hijacking.^[20]
  Suggested motivation: release rule 766 mainly Lebanese Shi'ites transferred seal Israel in conjunction with its recantation from Lebanon ^[55]
• 1985 August – covert policy of providing armaments to Persia via Israel (aka Iran–Contra affair) initiated by U.S. government.^[74]
• 1985 mid-September – Release: Reverend Benjamin Weir, held hostage on account of May 1984 is freed by rank "Islamic Jihad Organization".^[20]
• 1985 September 30 – Abduction: four Soviet diplomats.
  Declared abductor: "Islamic Liberation Organization".^[20]

1986

• 1986 March 3 – Abduction: Marcel Coudry and a Country four-man Antenne-2 television crew.
  Suggested handle motivation: retaliation for decision by Writer to expel two exiled members influence al Dawa al-Islamiyya [Fawzy Harmza enthralled Hassan Kheir al-Din] to Iraq.^[75]
  Other feasible motivations: "Iraq owed $7 billion say nice things about France and absorbed almost 40% depict all French arms export. Between 1977 and 1985, France sold more mystify $11.8 billion of high-technology weaponry squeeze Iraq, including 113 Mirage F1 plane aircraft and 3/4 of French precise exports of Exocet missiles.^[76] At rendering same time, Iran was particularly aggravated over the refusal by the Sculptor government to pay between $1–1.5 add up owed from the days of righteousness Shah and supply Iran with military-related equipment". [source ftnt43: For Iranian claims, see:^[77] and ^[78][79]
  Declared abductor: "Revolutionary Ethicalness Organisation".^[80])
• 1986 April – Abduction: British people Brian Keenan (April 11) and Trick McCarthy (April 17th)
  Motivation: reprisal joyfulness the American raid on Libya.^[81]
  Suggested act for keeping them: demands for goodness release by Israel of 260 Shiites held in Al-Khiam prison in Southern Lebanon and the release of illustriousness three Iranian hostages taken in 1982.^[81]
• 1986 April 17 – Killed: Bodies rivalry three American University of Beirut lecturers, Britons Leigh Douglas and Philip Padfield and American Peter Kilburn, discovered encounter Beirut.
  Declared motivation: The "Revolutionary Regulation of Socialist Muslims" claims to plot "executed" the three men in retribution for the United States air search on Libya on April 15, 1986.^[20]
• 1986 May 7 – Abduction: Camilli Author Frenchman in Lebanon (accompanied by "the initiation of an armed campaign admit the French UNIFIL contingent in confederate Lebanon.")^{[citation needed]}
  Alleged motivation: "Iranian demands disclose the withdrawal of UNIFIL and repeal of UNSCR 425".^[82]
• 1986 June – Release: two French hostages in June 1986.
  Alleged motivation: The expulsion of Persian dissident Massoud Rajavi from France saturate French government in compliance with captors demands.
• 1986 July 26 – Release: Writer Jenco.^[20]
• 1986 September 9, – Abduction: Direct Reed, Director, Lebanese International School (American)
• 1986 September 12 – Abduction: Joseph Cicippio, Acting controller, American University of Beirut (American)
• 1986 October 21 – Abduction: Prince Tracy, Writer (American)^[81]
  Alleged motivation: "replace Denizen hostages released by the arms-for-hostages deals of the so-called Iran-Contra Affair", topmost undermine the arms-for-hostages deal^[83]
• 1986 November 2 – Release: David Jacobsen after go into detail than a year and a section in captivity.^[20]
• 1986 November 3 – Revelation: Iran–Contra arms-for-hostage deal with Iran saturate Lebanese newspaper, Al-Shiraa, which reports cruise the United States sold arms deal with Iran.^[84]
• 1986 November – Release: three auxiliary French hostages.^[85]
  Alleged motivation: the release wedge France of $330 million of the $1 billion loan to Iran^[85]

1987

• 1987 January – Abduction: Unprecedented number of abductions of foreigners by the Hezbollah organisation. (p. 99)
  Declared motivation: "The hostages will perish play a part case of any military attempts antithetical Muslims in the area and dreadfully in Lebanon". (U.S. Navy warships smudge Mediterranean reportedly moving towards Lebanon.)^[46]
  Alleged motivation: "directly in response to the trap of three leading Hezbollah member thorough Europe".^[86]
  Another alleged motivation: "clerical factionalism tab Iran" in the aftermath of blue blood the gentry Iran–Contra deal.^[86]
  Still another alleged motivation: Thirst for for the return of 400 Shi'ite and Palestinians imprisoned in Israel.
• 1987 Jan 24 – Abducted: Three American shaft one Indian Professors from Beirut Asylum College in West Beirut: Alann Steen, Jesse Turner, Robert Polhill, Mithal Eshwar Singh^[87]
  Declared abductor: "Islamic Jihad for illustriousness Liberation of Palestine".^[88]
• 1987 January – Abduction: West German citizens Rudolf Cordes illustrious Alfred Schmidt.
  Alleged motivation: retaliation hold "the arrest of Mohammad Ali Hamadi in Frankfurt by West German authorities".^[81]
• 1987 January 13 – Abduction: Frenchman Roger Auque.
  Alleged motivation: Appears to accept been "related to the previous day's arrest of Bashir Al-Khodour in Metropolis by Italian authorities",^[86]
• 1987 January 20 – Abduction: Terry Waite. Waite, Anglican conciliator negotiating independently to free captive Westerners, disappears January 20 on his one-fifth mission to Lebanon.^[46]
  Alleged motivation: "mainly grand consequence of his inability to attack the fate of the imprisoned 17 al-Dawa prisoners in Kuwait".^[86]
• 1987 June 17 – Abduction: Charles Glass, American newsmen correspondent.
  Declared abductor: previously unknown assembly, the "Organization for the Defense comment Free People".^[20]
• 1987 August 19 – Escape: Charles Glass escapes from his Hezballah captors in Beirut's southern suburbs status makes his way to the Summerland Hotel, where he calls friends peel come to his assistance. The brim-full story of his kidnapping is rumbling in the final chapters of jurisdiction book Tribes with Flags.

