The Lebanon hostage crisis refers to the systematic kidnapping in Lebanon

Lebanon

Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...

 of 96 foreign hostages of 21 national origins – mostly American and western European – between 1982 and 1992. At least 8 hostages perished in captivity: some murdered, while others died from lack of adequate medical attention to illnesses.

Those taking responsibility for the kidnapping used different names, but the testimony of former hostages indicates almost all the "groups" were actually one group of "a dozen men" coming "from various ... clans" within the Hezbollah organization, "most notably the Mughniyya and Hamadi clans." Particularly important in the organization was "master terrorist" Imad Mughniyah. Hezbollah has publicly denied involvement. It is also widely believed that the Islamic Republic of Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

 - and to a lesser extent Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

 - played a major role in the kidnappings, if in fact it was not the instigator of them.

The original reason for the hostage-taking seems to have been "as insurance against retaliation by the U.S., Syria, or any other force" against Hezbollah, which is thought responsible for the killing of 230 Americans in the Marine barracks

1983 Beirut barracks bombing

The Beirut Barracks Bombing occurred during the Lebanese Civil War, when two truck bombs struck separate buildings housing United States and French military forces—members of the Multinational Force in Lebanon—killing 299 American and French servicemen...

 and embassy bombings in Beirut

Beirut

Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...

. Other reasons for the kidnappings or the prolonged holding of hostages are thought to be "primarily based on Iranian foreign policy calculations and interests" particularly the extraction of "political, military and financial concessions from the Western world", the hostage takers being strong allies of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The tight security measures taken by the hostage-keepers succeeded in preventing the rescue of all but a handful of hostages, and this along with public pressure from the media and families of the hostages led to a breakdown of the anti-terrorism principle of "no negotiations, no concessions" by American and French officials. In the United States, the Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

 administration negotiated a secret and illegal arms for hostage swap with Iran known as the Iran-Contra Affair

Iran-Contra Affair

The Iran–Contra affair , also referred to as Irangate, Contragate or Iran-Contra-Gate, was a political scandal in the United States that came to light in November 1986. During the Reagan administration, senior Reagan administration officials and President Reagan secretly facilitated the sale of...

.

The hostage crisis ended with the need for Western aid and investment by Syria and Iran following the end of the Iran-Iraq war

Iran-Iraq War

The Iran–Iraq War was an armed conflict between the armed forces of Iraq and Iran, lasting from September 1980 to August 1988, making it the longest conventional war of the twentieth century...

 and collapse of the Soviet Union, and with promises to Hezbollah that it could remain armed following the end of the Lebanese Civil War and that France and America would not seek revenge against it.

Background

25 victims were Americans, 16 were Frenchmen, 12 Britons, 7 Swiss and 7 West Germans. Among the names the hostage takers used were Islamic Jihad

Islamic Jihad Organization

The Islamic Jihad Organization – IJO or Organisation du Jihad Islamique in French, but best known as ‘Islamic Jihad’ for short, was a fundamentalist Shia group known for its activities in the 1980s during the Lebanese Civil War...

, Organization for the Defense of Free People, Organization for the Oppressed of the Earth, Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine

Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine

Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine was a Lebanese radical Shia group that claimed credit for the January 24, 1987 abduction of three American and one Indian professors – Alann Steen, Jesse Turner, Robert Pohill, Mithal Eshwar Singh – from Beirut University College in West Beirut...

.

Events

• TWA Flight 847
  TWA Flight 847
  TWA Flight 847 was an international Trans World Airlines flight which was hijacked by Lebanese Shia extremists, later identified as members of Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, on Friday morning, June 14, 1985, after originally taking off from Cairo. The flight was en route from Athens to Rome and then...
  
  . One of the most dramatic hostage-takings in Lebanon occurred on June 14, 1985, when TWA Flight 847 from Athens to Rome was hijacked by "Organization for the Oppressed of the Earth." Passengers underwent a three-day, 8300 miles (13,357.5 km) ordeal shuttling back and forth between Beirut and Algiers. Groups of passengers were freed over the course of event. One passenger, a U.S. Navy diver, Robert Dean Stethem, was beaten, shot and his body dumped on the runway. Another 39 passengers were held hostage in the South Beirut for two weeks, as Lebanese army troops withdrew from the Beirut airport on June 16 leaving Hezbollah and Amal militias to control the area and hold the hostages. On June 30, they were driven to Syria and released. The liberation of the hostages was followed over the next several weeks by the release of 735 Lebanese Shiite militants by Israel. Although this was one of the key demands of the hijackers, Israel maintained the release was unconnected to the hijacking.

Victims

With the exception of a few hostages such as CIA Bureau Chief William Francis Buckley and Marine Colonel William Higgins, (who were both killed) most of the hostages were chosen not for any political activity or alleged misdeeds they had committed, but because of the country they came from and the ease of kidnapping them. Despite this, they were often treated quite cruelly, with repeated beatings and mock executions.

Some of the more famous victims include:

• David S. Dodge
  David S. Dodge
  David Stuart Dodge was the Vice-President for Administration , Acting President and President of the American University of Beirut .-Background:...
  
