Why do terrorist groups like Hamas take people hostage?

Modern-day terrorists use kidnapping or hostage-taking as a bargaining chip for political and policy concessions, or ransom. The purpose can also be to attract international attention or, as in the case of the macabre murders by Islamic State, inspire further terrorism.

There is a history of hostage-taking in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In fact, modern-day terror-related hostage-taking virtually began with the Munich massacre, after Palestinian Black September terrorists seized 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games.

In 1985, Lebanese terrorists hijacked TWA flight 847, and in 2011, Israeli soldier Private Shalit was kidnapped by Hamas and released after five years.

How is the crisis in Gaza different from earlier hostage situations?

The difference is in the scale,  former R&AW chief A S Dulat said. “Hamas have never been able to take so many hostages together, even though Palestinian militants have earlier kidnapped Israelis and kept them in their territory for years,” he said.

Former R&AW Special Secretary Vappala Balachandran, who headed the 26/11 commission of inquiry, said the sheer number of hostages, and uncertainty around their location makes the task of rescue very difficult.

“Hamas is using them as a bargaining tool to force the Israelis to soften the reprisal. Israel will be worried about harming its own citizens during the assault on Gaza,” he said.

Ajai Sahni of the Institute of Conflict Management, however, believes Hamas may have overplayed their hand. “They have mobilised entire Israel to war. All of Gaza is hostage to Israel. They may have hoped for overreaction from Israel, and for the Arab world to rise in their support. But only the former has happened,” he said.

How old is the practice of hostage-taking as a tactic of asymmetrical warfare?

There are references to hostage-taking even in the Ramayana and the Bible — but the use of the word, derived from the French hoste, has been traced to the Middle Ages when hostages were taken to ensure treaty obligations were fulfilled. In the 18th century, African pirates routinely captured merchant ships in the Mediterranean for ransom.

The Munich massacre marked the beginning of the modern age of hostage-taking by terrorist groups. It internationalised and routinised hostage-taking as a preferred terrorism tactic, which was used in theatres of conflict from South America to Southeast Asia.

A paper published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution in 2020 noted: “…Hostage-taking attacks constituted only 16.9% of transnational terrorist attacks during 1978-2018.This percentage increased over time as terrorists increasingly resorted to kidnappings. Hostage-taking attacks represent the following percentages for three select intervals: 13% (1978-1989); 18.1% (1990-2001); and 22.3% (2002-2018).” In 2004, al-Qaeda even published a kidnapping manual.

Over the years, the motivations too have diversified. According to a paper by Alex P Schmidt of the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT), “Most of the hostage-taking incidents after the 1996 Peruvian crisis are cases of hostage for ransom demands. …In one unusual incident, a rebel group in Sierra Leone named the West Side Boys demanded college education abroad in exchange for the release of their hostages.”

How have nations reacted to hostage-taking by terrorists?

It has depended on their policy and on the situation.

The US and the UK have a policy of “no negotiations” with terrorists. In crises, they have relied either on backroom negotiations or military operations to free hostages. France and Europe, however, have been reported to have paid millions of euros in ransom for journalists kidnapped by the IS in Syria.

During the 1979 Tehran hostage crisis, the US did negotiate with Iran. There have also been reports of secret arms sales to Iran by the US during the Beirut crisis of the 1980s to buy freedom for American hostages.

During the 1996 crisis when 500 diplomats were taken hostage in Lima, Peru negotiated for more than four months, but eventually freed all hostages in a military operation in which only one soldier died.

On the third day of the 2004 Beslan school siege, Russian security forces carried out an operation that led to the death of all Chechen rebels; however, 333 hostages were also killed.

Israel refused to free Palestinian prisoners during the 1972 Munich crisis; in the same year, however, four Black September terrorists were granted safe passage to Egypt in exchange for the release of the six hostages they had taken in the Israeli embassy in Thailand.

In 2011, under Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel freed more than 1,000 Palestinians from prisons in return for Private Shalit.

India refused to free jailed terrorists after the 1995 kidnapping of foreign tourists by Harkat-ul-Ansar (leading to their death), but released terrorist Masood Azhar and his associates after the hijacked IC 814 was taken to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan in 1999.

How successful have hostage-takers been in achieving their objectives?

An analysis of close to 4,000 transnational kidnappings and hostage-taking incidents by terror groups by scholars such as Schmidt and Wukki Kim using the ITERATE data shows that terrorists could get at least part of what they demanded in 27% of cases.

The data show that 50% of all victims in hostage situations have been ordinary civilians, followed by corporation officials (21%) and diplomats or government officials (21%). Hostage-taking has been found to have low fatality per attack at 1.25, but higher than a facility or infrastructure attack (0.77%).

The data also show that a majority of hostage situations (20%) were resolved within a week; however, 11% took more than a year.

What are the options before Israel now?

“They can go in hot pursuit. But they have not been able to locate the hostages. Negotiations can’t take place while bombs are raining,” Balachandran said.

The ground offensive will present major challenges, he said, given that it would involve street-to-street fighting, in which many innocent people could be killed.

“When the Israelis tried to do it in south Lebanon they got bogged down and had to make a humiliating withdrawal. That’s how Hezbollah became strong. The objective is to save hostages. The cost of rescue has to be assessed,” he said.

Dulat said the US can perhaps initiate negotiations after pushing Qatar to use its good offices with Hamas, and stop the violence. Balachandran, however, said negotiations would not be possible without involving Iran. “But no one is talking to Iran,” he said.

Sahni said Israel was using the right strategy of “collective punishment” through supply cuts and bombardments. “Ground offensive will have terminal consequences for hostages. But that is a price Israel may be willing to pay this time,” he said.

SOME MAJOR HOSTAGE CRISES

1972: Modern-day terror-related hostage crises virtually began when eight Palestinian terrorists of the Black September group took 11 Israeli athletes hostage in the Munich Olympic Village.

1979: Islamic revolutionaries took 66 American diplomats hostage in Iran. 13 were released soon, the rest were released after 444 days in captivity.

1979: 200 Islamic extremists seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca. Hundreds of hostages were freed after a military operation.

1985: Lebanese terrorists hijacked the Athens-Rome TWA flight 847, demanding the release of 766 Shiite prisoners held in Israel.

1990s saw the rise of ransom demands along with political concessions for the release of hostages. Through the 90s and early 2000s, FARC in Colombia routinely kidnapped US citizens for ransom.

1996: The Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Amaru laid siege to the home of the Japanese ambassador in Lima, where 500 guests were present. Many remained in captivity for four months.

2002: Journalist Daniel Pearl of was kidnapped and murdered by Islamist terrorists in Karachi.

2004: Chechen rebels took 1,100 hostages, including 777 children, in a school in Beslan, Russia, demanding withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya. Almost a third of the hostages were killed.

SOMALIAN pirates routinely took commercial ships and their crew hostage around the Horn of Africa between 2008 and 2012. The ransom flowed into the coffers of the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab.

2000: Abu Sayyaf rebels raided a divers’ resort on Sipadan island off Malaysian Borneo and took 21 foreign tourists and resort employees hostage.