The Practice Of Hostage Taking

OUR TRIBUTE TO THOSE WE HAVE LOST

MAY THEY REST IN PEACE

THE PRACTICE OF HOSTAGE TAKING

BY JESSICA ARORA

The practice of taking hostages is very ancient, going as far back as Ancient Rome.

 The Romans were accustomed to take the sons of tributary princes and educate them at Rome, thus holding a security for the continued loyalty of the conquered nation and also instilling a possible future ruler with the same ideas as the already existing Roman rulers. This method also ensured that the people of the conquered nation would not riot.

In 1972, the entire world was shocked when the practice of hostage-taking came into the public eye, in "Operation Iqrit and Bikram," a term given by the Black September (a Palestinian group) after two Palestinian Christian villages whose inhabitants were expelled by the Haganah (Israel Defense Force) in 1948. Eleven Israeli team members were taken hostage and eventually killed in this operation.

At 4:30 am local time on 5 September, as the athletes slept, eight tracksuit-clad members of the Black September faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization, carrying duffel bags loaded with AKM assault rifles, Tokarev pistols, and grenades scaled a 2-metre (6 1⁄2 ft) chain-link fence with the assistance of unsuspecting athletes who were also sneaking into the Olympic Village. Once inside, they used stolen keys to enter two apartments being used by the Israeli team.

The hostage-takers demanded the release of 234 Palestinians and non-Arabs jailed in Israel. Israel's response was immediate and absolute: there would be no negotiation. Israel's official policy at the time was to refuse to negotiate with terrorists under any circumstances, as according to the Israeli government such negotiations would give an incentive to future attacks.

At 4:30 pm, a small squad of German police was dispatched to the Olympic Village. Camera crews filmed the actions of the officers from the German apartments, and broadcast the images live on television. Thus, the terrorists were able to watch the police prepare to attack. In the end, after the attackers threatened to kill two of the hostages, the police retreated from the premises.

The attackers negotiated with the police to fly them to Cairo. The police put up the pretense that they agreed. They had planned to take down the Palestinian attackers at the airport.

The snipers who were supposed to take down the attackers were outnumbered and not trained enough for such a crucial mission. There was a shootout, and a hand grenade was tossed at the helicopter in which the hostages were tied up.

Jim McKay, who was covering the Olympics that year for the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), had taken on the job of reporting the events as they were fed into his earpiece. At 3:24 am, McKay received the official confirmation:

"We just got the final word ... you know, when I was a kid, my father used to say "Our greatest hopes and our worst fears are seldom realized." Our worst fears have been realized tonight. They've now said that there were eleven hostages. Two were killed in their rooms yesterday morning, nine were killed at the airport tonight. They're all gone."

It seems that terrorists are now trying to revive the practice of hostage-taking, as was seen in many shocking cases in 2014 alone. There were many such instances, as seen in the Sydney Cafe Siege and the Charlie Hebdo attack.

On the morning of 7 January 2015, at about 11:30 local time, two masked gunmen armed with assault rifles and other weapons forced their way into the offices of the French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris. They fired up to 50 shots, killing 11 people and injuring 11 others, and shouted "Allahu Akbar" (Arabic for "God is the greatest") during their attack. The gunmen identified themselves as belonging to Al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen, which took responsibility for the attack.

  

       

                                                                                                                                                                           

  A gunman seized hostages at a kosher supermarket in Paris as police  cornered the two Charlie Hebdo massacre suspects further north. Islamic militants had also entered a small printing business and had said that they were prepared to die. This double hostage situation was eventually ended by the police, who took down the attackers with stun grenades.

The world had already been reeling from the impact of the Sydney Cafe Siege, in Australia, even before news of the Charlie Hebdo massacre had reached its' ears. In the Sydney Hostage Crisis, on 15- 16 December 2014, a lone gunman, Man Haron Monis, held hostage ten customers and eight employees of a Lindt chocolate café located at Martin Place in Sydney, Australia. Police treated the event as a terrorist attack, and negotiated with Monis throughout the day.

After a 16-hour standoff, during which areas of the Sydney central business district surrounding the site were cordoned off and nearby buildings locked down, police officers from the Tactical Operations Unit stormed the café upon hearing gunshots from inside. At least one hostage was shot by Monis, who himself was shot dead after police entered in response. Hostages Katrina Dawson and Tori Johnson died, while three other hostages and a police officer were injured during the police raid.

Hostage situations and terror attacks are clearly on the rise. As awareness of the danger increases, more and more people are being driven to learn how to protect themselves. Self-defense classes are suddenly becoming increasingly popular, and fear is at an all-time high, as known terrorist organisations like Al-Quaeda are releasing videos, openly threatening countries and proclaiming that there is more to come.

The UN is in talks about how to curb this latest bout of terrorism. Even now, discussions are being held about the best solutions to prevent these extreme situations from arising again. As the violence and devastation have faded away with 2014, we can only hope that 2015 brings with it an end of such conflict and a new, more peaceful outlook.