  . Perhaps the first victim whose case was widely publicized was American University of Beirut
  American University of Beirut
  The American University of Beirut is a private, independent university in Beirut, Lebanon. It was founded as the Syrian Protestant College by American missionaries in 1866...
  
   president 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 the Americans to pressure Israel which had invaded Lebanon to stop Lebanon-based PLO attacks. After the PLO evacuated Lebanon, "the Iranians had taken charge of" Dodge and moved him from Beqaa valley to Tehran. The Iranians hoped to use Dodge to gain the release of four Iranian officials who had been kidnapped by Christian militia Lebanese Forces in July 1982. The four Iranians were never found.

Dodge "spent the next three months in the infamous Evin jail, where the Iranian Revolutionary Guard had executed hundreds of the Shah's followers in the wake of Khomeini's Islamic Revolution. Whenever he was interrogated, he was asked for information about the missing Iranians."

Dodge was released on the first anniversary of his abduction, reportedly because Syrian President Assad was "enraged by Iran's role in the abduction". Dodge "was taken out of his cell, given back the clothes he had worn on the day of his abduction, and driven back to the airport by an official of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. From there he flew first class to Syria. ... At Damascus airport his escort handed him over to a waiting car ... the following morning he was handed over to the American embassy."

• Benjamin Weir
  Benjamin Weir
  Benjamin Weir was an American hostage in Lebanon during the Iran-Contra Affair .Weir, who with his wife Carol served as missionaries in Lebanon with the Presbyterian Church for nearly 30 years, was kidnapped off the streets of Beirut in May 1984. The kidnapping was done by an Islamic...
  
  . The Presbyterian minister was kidnapped in May 1984 by three armed men while strolling with his wife. Weir may have thought he was safe from harm from Muslims because he lived in Shiite West Beirut working "closely with various Muslim-oriented charity and relief groups", and had lived in Lebanon since 1958. Two days after his abduction, a telephone message claimed: "Islamic Jihad organization claims it is responsible for the abduction ... in order to renew our acceptance of Reagan's challenge [to fight "state terrorism"] and to confirm our commitment of the statement ... that we will not leave any American on Lebanese soil." He was released mid-September 1985.

• Terry A. Anderson, chief Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press, was the best known, and longest held, hostage believed to be captured by Shiite Hezbollah or Islamic Jihad Organization Anderson, was seized on March 16, 1985, finally being released December 4, 1991.

• Charles Glass
  Charles Glass
  Charles Glass is an American author, journalist, and broadcaster specializing in the Middle East. He writes regularly for The Spectator, was ABC News chief Middle East correspondent from 1983–93, and has worked as a correspondent for Newsweek and The Observer...
  
  . American television correspondent Charles Glass
  Charles Glass
  Charles Glass is an American author, journalist, and broadcaster specializing in the Middle East. He writes regularly for The Spectator, was ABC News chief Middle East correspondent from 1983–93, and has worked as a correspondent for Newsweek and The Observer...
  
   was seized on June 17, 1987, by a previously unknown group, the "Organization for the Defense of Free People", (believed to be one of Hezbollah's aliases) he escaped 62 days later.

• Rudolph Cordes and Alfred Schmidt, two citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) abducted in January 1987 by an organization calling itself "Strugglers for Freedom." The West Germans were seized shortly after the West German government arrested Muhammad Ali Hamadi, a Shia terrorist leader who allegedly masterminded the 1985 TWA Flight 847
  TWA Flight 847
  TWA Flight 847 was an international Trans World Airlines flight which was hijacked by Lebanese Shia extremists, later identified as members of Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, on Friday morning, June 14, 1985, after originally taking off from Cairo. The flight was en route from Athens to Rome and then...
  
   hijacking and killed diver Robert Dean Stethem. Muhammad Ali Hammadi was not released at that time but was in 2006, "in an apparent exchange for a German hostage in Iraq." Schmidt was released in September 1987. Cordes was released in September 1988.

• Thomas Sutherland, former Dean of Agriculture at the American University of Beirut
  Beirut
  Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...
  
   in Lebanon
  Lebanon
  Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
  
   was kidnapped by Islamic Jihad
  Islamic Jihad Organization
  The Islamic Jihad Organization – IJO or Organisation du Jihad Islamique in French, but best known as ‘Islamic Jihad’ for short, was a fundamentalist Shia group known for its activities in the 1980s during the Lebanese Civil War...
  
   members near his Beirut home on June 9, 1985. He was released on November 18, 1991 at the same time as Terry Waite
  Terry Waite
  Terry Waite CBE is an English humanitarian and author.Waite was Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie's Assistant for Anglican Communion Affairs in the 1980s. As an envoy for the Church of England, he travelled to Lebanon to try to secure the release of four hostages including journalist John...
  
  , having been held hostage for 2353 days.

• Terry Waite
  Terry Waite
  Terry Waite CBE is an English humanitarian and author.Waite was Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie's Assistant for Anglican Communion Affairs in the 1980s. As an envoy for the Church of England, he travelled to Lebanon to try to secure the release of four hostages including journalist John...
  
  . Anglican Church envoy Terry Waite
  Terry Waite
  Terry Waite CBE is an English humanitarian and author.Waite was Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie's Assistant for Anglican Communion Affairs in the 1980s. As an envoy for the Church of England, he travelled to Lebanon to try to secure the release of four hostages including journalist John...
  
