Prisoners and Politics: Western Hostage Taking by Militant Groups

ABSTRACT

Hostage taking of Westerners by militant groups has increased since 9/11. Despite this rising problem, there has been little academic research on how a hostage’s individual characteristics influence the outcome of the incident. Using a newly collected dataset of over 1,000 individuals taken hostage in incidents involving terrorist groups since 2001, this article evaluates how individual, national, and group characteristics influence the likelihood that hostage incidents end with the release or execution of the hostage. The findings show that a hostage’s nationality and occupation are significant individual-level drivers of outcomes, while the nature of the militant group itself also matters.

KEYWORDS:

• Hostage taking
• militant groups
• negotiation policy

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Bryan Price, Don Rassler, Arie Perliger, Brian Dodwell, Krissy Hummel, Dakota Foster, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier versions of this article. An earlier draft of this article was presented at the 2017 Annual Conference of the International Studies Association, during which the authors received helpful feedback from the moderator and participants, which improved various aspects this article.

Notes

^1. In this article the term “Westerner” refers to the 34 member states of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The OECD states are Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, German, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

^2. This article defines a hostage as “a person detained and under the threat of dearth injury or continued detention by an individual or group in order to compel a third party to do (or abstain from doing) any act as an explicit or implicit condition of the person’s release.” United Nations, Language from Article 1 of the International Convention against the Taking of Hostages (New York: United Nations, 1979).

^3. Lyse Doucet, “How Four Men Survived as Hostages of IS.” BBC, April 20, 2016. Available at http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36080991

^4. Lizzie Dearden, “Steve Sotloff Beheaded: David Cameron under Pressure to Negotiate with Isis after Threat to Kill British Hostage,” The Independent, September 3, 2014. Available at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/steven-sotloff-beheaded-david-cameron-under-pressure-to-negotiate-with-isis-after-threat-to-kill-9707786.html

^5. Rukmini Callimachi, “The Horror before the Beheadings,” The New York Times, October 25, 2014. Available at https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/world/middleeast/horror-before-the-beheadings-what-isis-hostages-endured-in-syria.html

^6. Rukmini Callimachi, “Paying Ransoms, Europe Bankrolls Qaeda Terror,” The New York Times, July 29, 2014. Available at https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/30/world/africa/ransoming-citizens-europe-becomes-al-qaedas-patron.html

^7. Hostage events can be categorized as either (1) hostage barricade situations or (2) kidnappings. In hostage barricade situations, captors tend to stay in one place. Authorities, consequently, typically know the location of the hostage(s) and their captors and have the opportunity to surround and/or interdict the captors. In kidnappings, captors abduct the hostage(s) and move them to an undisclosed place for the duration of the negotiation phase. For this article “hostage-taking” or “hostage-taking incident” refer to the phenomena of hostage taking broadly and includes both types.

^8. Simon Reeve, One Day in September: The Full Story of the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and the Israeli Revenge Operation Wrath of God (New York, NY: Arcade Publishing, 2000); Aaron J. Klein, Striking Back: The 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and Israel’s Deadly Response (New York, NY: Random House, 2007).

^9. Adam Dolnik, Negotiating the Impossible: The Beslan Hostage Crisis (London, UK: Royal United Services Institute, 2007); Michael C. McDaniel and Cali Mortenson Ellis, “The Beslan Hostage Crisis: A Case Study for Emergency Responders,” Journal of Applied Security Research 4 (2009): 21–35.

^10. Richard J. Chasdi, “Terrorist Group Dynamics through the Lens of the Tigantourine Assault in Algeria,” Stability: International Journal of Security & Development 2 (2013): 1–10; Geoff Porter, “Terrorist Outbidding: The In Amenas Attack,” CTC Sentinel 8 (2015): 14–17.

^11. Todd Sandler and Walter Enders, “An Economic Perspective on Transnational Terrorism,” European Journal of Political Economy 20 (2004): 301–16.

^12. Todd Sandler, John Tschirhart, and Jon Cauley, “A Theoretical Analysis of Transnational Terrorism,” American Political Science Review 77, no. 1 (1983): 36–54; Scott Atkinson, Todd Sandler, and John Tshirhart, “Terrorism in a Bargaining Framework,” Journal of Law and Economics 30 (1987): 1–21; Harvey E. Lapan and Todd Sandler, “To Bargain or Not to Bargain: That Is the Question,” American Economic Review 78 (1998): 2, 16–20; Chia-yi Lee, “Democracy, Civil Liberties, and Hostage-taking Terrorism,” Journal of Peace Research 50, no. 2 (2013): 235–48.

^13. Patrick T. Brandt and Todd Sandler, “Hostage Taking: Understanding Terrorism Event Dynamics,” Journal of Policy Modeling 31 (2009): 758–78.

