BANGALORE - Hostage-takers are back in
business in a big way in Iraq. Over the past five
days, at least a dozen foreigners have been
reported kidnapped. In the latest incident Monday,
masked gunmen took a French engineer, Bernard
Planche, off the streets of Baghdad.
The
Khaleej Times in Dubai quoted Mustafa Alani,
director of security and terrorism studies at the
Gulf Research Center in Dubai, as saying he
thought the sudden increase in kidnappings was not
an accident.
"There is some sort of policy
to go back to kidnappings," he said. "The
elections are coming [on December 15] and these groups
want
attention and publicity. That way their political
statement will get a priority in the Western
media."
The current rash of kidnappings
began on Saturday when four Western peace
activists - James Loney and Harmeet Singh Sooden
of Canada, Tom Fox of the US and Norman Kember
from Britain - were taken hostage. On Tuesday,
German aid worker Susanne Osthoff, who had been
working in Iraq since before the 2003 US invasion
of the country, was taken hostage along with her
Iraqi driver. The same day six Iranian pilgrims
were abducted near a Shi'ite shrine north of
Baghdad. Two of them - both women - were
subsequently released.
The wave of
kidnappings breaks a relative lull in
hostage-taking in Iraq. It has been more than a
month since any incident of kidnapping of
foreigners has been reported. On October 19, an
Irish journalist, Rory Carroll, was abducted but
released within 36 hours. The spate of kidnappings
over the past week is a reminder that although the
number of kidnappings might have dipped in recent
months, the problem clearly hasn't gone away.
According to the Brookings Institution's
Iraq Index, between May 2003 and November 27, 242
foreigners were kidnapped in Iraq. Of those, 43
were killed (almost 17%), 120 were released, three
escaped, three were rescued and the fate of 73 is
still unknown. April 2004 witnessed the largest
number of foreigners kidnapped - 43 - and August
2004 saw the highest number of foreign hostages
killed - 15. Most foreigners were taken hostage in
the April-September 2004 period. About 135
foreigners - almost 56% of the total foreigners
abducted - were kidnapped over this six-month
period.
Since March, the number of
foreigners being kidnapped dipped significantly.
In fact, no foreigners were taken hostage in June.
One reason for the decline in the number of
kidnappings, especially of Westerners, was that
many Western aid workers moved out of Iraq; those
who remained took care not to move out of the
heavily fortified Green Zone, making it more
difficult for kidnappers to find foreign victims.
The decline in kidnappings was also
attributed to a change in the militants' strategy.
It was believed that with kidnapping and
especially the gruesome beheading of hostages
triggering revulsion worldwide, militant groups
decided to go slow on abductions so as to not
alienate support for the insurgency, especially
among moderate Muslims.
Such speculation
has now been proved wrong by the recent wave of
abductions.
What began with the kidnapping
and televised beheading of US businessman Nicholas
Berg grew quickly into what some American analysts
described as a "cottage industry" in Iraq.
Kidnappings not only grew in frequency but the
groups involved seemed to have a good grasp of its
profit potential. They also showed understanding
of how to blend the old with the new. Kidnapping
as a pressure tactic to have demands conceded has
been around for centuries, as has beheading. In
Iraq, the kidnappers used kidnapping and beheading
to generate immense terror and blended it with
modern technology - the Internet - for maximum
effect.
Demands put forward by kidnappers
for release of hostages include pullout from Iraq
of troops deployed by the victim's country, halt
of business being conducted by the hostage's
employers in Iraq, release of prisoners in Iraqi
jails and, of course, money. Huge ransom demands
have often been cloaked with political demands.
Initially it seemed citizens of countries
that were part of the US-led occupation forces in
Iraq were the prime targets for abduction. Several
of the British and American hostages were
decapitated and the beheadings were videotaped and
uploaded on websites. Abductions were a means to
pressure the concerned countries to pull out
troops from Iraq. However, the motivations behind
and targets of the abductions gradually became
less focused.
In July 2004, seven truck
drivers - three each from India and Kenya and one
from Egypt - were abducted although neither of
their countries had deployed troops in Iraq.
However, the Kuwaiti firm they worked for
transported supplies to American troops in Iraq.