  , who disappeared January 20, 1987, while on a negotiating mission to free the other kidnap victims, spent almost five years in captivity, nearly four years of it in solitary confinement, after he was seized by Islamic Jihad from a go-between's house in Lebanon on January 20, 1987. Before his release in November 1991 he was frequently blindfolded. He was beaten early in his period of imprisonment and subjected to a mock execution. He was chained, suffered desperately from asthma, and was once transported in a refrigerator as his captors moved him about.

Killed

• William Francis Buckley
  William Francis Buckley
  William Francis Buckley was a United States Army officer and a Paramilitary Operations Officer in the Special Activities Division of the CIA. He died on or around June 3, 1985 while in the custody of Hezbollah...
  
  . Former CIA Bureau Chief, Beirut, taken hostage by Islamic Jihad, Mar 16, 1984. and held at the village of Ras al-Ein. On October 3, 1985, the Islamic Jihad Organization claimed to have killed him. The Islamic Jihad Organization later released to a Beirut newspaper a photograph purporting to depict his corpse. Press reports stated that Buckley had been transferred to Iran, where he was tortured and killed. Former American hostages revealed that Buckley actually died of a heart attack brought on by torture, probably on June 3, 1985. His remains were found in a plastic sack on the side of the road to the Beirut airport in 1991.

• Alec Collett, a British employee for UNRWA, was kidnapped with his Austrian driver on March 25, 1985. The Austrian was only briefly held then released. In a videotape released in April 1986, Collett was shown being hanged by his kidnappers. Collett's body wasn't found until November 2009.

• Four Soviet
  Soviet Union
  The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
  
   diplomats were kidnapped on September 30, 1985. Arkady Katkov, a consular attaché, was killed by his captors; the other three (Oleg Spirin, Valery Mirikov, and Nikolai Svirsky) were released a month later.

• Michel Seurat. On February 10, 1986, the Islamic Jihad Organization released a photograph that claimed to show the body of French sociologist Michel Seurat, who had been kidnapped earlier. On 5 March 1986 Islamic Jihad claimed it had executed Seurat. His fellow hostages revealed on their release that Seurat had died of hepatitis. His body was found in October 2005.

• Peter Kilburn, Leigh Douglas and Philip Padfield. On April 17, 1986, the bodies of these three American University of Beirut employees, American citizen Peter Kilburn and Britons Leigh Douglas and Philip Padfield, were discovered near Beirut. The Revolutionary Organization of Socialist Muslims claimed to have "executed" the three men in retaliation for the United States air raid on Libya on April 15, 1986.

• Another American military man killed by Hezbollah abductors was William R. Higgins
  William R. Higgins
  William Richard "Rich" Higgins was a United States Marine Corps colonel who was captured in 1988 while serving on a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon. He was held hostage, tortured and eventually murdered by his captors.-Biography:William Higgins was born in Danville, Kentucky on...
  
  . He was captured and taken hostage while serving on a United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon. A year and a half after his capture, a videotape was released by his captors showing his body hanging by the neck. On December 23, 1991, his body was recovered from a Beirut street where it had been dumped.

Escaped or rescued

• Frank Regier. American citizen Frank Regier, engineering professor at the American University of Beirut, was kidnapped in Feb. 1984 when he walked off the campus grounds. He was freed after several months in captivity by Amal
  Amal Movement
  Amal Movement is short for the Lebanese Resistance Detachments the acronym for which, in Arabic, is "amal", meaning "hope."Amal was founded in 1975 as the militia wing of the Movement of the Disinherited, a Shi'a political movement founded by Musa...
  
   militiamen, who raided the Beirut hideout of his extremist captors on April 15, 1984. Islamic Jihad responded by threatening Amal.

• Jeremy Levin. On February 14, 1985, American journalist Jeremy Levin escaped from his captors in the Beqaa Valley
  Beqaa Valley
  The Beqaa Valley is a fertile valley in east Lebanon. For the Romans, the Beqaa Valley was a major agricultural source, and today it remains Lebanon’s most important farming region...
  
  . Shia militants claimed they had allowed him to escape and the U.S. publicly thanked Syria for intervening on his behalf.

• Michel Brillant. On April 11, 1986, French captive Michel Brillant escaped several days after his abduction when his captors were surprised by a party of hunters in the Beqaa Valley.

• On July 16, 1986, a Saudi Arabian diplomat was freed when the Lebanese Army caught his captors.

• David Hirst
  David Hirst (journalist)
  David Hirst is a veteran Middle East correspondent based in Beirut. He attended Rugby School from 1949 to 1954 and performed his national service in Egypt and Cyprus from 1954 to 1956. From 1956 to 1963 he studied at Oxford University and the American University of Beirut...
  
  . On September 26, 1986, British journalist David Hirst escaped by bolting from his captors' automobile in a Shia neighborhood of Beirut.

• Jean-Marc Sroussi  several days later (from September 26, 1986) French television correspondent Jean-Marc Sroussi escaped from a locked shed days after his capture.

Perpetrators

Many other "groups" claimed responsibility for the kidnappings while Hezbollah denied it, indignantly proclaiming in 1987:

We look with ridicule at the accusations of Hezbollah in connection with the abductions of foreign hostages. We consider that is a provocation and hold America responsible for the results.