^14. Patrick T. Brandt, Justin George, and Todd Sandler, “Why Concessions Should Not Be Made to Terrorist Kidnappers,” European Journal of Political Economy 44 (2016): 41–52.

^15. Todd Sandler and John L. Scott, “Terrorist Success in Hostage-taking Incidents: An Empirical Study,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 31 (1987): 35–53; Khusrav Gaibulloev and Todd Sandler, “Hostage Taking: Determinants of Terrorist Logistical and Negotiation Success,” Journal of Peace Research 46 (2009): 739–56; Charlinda Santifort and Todd Sandler, “Terrorist Success in Hostage-taking Missions: 1978–2010,” Public Choice 156 (2013): 125–37.

^16. Frank Ochberg, “The Victims of Terrorism: Psychiatric Considerations,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 1 (1978): 147–68; Kobi Peleg, Limor Aharonson-Daniel, Michael Michael, and S. C. Shapira, “Patterns of Injury in Hospitalized Terrorist Victims,” American Journal of Emergency Medicine 21 (2003): 258–62; Andrew Silke, Terrorists, Victims, and Society: Psychological Perspectives on Terrorism and Its Consequences (West Sussex, UK: Wiley, 2003); Avi Bleich, Marc Gelkopf, Yuval Melamed, and Zahava Solomon, “Mental Health and Resiliency following 44 Months of Terrorism: A Survey of an Israeli National Representative Sample,” BMC Medicine 4 (2006): 1–11.

^17. Margaret G. Hermann and Charles F. Hermann, “Hostage Taking, the Presidency, and Stress,” in Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind, edited by Walter Reich (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1998).

^18. John C. Griffiths, Hostage: The History, Facts, & Reasoning behind Hostage Taking (London, UK: Andre Deutsch, 2003).

^19. Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2006).

^20. Eric Neumayer and Thomas Plumper, “Foreign Terror on Americans,” Journal of Peace Research 48 (2011): 3–17; Tim Krieger and Daniel Meierrieks, “The Rise of Capitalism and the Roots of Anti-American Terrorism,” Journal of Peace Research 52 (2015): 46–61.

^21. Daniel Milton. “Dangerous Work: Terrorism against US Diplomats.” Contemporary Security Policy, (2017): 1–26.

^22. Lapan and Sandler, “To Bargain or Not to Bargain.”

^23. Atkinson, Sandler, and Tshirhart, “Terrorism in a Bargaining Framework.”

^24. Minwoo Yun and Mitchel Roth, “Terrorist Hostage-taking and Kidnapping: Using Script Theory to Predict the Fate of a Hostage,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 31 (2008): 8.

^25. Gaibulloev and Sandler, “Hostage Taking: Determinants of Terrorist Logistical and Negotiated Success”; Minwoo Yun, “Hostage taking and kidnapping in terrorism: Predicting the fate of a hostage.” Professional Issues in Criminal Justice 2 (2007): 23–40

^26. Lapan and Sandler, “To Bargain or Not to Bargain.”

^27. One study on the Islamic State’s mentions on Twitter among its opponents found that they doubled from a previous maximum of roughly 40,000 mentions in a day to almost 90,000 mentions on the day that the Islamic State released videos of its execution of the Jordanian pilot Moath al Kasabeh. While anti-Islamic State Twitters are not the population that is generally targeted for recruitment and fundraising, this finding still points to the outsized impact publicized executions can have. Elizabeth Bodine-Baron, Todd C. Helmus, Madeline Magnuson, and Zev Winkleman, Examining ISIS Support and Opposition Networks on Twitter (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 2016).

^28. Lapan and Sandler, “To Bargain or Not to Bargain.”

^29. Griffiths, Hostage.

^30. This document, despite being prepared between November and December 2000, was released online, allegedly for the first time, in early February 2017. It was released by al-Qa’ida’s media organization on an anonymous file-sharing website and downloaded by the authors.

^31. Griffiths, Hostage; James Harkin, Hunting Season (New York, NY: Hachette Books, 2015).

^32. Adam Goldman and Julie Tate, “James Foley Death: US Photojournalist Waterboarded by ISIS before His Execution, Say Sources.” Independent, August 28, 2014. Available at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/james-foley-death-us-photojournalist-was-waterboarded-by-isis-before-his-execution-say-sources-9698356.html

^33. ODNI, Letter to Shaykh Mahmud 26 September 2010 (Washington, DC: Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 2015).

^34. The data and methods used to compile the dataset are described in detail in the report that first presented the data. Seth Loertscher and Daniel Milton, Held Hostage: Analyses of Kidnapping across Time and among Jihadist Organizations (West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism Center, 2015).