The changing demands put forward by the kidnappers
revealed a lack of understanding of political
issues in Iraq, signaling that the abductions had
monetary rather than political motivations. A
month later, two French journalists were abducted
though France is not a part of the coalition
forces in Iraq, but rather was at the forefront of
the campaign against the US invasion of the
country. The hostage-takers demanded that France
lift its ban on Islamic headscarves in its state
schools. It was the first time that hostage-takers
laid down conditions external to Iraq.
Diplomats from Middle East countries also
have been abducted in an apparent attempt to
isolate Iraq's government from the Arab and Muslim
world. In the beginning, several of those who were
abducted were contractors or employees of firms
working with the occupation forces. Soon, however,
the list of hostages came to include journalists
and humanitarian aid workers - people who were not
working with the US-led coalition. Some have even
had long ties with Iraq. Aid worker Margaret
Hassan, who was abducted and subsequently
beheaded, was the wife of an Iraqi and had deep
roots in Iraq. She worked there for 30 years. Yet
even she was not immune to abduction. The peace
activists abducted on Saturday belong to a
Chicago-based pacifist group that has criticized
the war.
What has become apparent over the
past year is that no one enjoys immunity from
abduction in Iraq.
Drawing attention to
areas most prone to kidnapping of foreigners, the
Olive Security report said 54% of all foreign
civilian kidnappings in Iraq occurred in Baghdad
and Anbar provinces - including highways to Syria
and Jordan. Provinces north of Baghdad toward
Turkey, excluding the Kurdish areas, were also
found to be high-risk areas.
An array of
groups are said to be behind the kidnappings; some
are active in the business of abductions only,
while others are engaged in the insurgency as
well. According to the Olive Security report, more
than 20 groups have carried out kidnappings in
Iraq. Of these, six have executed their hostages.
Several of the groups were unknown until
they burst into the media spotlight with an
abduction. The Holders of the Black Banners, for
instance, had never been heard of until the
kidnapping of the seven truck drivers in July
2004. The leader in the kidnappings comes, without
doubt, from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group. It has
carried out not only the most high-profile
abductions but also the most gruesome executions
of its hostages. Among others, it claimed
responsibility for the abduction and beheading of
Berg, South Korean translator Kim Sun-il, British
engineer Ken Bigley and American contractors
Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley.
Since
Zarqawi's group Al-Tawhid wal-Jihad merged with
al-Qaeda - it has assumed the name of al-Qaeda in
Iraq - the beheading of hostages and the
videotaping of the decapitation has become less
frequent, according to the BBC website.
Other groups that have claimed
responsibility for kidnappings in Iraq include the
al-Saraya Mujahideen, the Ansar al-Sunna, Ansar
al-Islam, the Jaish al-Mujahideen, Islamic Army in
Iraq and the Ali bin Abi Talib Brigades. Several
groups claiming responsibility for kidnappings
have declared links with al-Qaeda. But it is
possible that at least some of these groups were
claiming these ties to press their ransom demands
more effectively.
It appears many of the
abductions are carried out by criminal gangs,
which are into the business of kidnapping as long
as prospects for profit hold out. These gangs sell
the hostage to the insurgent groups which then use
the hostage to press political demands. Foreign
hostages command a higher price in the kidnapping
business.
While the kidnapping of a
foreigner in Iraq is extensively covered in the
international media, the kidnapping of Iraqis has
gone by largely unnoticed. The 242 foreigners
kidnapped pales in comparison with the number of
Iraqis abducted. According to the Iraqi Interior
Ministry, 5,000 Iraqis were kidnapped between
December 2003 and late April.
Hostage-taking in Iraq is not only
lucrative, it has also met the militants' goals to
some extent. Abductions and beheadings of victims
have generated immense terror, on a scale far
greater than that triggered even by suicide
bombings. Militants have been able to get some
countries such as the Philippines to pull out
troops, and several business companies and
contractors have halted operations in Iraq.
Humanitarian aid operations have been scaled down;
only those aid groups that can afford security for
their workers remain in Iraq today. While violent
attacks have contributed to some extent to
construction companies and charity organizations
scaling down, abductions of foreigners has had a
larger impact. Through abductions, hostage-takers
have not only made much money but also have been
able to prevent the occupation forces from
stabilizing the security or economic situation in
Iraq.
Hostage-taking costs little, but
returns are high. It is the "smart weapon" in the
insurgents' arsenal.
Sudha
Ramachandran is an independent
journalist/researcher based in Bangalore.
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