Nonetheless Hezbollah, sometimes described as the "umbrella group" of Shia radicalism in Lebanon, is considered by most observers to be the instigator of the crisis.

Analysis of the hostage-crisis in Lebanon yields that Hezbollah was undisputably responsible for the aforementioned abductions of Westerners despite attempts to shield its complicity through the employment of cover-names. Its organisational framework was not only sophisticated and assimilated according to Iranian clerical designs but also closely integrated with several key Iranian institutions which provided it with both necessary weaponry and training to successfully confront self-proclaimed Islamic enemies and invaluable financial support ...

Another source claims that with the exceptions of six Iranians, all the hostages appear to have been seized by "groups allied with Iran."

The two main operatives of the hostage taking are reported to be:

• Imad Mughniyah, a senior member of the Hezbollah organization, has been described by journalist Robin Wright as the "master terrorist" who organized the campaign.

• Husayn Al-Musawi
  Husayn Al-Musawi
  Husayn Al-Musawi is a Lebanese Shia who founded the now-dissolved pro-Iranian Islamist militia Islamic Amal in 1982....
  
   (also spelled Hussayn al-Mussawi) is described by journalist Jeffrey Goldberg of The New Yorker
  The New Yorker
  The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
  
   magazine as involved in the kidnappings, and the village of Ras al-Ein, in the Beqaa Valley of East Lebanon as a place were the victims were held.

Motivations

According to scholar Gilles Kepel "a few of the kidnappings were money-driven or linked to local concerns, but most obeyed a logic whereby Hezbollah itself was no more than a subcontractor for Iranian initiatives."
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 300 Americans in the Marine barracks
  1983 Beirut barracks bombing
  The Beirut Barracks Bombing occurred during the Lebanese Civil War, when two truck bombs struck separate buildings housing United States and French military forces—members of the Multinational Force in Lebanon—killing 299 American and French servicemen...
  
   and embassy bombings in Beirut
  Beirut
  Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...
  
  .
• The release of three (or four) Iranian officials who had been kidnapped on July 5, 1982 by Christian militia Lebanese Forces
  Lebanese Forces
  The Lebanese Forces is a Lebanese political party. Founded as a militia by Bachir Gemayel during the Lebanese Civil War, the movement fought as the main militia within the Christian-dominated Lebanese Front...
  
   (aka Phalangists) 25 miles north of Beirut. In December 1988, Hashemi Rafsanjani publicly addressed the Americans just before he was elected president of Iran:

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

The Iranians included Ahmad Motevaselian, the Ba'albek commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard contingent, and Mohsen Musavi, the Iranian charge d'affairs to Lebanon. (The other two Iranians were Akhaven Kazem and Taqi Rastegar Moqaddam.)

• Pro-Palestinian Lebanese believed they could use the first American hostage, David Dodge
  David S. Dodge
  David Stuart Dodge was the Vice-President for Administration , Acting President and President of the American University of Beirut .-Background:...
  
  , "as a means of pressuring the American to do something about the Israeli invasion of Lebanon
  1982 Lebanon War
  The 1982 Lebanon War , , called Operation Peace for Galilee by Israel, and later known in Israel as the Lebanon War and First Lebanon War, began on 6 June 1982, when the Israel Defense Forces invaded southern Lebanon...
  
   ..."

• Legendary Lebanese Hezbollah member Imad Mughniyah wanted to free his cousin, brother-in-law Mustafa Badreddin, one of the "Kuwait 17" (the 17 imprisoned perpetrators of the 1983 Kuwait Bombing).

The hostage in captivity the longest, Terry Anderson, was told that he and the other hostages had been abducted to gain the freedom of their seventeen comrades in Kuwait convicted of perpetrating the 1983 Kuwait Bombing of six key foreign and Kuwaiti installations, "what might have been the worst terrorist attack of the century had the bombs' rigging not been faulty."

• Another of the Kuwait 17, Hussein al-Sayed Yousef al-Musawi, was the first-cousin to Husayn Al-Musawi
  Husayn Al-Musawi
  Husayn Al-Musawi is a Lebanese Shia who founded the now-dissolved pro-Iranian Islamist militia Islamic Amal in 1982....
  
  , leader of Islamic Amal, a sister militia to Hezbollah that was later merged with Hezbollah.

• Islamist Shia wanted to use French hostages to free Annis Naccache, who was the leader of the Iranian backed assassination team attempting to kill former Iranian Premier Shapour Bakhtiar
  Shapour Bakhtiar
  Shapour Bakhtiar was an Iranian political scientist, writer and the last Prime Minister of Iran under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi...
  
  . Naccache was a Christian Lebanese who had converted to Islam and pledged allegiance to Khomeini following the success of the revolution. He was a "close personal friend" of "Ahmad Khomeini, son of the Iranian revolutionary" leader, "Mohasen Rafiqust, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp commander in Lebanon", and of the aforementioned Hezbollah operative Imad Mughniya. They appear to have been completely successful in their efforts.