^35. Joel Simon, “Is It Time to End Media Blackouts?” Columbia Journalism Review (2014). Available at http://archives.cjr.org/the_kicker/james_foley_steven_sotloff_media_blackout.php

^36. Callimachi, “Paying Ransoms”; Timothy McGrath, “These Are the Countries That Have (Probably) Paid Hostage Ransom to the Islamic State,” Public Radio International, January 21, 2015. Available at https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-01-21/these-are-countries-have-probably-paid-hostage-ransom-islamic-state

^37. As is apparent from Table 1, evidence could not be collected regarding the position of 16 countries. These countries, however, account for only slightly more than 7 percent of all the cases in the dataset.

^38. William James and Kylie Maclellan. “Britain Urges G8 Countries Not to Pay Hostage Ransoms.” Reuters, September 3, 2014. Available at http://www.reuters.com/news/picture/britain-urges-g8-countries-not-to-pay-ho-idUSKBN0GY1AT20140903

^39. Pete Lentini and Muhammad Bakashmar, “Jihadist Beheading: A Convergence of Technology, Theology, and Teleology?” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 30 (2007): 303–25.

^40. Mia M. Bloom, “Palestinian Suicide Bombing: Public Support, Market Share, and Outbidding,” Political Science Quarterly 119 (2004): 61–88; Stephen Nemeth, “The Effect of Competition on Terrorist Group Operations,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 58 (2013): 336–62.

^41. Nils Petter Gleditsch, Peter Wallensteen, Mikael Eriksson, Margareta Sollenberg, and Havard Strand, “Armed Conflict 1946–2001: A New Dataset,” Journal of Peace Research 39 (2002): 615–37; Erik Melander, Therese Pettersson, and Lotta Themner, “Organized Violence: 1989–2015,” Journal of Peace Research 53 (2016): 727–42.

^42. Chelsea J. Carter, “Al Qaeda Leader Calls for Kidnapping of Westerners.” CNN, October 28, 2012. Available at http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/27/world/asia/al-qaeda-kidnap-threat/index.html

^43. This document was rereleased in January on an unofficial Islamic State Telegram account specializing in providing manuals for conducting various types of militant activity and was downloaded by the authors.

^44. Dearden, “Steve Sotloff.”

^45. Nicholas Berg, for instance, an American kidnapped in Iraq in 2004 who was one of the first victims of the now famous technique of jihadist groups beheading their victims on camera, was likely killed because of his nationality because (1) he was killed by during a time of intense anti-American sentiment in Iraq; (2) he was executed by Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, a group founded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi that was a precursor to al Qai’da in Iraq (AQI) and was attempting to make a name for itself in the crowded field of insurgent groups in Iraq; and (3) he was held for no more than a month before his execution—very little time for a militant group to even attempt negotiations.

^46. Carter, “Al Qaeda Leader.”

^47. Harmony Project, SOCOM-2012–0000010: Letter from UBL to ‘Atiyatullah Al-Libi (West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism Center, 2012); ODNI, “Letter to Shaykh Mahmud.”

^48. ODNI, Dear Brother Shaykh Mahmud (Washington, DC: Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 2016).

^49. Kader Kader and Josh Irish, “Four French Hostages Kidnapped in Niger Freed,” Reuters, October 29, 2013. Available at http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-niger-hostages-idUSBRE99S16T20131029; Henry Samuel, “France Denies Paying Ransom for al-Qaeda Hostages.” The Telegraph, October 30, 2013. Available at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/10415557/France-denies-paying-ransom-for-al-Qaeda-hostages.html

^50. David S. Cohen, “Attacking ISIL’s Financial Foundation,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2014. There is some early research to indicate that this is possible, but more research needs to be done in this field before this should be taken as definitive. Brandt et al., “Why Concessions Should Not Be Made.”

^51. Cohen, “Attacking ISIL’s Financial Foundation.”

^52. Damien McElroy, “Al-Qaeda’s Scathing Letter to Troublesome Mokhtar Belmokhtar Reveals Inner Workings of Terrorist Group.” Telegraph, May 29, 2013. Available at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/al-qaeda/10085716/Al-Qaedas-scathing-letter-to-troublesome-employee-Mokhtar-Belmokhtar-reveals-inner-workings-of-terrorist-group.html

^53. Dearden, “Steve Sotloff.”

^54. Militant actors are aware of this and often try to leverage this political pressure for their advantage. Bin Laden, when discussing the potential for executing one of the four French hostages if Sarkozy refused to negotiate, recommended timing it a week before the French elections, saying it might “pressure him to make the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan (to) secure the release of the other (hostages)” in order to ensure the deaths of more hostages would not cause him to “lose the election.” ODNI, “Dear Brother Shaykh.”