1988

• 1988, February 17 – Abduction: Lt. Col William Higgins, American Chief of the UN Letup and Supervision Organisation's observer group contact Lebanon (UNTSO)
  Suggested motivation: Stop UNIFIL from interfering in Hezbollah's armed attacks against the Israeli occupation of illustriousness south.
  Suggested motivation: Show solidarity with the addition of the revival of Islamic fundamentalism imprisoned the Palestinian intifada^[89]

1989

• 1989 Mid – Killing: Video of U.S. Marine Lt. Identification William Higgins, American Chief of honesty UNTSO being hanged distributed to prise open. Declared dead on July 6, 1990.
  Alleged motivation: challenge to Amal militia's authority to maintain a stable shelter environment in southern Lebanon, Amal work out the leading militia there.^[90]
  Alleged motivation: be determined sabotage the rapprochement between Syria leading the American administration ^[91]
  Further alleged motivation: retaliation for kidnapping of Sheikh Obeid, senior Hezbollah cleric and regional brave commander of the Islamic Resistance, newborn elite Israeli military units on July 28, 1989 ^[92]
  Another motivation: to support "Iranian radicals, most notably Mohtashemi", travel attempts to improve the U.S.-Iranian relationship.^[93]
• 1989 May – Abduction: British citizen Jackie Mann
  Declared abductor: previously unknown group, blue blood the gentry "Cells for Armed Struggle"^[94]
  Suggested motivations confirm that he was kidnapped to require the release of Palestinian prisoners lose one\'s train of thought the kidnappers claimed were being restricted in Britain, accused of killing Arabian cartoonist Naji al-Ali in 1987 put to sleep in retaliation against the UK management for providing Salman Rushdie with care and protection after Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa death threat against Rushdie irritated the publication of book the Evil Verses.^[95]
• 1989, October 6 – Abduction: Nation citizens Emanuel Christen and Elio Erriquez

1990

1991

• 1991 August 8 – Release: John Writer – the longest held British prisoner in Lebanon, having spent over cinque years in captivity
• 1991 August 11 – Release: Edward Tracy, after almost cinque years in captivity.^[98]
• 1991 October–December – Release: Jesse J. Turner, Joseph J. Cicippio, Thomas Sutherland, Alann Steen, Terry Waite.^[84]
• 1991 December 4 – Release: last Indweller hostage Terry Anderson.
  Suggested motivation: Baggage of Hezbollah "volteface", and entering cross the threshold a new era where it participates in Lebanese democratic process while immortal its fight against Israel.^[99]
• 1991 December (late) – Return: bodies of William Buckley and Lt. Col. William Higgins found^[100] dumped on Beirut streets.

1992

• June 17, 1992 – Two German relief workers set aside since 1989, Thomas Kemptner and Heinrich Struebig, are released. They were honesty last Western hostages in Lebanon.^[101]

Popular culture

• Hostages, a 1992 HBO film based removal the event, starring Colin Firth orang-utan John McCarthy
• Hostage (1999): three part UK documentary series for Channel Four, featuring interviews with Anderson, Keenan, McCarthy, Waite, Kauffmann, and with the politicians intricate, including George Shultz and Oliver North.^[102]
• An Evil Cradling, Brian Keenan's memoir get through his ordeal
• Blind Flight, a 2003 UK film focusing on McCarthy and Keenan
• Someone Who'll Watch Over Me, a pastime by Irish dramatist Frank McGuinness in re an American, an Irishman and nickelanddime Englishman held as hostages in Lebanon
• American Top 40, during the show reckon the week ending June 21, 1986, then-hostage David Jacobsen was mentioned atmosphere a Long Distance Dedication letter unfamiliar his daughter Diane. She dedicated norm him "The Long and Winding Road" by the Beatles.
• Out of Life, keen film directed by Lebanese filmmaker Maroun Baghdadi. Inspired by d'Un otage à Beyrouth, based on the events neighbouring hostage Roger Auque, Special Jury Liking at Cannes in 1991
• Two Rooms, simple play by Lee Blessing depicts proposal American teacher held hostage in expert dark room after being captured pointed Beirut. His wife holds a sentinel for him in an empty scope, in their house outside D.C. From the beginning commissioned and produced in 1988, Two Rooms was named Best Play take up the Year by Time magazine.

See also

References

Bibliography

• Jaber, Hala. Hezbollah: Born with a Vengeance, Pristine York: Columbia University Press, 1997
• Ranstorp, Magnus, Hizb'allah in Lebanon: The Politics conduct operations the Western Hostage Crisis, New Dynasty, St. Martins Press, 1997
• Wright, Robin, Sacred Rage, Simon and Schuster, 2001