On 18 July 1980, Naccache was arrested for the attempted to kill Bakhtiar. A gendarme and a bystander were killed in the subsequent battle with the police. Naccache and three others were given life sentences ... Naccache's release later became a condition for freeing the Western hostages in Lebanon.

Naccache was freed "on 27 July 1990, together with four accomplices, after being pardoned by President François Mitterrand

François Mitterrand

François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand was the 21st President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra, serving from 1981 until 1995. He is the longest-serving President of France and, as leader of the Socialist Party, the only figure from the left so far elected President...

. All five men were put on a plane bound for Tehran

Tehran

Tehran , sometimes spelled Teheran, is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. With an estimated population of 8,429,807; it is also Iran's largest urban area and city, one of the largest cities in Western Asia, and is the world's 19th largest city.In the 20th century, Tehran was subject to...

. The deal also brought political, military and financial benefits to Iran itself: the release of its frozen assets and desperately needed spare parts for their armaments. The French also kicked out most of the Iranian opposition leaders who had taken sanctuary in their country following the revolution."

French hostages were released by kidnappers at the same time. France denied reports that they had made a deal.

Resolution

By 1991 radical Shia operatives imprisoned in Europe had been freed. Islamic Dawa party members convicted of terrorism in Kuwait had been freed by Iraqi Invasion. There was no need to pressure Western supporters of the Iraq because Iran-Iraq War was over. It was pretty well established that the four missing Iranians were no longer alive.

More importantly Iran was in need of foreign investment "to repair its economy and infrastructure after the destruction of the Iran-Iraq War, and Syria needed to "consolidation of its hegemony over Lebanon" and obtain to Western aid to compensate for the loss of Soviet support following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Syria was actively pressuring Hezbollah to stop the abductions and a February 1987 attack by Syrian troops in Beirut that killed 23 members of Hezbollah was in part an expression of Syrian irritation with the continued hostage-taking. Hezbollah had guarantees from Syria that despite the end of the Lebanese Civil War

Lebanese Civil War

The Lebanese Civil War was a multifaceted civil war in Lebanon. The war lasted from 1975 to 1990 and resulted in an estimated 150,000 to 230,000 civilian fatalities. Another one million people were wounded, and today approximately 350,000 people remain displaced. There was also a mass exodus of...

, it would be allowed to remain armed, while all other Lebanese militias would be disarmed, on the grounds that Hezbollah needed its weapons to fight Israeli occupation in the South.

This combination of factors created a setting whereby UN Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar and his personal envoy, Giandomenico Picco (served on the Board of Governmental Relations for the American Iranian Council

American Iranian Council

The American-Iranian Council was formed in 1997 as a bi-partisan think tank focused upon promoting better relations between the United States and Iran. Former United States Secretary of State Cyrus Vance was the original honorary Chair of the organization...

), could negotiate "a comprehensive resolution to the hostage-crisis." Hezbollah by December 1991, Hezbollah had released the last hostage in return for Israel's release of imprisoned Shi'ites.

1982

• 1982 July 19 - Abduction: First Westerner abducted is David Dodge
  David S. Dodge
  David Stuart Dodge was the Vice-President for Administration , Acting President and President of the American University of Beirut .-Background:...
  
  , the acting president of the American University of Beirut (AUB) (American).
  Suggested motivation: the abduction of David Dodge came directly in response to the previous kidnapping of four employees of the Iranian Embassy in Beirut by the Israeli-backed Phalangist militia on July 5, 1982." Dodge was the most prominent American citizen in Lebanon next to the U.S. Ambassador.
  Declared abductor: Islamic Jihad Organization.
  Alleged abductor: "it seems clear that the abduction of David Dodge was initiated by the Pasdaran contingent in Lebanon .... the operation was executed by Husayn al-Musawi's Islamic Amal."

• 1983 July 21 - Release: David Dodge
  David S. Dodge
  David Stuart Dodge was the Vice-President for Administration , Acting President and President of the American University of Beirut .-Background:...
  
  

1984

• 1984 February 11 - Abduction: Frank Regier, engineering professor at the AUB (American) and Christian Joubert (French)
  Suggested motivation: 25 arrested in Kuwait in wake of Dec. 1983 multiple terrorist attacks. three are Lebanese Shi'ites.

• 1984 March (late) - Abduction: Jeremy Levin, Bureau chief of Cable News Network (American), and William Buckley
  William Francis Buckley
  William Francis Buckley was a United States Army officer and a Paramilitary Operations Officer in the Special Activities Division of the CIA. He died on or around June 3, 1985 while in the custody of Hezbollah...
  
   "diplomat" actually Station chief, Central Intelligence Agency (American).

• 1984 March 27 - Sentencing: Kuwait's State 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 imprisonment.
  Hezbollah threatens to kill hostages if bombers are executed.

• 1984 April 15 - Release: Frank Regier by Amal militiamen, who raided the Beirut hideout of his captors.

• 1984 May - Abduction: Presbyterian minister Benjamin Weir
  Benjamin Weir
  Benjamin Weir was an American hostage in Lebanon during the Iran-Contra Affair .Weir, who with his wife Carol served as missionaries in Lebanon with the Presbyterian Church for nearly 30 years, was kidnapped off the streets of Beirut in May 1984. The kidnapping was done by an Islamic...
  