^55. Michelle Nichols, “U.N. Security Council Urges End to Ransom Payments to Extremists.” Reuters, January 27, 2014. Available at http://www.reuters.com/article/us-kidnappings-ransoms-un/u-n-security-council-urges-end-to-ransom-payments-to-extremists-idUSBREA0Q1RI20140127

^56. It is important to note that, while the victim’s country is often the target of the militant group’s demands, this is not always the case. In some cases, demands are leveraged against the local government. Brian M. Jenkins, Janera Johnson, and David Ronfeldt, Numbered Lives: Some Statistical Observations from 77 International Hostage Episodes (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 1977). For example, Yemeni tribesmen often kidnap Western hostages in an effort to release prisoners from their tribe or to improve local governmental services. Mona El-Naggar, “Two Americans Kidnapped in Yemen,” The New York Times, May 24, 2010. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/world/middleeast/25yemen.html

^57. It is likely that the 2017 execution of German citizen Jurgen Kantner by the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) was linked to the military pressure being applied against them by the Philippine government. President Duterte has stated that kidnappings by the ASG embarrass the Philippines and launched a military offensive to “crush” the ASG in January 2017. Jim Gomez, “Dueterte Eyes Joint Operations with Malayasia vs. Abu Sayyaf.” Associated Press, November 2, 2016. Available at https://apnews.com/0cbcb6e46c974ff08a3b39ef5954a094/duterte-eyes-joint-operations-malaysia-vs-abu-sayyaf; Ruth Abbey Gita, “Duterte Reiterates Call on State Forces to Crush Abu Sayyaf.” SunStar Manila, January 7, 2017. Available at http://www.sunstar.com.ph/manila/local-news/2017/01/07/duterte-reiterates-call-state-forces-crush-abu-sayyaf-518819; Philippine governmental officials confirmed that in the days prior to Mr. Kantner’s execution, they had launched military operations to try to rescue him. Jim Gomez, “Philippine Militants Release Video of German’s Beheading,” Associated Press, February 27, 2017. Available at https://apnews.com/81d2183a51f2443da5e4ecaf7b9873ea. A German journalist who conducted an interview with ASG members said he was told, “Philippine counterterrorism forces were apparently closing in on them, so they were in a hurry. They knew that their demands were not met and they knew that they were being confronted by counterterrorism forces and they were in a hurry to kill him.” BBC World Service. Newshour, 27 February 2017. Available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04tfg4c

^58. For example, in 2016 the families of four American hostages killed in the summer of 2014 wrote a public letter to President Obama in support of another US hostage urging Obama to “put aside any personal or election year concern, to engage boldly and to use all appropriate means to bring Austin Tice safely home as soon as possible.” Joshua Berlinger, “Parents of Slain US Hostage Plead to Bring Austin Tice Home.” CNN, June 22, 2016. Available at http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/22/middleeast/austin-tice-letter-syria/index.html

^59. Lindsay Murdoch, “’We Sold Our House to Pay Rodwell Ransom.’” Sydney Morning Herald, March 25, 2013. Available at http://www.smh.com.au/world/we-sold-our-house-to-pay-rodwell-ransom-20130324-2gow7.html; Mitch Potter and Michelle Shepard, “To Pay or Not to Pay.” Toronto Star, December 4, 2016. Available at https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/held-hostage/2016/12/04/canada-does-not-negotiate-with-terrorists-except-.html

^60. We use the term “corporate actor” loosely to discuss the entity that employed the hostage. It might include a business or a not-for-profit aid agency. In addition to their concerns about a hostage’s safety, these corporate actors also likely take their liability into consideration when deciding how to resolve hostage situations. Hostages who return from captivity and families of deceased victims have sued their employers for placing them in dangerous positions or ignoring threats of kidnappings and terrorist attacks. Joseph Ax, “Darfur Kidnapping Victim Sues Aid Group That Sent Her.” Reuters, May 19, 2011. Available at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-newyork-kidnap/darfur-kidnapping-victim-sues-aid-group-that-sent-her-idUSTRE74I70A20110519; Karolin Schaps, “BP to Be Sued in UK by Families of Algerian Gas Plant Attack Victims.” Reuters, January 13, 2016. Available at http://www.reuters.com/article/us-bp-inamenas-claims/bp-to-be-sued-in-uk-by-families-of-algerian-gas-plant-attack-victims-idUSKCN0UR2HD20160113

^61. Lukas I. Alpert and Keach Hagey. “Journalist Abductions Force Rethink of Media Blackout Policies.” Wall Street Journal, August 24, 2014. Available https://www.wsj.com/articles/journalist-abductions-force-rethink-of-media-blackout-policies-1408903861