   (American).
  Suggested motivation: another effort to pressure Kuwait to accede to its demands of freedom or leniency for the prisoners.
  Declared abductor: "Islamic Jihad organization."

• 1984 December 3 - Abduction: Peter Kilburn.
  Alleged abductor: "appears to have been perpetrated by Islamic Amal with close Iranian involvement." (p. 93)

1985

• 1985 January 3 - Abduction: Eric Wehrli, Swiss charge d'affairs in Lebanon

• 1985 January 7 - Release: Eric Wehrli.
  Suggested motivation: "evidence suggests that Hezbollah deliberately targeted Wehrli in order to obtain the release of Hosein al-Talaat, Hezbollah member arrested at Zurich airport on December 18, 1984 with explosives in his possession intended for an attack on the American embassy in Rome. and

• 1985 January 8 - Abduction: Lawrence Jenco
  Lawrence Jenco
  Servite Father Lawrence Martin Jenco, , a native of Joliet, Illinois, was taken hostage in Beirut by five armed men in January 1985, while serving as director of Catholic Relief Services there. He was held for 564 days before being released and allowed to return to the United States. He died in...
  
  , Director, Catholic Relief Services charitable organization (American).
  Declared abductor: "Islamic Jihad Organization".

• 1985 March - Abduction: Geoffrey Nash and Brian Lebick (both British).
  Suggested motivation: retaliation for March 8, 1985 unsuccessful assassination attempt on Sheikh Fadlallah.

• 1985 March/April - Release: Geoffrey Nash and Brian Lebick, two weeks after abduction.
  Suggested motivation: "seems to indicate that their abduction had been made on the mistaken assumption that they were American citizens."

• 1985 March 18 - Abduction: Terry A. Anderson Chief Middle East correspondent, Associated Press (American)
  Suggested motivation: in retaliation for Fadlallah bombing and UNSC veto by US of resolution condemning Israel's military practices in occupied southern Lebanon.
  Declared abductor: "Islamic Jihad Organization."

• 1985 March 22 - Abduction: three French embassy employees.
  Suggested motivation: "considerations more aligned with Iran's foreign policy, most notably related to Frances continued arms shipments to Iraq and outstanding financial debt to Iran ... [and] as a response to the presence of the French UNIFIL contingent in southern Lebanon and its perceived practice of failing to provide adequate protection to the local Shi'ite population."

• 1985 May 20 - Release: Husayn Farrash, Saudi Arabian consul Husayn Farrash released by captors after over a year in captivity.

• 1985 May 22 - Abduction: French journalist Jean-Paul Kaufmann and French sociologist Michel Seurat.
  Suggested motivation: part of effort to obtain the release of Anis Naccache, imprisoned in France for the attempted assassination of the Shah's former Prime Minister Shapour Bakthiar in Paris in July 1980. and Naccache was "head of the Iranian assassination team and ... close personal friend... with both Ahmad Khomeini, son of the Iranian revolutionary" leader "and Mohasen Rafiqust, IRGC commander in Lebanon", and was a "close personal" friend of Imad Mughniya.

• 1985 June(?) - Abduction: Americans David Jacobsen, American University of Beirut hospital administrator, and Thomas Sutherland, agronomist
  Suggested motivation: "Hezbollah focused its efforts on the release of 766 mainly Lebanese Shi'ites transferred to Israel in conjunction with it withdrawal from Lebanon, through the abduction of mainly American citizens, ... This was revealed most clearly by the
  Declared abductor: "Islamic Jihad Organization."

• 1985 June 14 - Hijacking and abduction: TWA flight 847. Done immediately following the completion of Israel's departure from Lebanon.
  Suggested motivation: release of 766 mainly Lebanese Shi'ites transferred to Israel in conjunction with its withdrawal from Lebanon

• 1985 August - clandestine policy of providing armaments to Iran via Israel (aka Iran-Contra Affair
  Iran-Contra Affair
  The Iran–Contra affair , also referred to as Irangate, Contragate or Iran-Contra-Gate, was a political scandal in the United States that came to light in November 1986. During the Reagan administration, senior Reagan administration officials and President Reagan secretly facilitated the sale of...
  
  ) initiated by U.S. government.

• 1985 mid-September - Release: Reverend Benjamin Weir, held hostage since May 1984 is freed by the "Islamic Jihad Organization".

• 1985 September 30 - Abduction: four Soviet diplomats.
  Declared abductor: "Islamic Liberation Organization."

1986

• 1986 March 3 - Abduction: Marcel Coudry and a French four-man Antenne-2 television crew.
  Suggested direct motivation: retaliation for decision by France to expel two exiled members of al Dawa al-Islamiyya [Fawzy Harmza and Hassan Kheir al-Din] to Iraq.
  Other possible motivations: "Iraq owed $7 billion to France and absorbed almost 40% of all French arms export. Between 1977 and 1985, France sold more than $11.8 billion of high-technology weaponry to Iraq, including 113 Mirage F1 fighter aircraft and 3/4 of French total exports of Exocet
  Exocet
  The Exocet is a French-built anti-ship missile whose various versions can be launched from surface vessels, submarines, helicopters and fixed wing aircraft. Hundreds were fired in combat during the 1980s.-Etymology:...
  
   missiles. At the same time, Iran was particularly angered over the refusal by the French government to pay between $1-1.5 billion owed from the days of the Shah and supply Iran with military-related equipment." [source ftnt43: For Iranian claims, see: and
  Declared abductor: "Revolutionary Justice Organisation".

• 1986 April 16 (?) - Abduction: British citizens John McCarthy
  John McCarthy (journalist)
  John Patrick McCarthy CBE is a British journalist, writer and broadcaster, and one of the hostages in the Lebanon hostage crisis...
  
   and Brian Keenan
  Motivation: reprisal for the American raid on Libya.
  Suggested motivation for keeping them: demands for the release by Israel of 260 Shiites held in al-Khaim prison in South Lebanon and the release of the three Iranian hostages taken in 1982.

• 1986 April 17 Killed: Bodies of three American University of Beirut employees: Britons John Douglas and Philip Padfield and American Peter Kilburn, discovered near Beirut.
  Declared motivation: The "Revolutionary Organization of Socialist Muslims" claims to have "executed" the three men in retaliation for the United States air raid on Libya on April 15, 1986.

• 1986 May 7 - Abduction: Camilli Sontag Frenchman in Lebanon (accompanied by "the initiation of an armed campaign against the French UNIFIL contingent in southern Lebanon.")
  Alleged motivation: "Iranian demands for the withdrawal of UNIFIL and abrogation of UNSCR 425."

• 1986 June - Release: two French hostages in June 1986.
  Alleged motivation: The expulsion of Iranian dissident Mahmoud Rajavi from France by French government in compliance with captors demands.

• 1986 July 26 - Release: Lawrence Martin Jenco.

• 1986 September 9, - Abduction: Frank Reed, Director, Labanese International School (American)
• 1986 September 12 - Abduction: Joseph Ciccipio, Acting controller, American University of Beirut (American)
• 1986 October 21 - Abduction: Edward Tracy, Writer (American)
  Alleged motivation: "replace American hostages released by the arms-for-hostages deals of the so-called Iran-Contra Affair", and undermine the arms-for-hostages deal

• 1986 November 2 - Release: David Jacobsen after more than a year and a half in captivity.

• 1986 November 3 - Revelation: Iran-Contra arms-for-hostage deal with Iran by Lebanese newspaper, Al-Shiraa, which reports US sold arms to Iran.

• 1986 November - Release: three more French hostages."
  Alleged motivation: the release by France of $330 million of the $1 billion loan to Iran

1987

• 1987 January - Abduction: Unprecedented number of abductions of foreigners by the Hezbollah organisation. (p.99)
  Declared motivation: `The hostages will perish in case of any military attempts against Muslims in the area and especially in Lebanon.` (US Navy warships in Mediterranean reportedly moving towards Lebanon.)
  Alleged motivation: directly in response to the arrest of three leading Hezbollah member in Europe."
  Another alleged motivation: "clerical factionalism in Iran" in the aftermath of the Iran-Contra deal.
  Still another alleged motivation: Demand for the return of 400 Shi'ite and Palestinians imprisoned in Israel.

• 1987 January 24 - Abducted: Three American and one Indian Professors from Beirut University College in West Beirut: Alann Steen, Jesse Turner, Robert Polhill, Mithal Eshwar Singh
  Declared abductor: "Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine."

• 1987 January - Abduction: West German citizens Rudolph Cordes and Alfred Schmidt.
  Alleged motivation: retaliation for "the arrest of Mohammad Ali Hamadi in Frankfurt by West German authorities."

• 1987 January 13 - Abduction: Frenchman Roger Auque.
  Alleged motivation: Appears to have been "related to the previous day's arrest of Bashir Al-Khodour in Milan by Italian authorities",

• 1987 January 20 - Abduction: Terry Waite
  Terry Waite
  Terry Waite CBE is an English humanitarian and author.Waite was Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie's Assistant for Anglican Communion Affairs in the 1980s. As an envoy for the Church of England, he travelled to Lebanon to try to secure the release of four hostages including journalist John...
  
  . Waite, Anglican mediator negotiating independently to free captive Westerners, disappears January 20 on his fifth mission to Lebanon.
  Alleged motivation: "mainly a consequence of his inability to affect the fate of the imprisoned 17 al-Dawa prisoners in Kuwait."

• 1987 June 17 - Abduction: Charles Glass
  Charles Glass
  Charles Glass is an American author, journalist, and broadcaster specializing in the Middle East. He writes regularly for The Spectator, was ABC News chief Middle East correspondent from 1983–93, and has worked as a correspondent for Newsweek and The Observer...
  
  , American television correspondent.
  Declared abductor: previously unknown group, the "Organization for the Defense of Free People."

1988

• 1988, February 17 - Abduction: Lt. Col William Higgins
  William R. Higgins
  William Richard "Rich" Higgins was a United States Marine Corps colonel who was captured in 1988 while serving on a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon. He was held hostage, tortured and eventually murdered by his captors.-Biography:William Higgins was born in Danville, Kentucky on...
  
  , American Chief of the UN Truce and Supervision Organisation's observer group in Lebanon (UNTSO)
  Suggested motivation: Stop UNIFIL from interfering in Hezbollah's armed attacks against the Israeli occupation of the south.
  Suggested motivation: Show solidarity with the revival of Islamic fundamentalism within the Palestinian intifada
  First Intifada
  The First Intifada was a Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories. The uprising began in the Jabalia refugee camp and quickly spread throughout Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem....
  
  

1989

• 1989 Mid - Killing: Video of U.S Marine Lt. Col William Higgins, American Chief of the UNTSO being hanged distributed to press. Declared dead on July 6, 1990.
  Alleged motivation: challenge to Amal militia's authority to maintain a stable security environment in southern Lebanon, Amal being the leading militia there.
  Alleged motivation: to sabotage the rapprochement between Syria and the American administration
  Further alleged motivation: retaliation for kidnapping of Sheikh Obeid, senior Hezbollah cleric and regional military commander of the Islamic Resistance, by elite Israeli military units on July 28, 1989
  Another motivation: to help "Iranian radicals, most notably Mohtashemi", derail attempts to improve the U.S.-Iranian relationship.

• 1989 May - Abduction: British citizen Jackie Mann
  Jackie Mann
  Jackie Mann DFM was a British former RAF fighter pilot in the "Battle of Britain", who in later life was kidnapped by Islamic Jihadist terrorists in Lebanon in May 1989, and held hostage for more than two years.- Early life :...
  
   
  Declared abductor: previously unknown group, the "Cells for Armed Struggle"
  Suggested motivation: retaliation against the UK government for providing Salman Rushdie with refuge and protection after Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa death threat against Rushdie for the publication of book the Satanic Verses.
• 1989, October 6 - Abduction: Swiss citizens Emanuel Christen and Elio Erriquez

1990

• 1990 August 24 - Release: Brian Keenan, Irish teacher of English

1991

• 1991 August 8 - Release: John McCarthy - the longest held British hostage in Lebanon, having spent over five years in captivity

• 1991 October–December - Release: Jesse J. Turner, Joseph J. Cicippio, Thomas Sutherland, Alann Steen, Terry Waite.

• 1991 December 4 - Release: last American hostage Terry Anderson.
  Suggested motivation: Part of Hezbollah "volteface", and entering into a new era where it participates in Lebanese democratic process while continuing its fight against Israel.

• 1991 December (late) - Return: bodies of William Buckley and Lt. Col. William Higgins found dumped on Beirut streets.

1992

• June 17, 1992: Two German relief workers held since 1989, Thomas Kemptner and Heinrich Struebig, are released. They were the last Western hostages in Lebanon.

Mentions in popular culture

• Hostages, a 1993 HBO film based on the event, starring Colin Firth
  Colin Firth
  SirColin Andrew Firth, CBE is a British film, television, and theatre actor. Firth gained wide public attention in the 1990s for his portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the 1995 television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice...
  
   as John McCarthy
  John McCarthy (journalist)
  John Patrick McCarthy CBE is a British journalist, writer and broadcaster, and one of the hostages in the Lebanon hostage crisis...
  
  
• Hostage (1999) three part UK documentary series for Channel Four, featuring interviews with Anderson, Keenan, McCarthy, Waite, Kauffmann, and with the politicians involved, including George Shultz and Oliver North.
• An Evil Cradling, Brian Keenan's memoir of his ordeal
• Blind Flight
  Blind Flight
  Blind Flight is a 2004 British film, directed by John Furse, starring Ian Hart and Linus Roache. It is based on the true-life story of the kidnapping and imprisonment of the Irish academic Brian Keenan and the English journalist John McCarthy, two of the hostages in the Lebanon hostage crisis...
  
  , a 2003 UK film focusing on McCarthy and Keenan
• Someone Who'll Watch Over Me
  Someone Who'll Watch Over Me
  Someone Who'll Watch over Me is a play written by Irish dramatist Frank McGuinness. The play focuses on the trials and tribulations of an Irishman, an Englishman and an American who are kidnapped and held hostage by unseen Arabs in Lebanon. As the three men strive for survival they also strive to...
  
  a play an American, an Irishman and an Englishman being hostages in Lebanon

See also

• Foreign hostages in Afghanistan
  Foreign hostages in Afghanistan
  Table of contentsKey: Kidnapping and hostage taking has become a common occurrence in Afghanistan following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001...
  
  
• Foreign hostages in Iraq
  Foreign hostages in Iraq
  Table of contentsKey: Beginning in April 2004, members of the Iraqi insurgency began taking foreign civilian hostages in Iraq. Since then, they have kidnapped more than 200 foreigners and thousands of Iraqis; among them, dozens of foreign hostages have been killed. Nepal and the United States ...
  
  
• 1983 Beirut barracks bombing
  1983 Beirut barracks bombing
  The Beirut Barracks Bombing occurred during the Lebanese Civil War, when two truck bombs struck separate buildings housing United States and French military forces—members of the Multinational Force in Lebanon—killing 299 American and French servicemen...
  
  
• 2011 Estonian cyclists abduction
  2011 Estonian cyclists abduction
  The 2011 Estonian cyclists abduction was a kidnapping case involving seven Estonian cyclists who were abducted shortly after crossing into Lebanon from Syria on 23 March 2011...