Islamic State militants seize four more foreign hostages in Syria

[Baclava]

Source: The Guardian

Flush with looted weapons, buoyed by sweeping gains in Syria and eager to shock, Islamic State militants have seized four more foreign hostages near Aleppo in recent days, taking to more than 20 the number of foreigners they now hold.

The latest captives, two Italian women, a Dane and a Japanese national, were seized in or near Syria's largest city. All held are either reporters, photographers or aid workers taken near Aleppo or Idlib. They have been subsequently moved to Raqqa, the Isis stronghold in north Syria.

The abductions have controversially proved good business for Islamic radicals. In the past six months at least 10 hostages, including a Dane, three French nationals and two Spaniards, were freed after lengthy negotiations with captors, who demanded ransoms. Some organisations have insisted on information blackouts about nationals still being held.

One former hostage said the suspected killer who appeared in the recent video, apparently murdering the US journalist James Foley, was one of three Britons who had guarded him in Raqqa. He said the man had been responsible for negotiating hostage releases, dealing with families of captives via email.


Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/20/islamic-state-isis-foreign-hostages-syria-aleppo

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Apparently, only the US and Britain don't negotiate with terrorists for hostage release - these people might have some hope.

[CJCRANE]

1. Is this another case of waiting for regime change

before we do anything?

This whole Syria and Iraq crisis has been a very bizarre example of a waiting game.

At least the western leaders are enjoying their vacations.

They will be back in their offices in September, hopefully refreshed and ready to finally do something.

[Botany]

2. Anybody want to ask John McCain what he thinks?

[albino65]

7. Hey John-boy

Is that ISIS guy one of your open-carry assholes from Arizona. You might want to consider that you aided and abetted the beheading of James Foley. It's about time that we start showing the blood on your hands as well as that of Faux News, the Republican Party, and the Tea Party. Where are our journalists calling this out? Oh, I'm sorry, they're all tools of the military-industrial complex.

[frazzled]

3. Trying for countries that will pay ransoms

That, my dear friends, is the aim of this group: not some geopolitical blowback about US imperialism. We are all infidels to them, whether Japanese or Italian or Danish or American, unless we hew to a very old and "pure" form of Islam. They need money to carry out their plans of creating paradise here on earth in their caliphate.

Kneeling in the dirt in a desert somewhere in the Middle East, James Foley lost his life this week at the hands of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Before pulling out the knife used to decapitate him, his masked executioner explained that he was killing the 40-year-old American journalist in retaliation for the recent United States’ airstrikes against the terrorist group in Iraq.

In fact, until recently, ISIS had a very different list of demands for Mr. Foley: The group pressed the United States to provide a multimillion-dollar ransom for his release, according to a representative of his family and a former hostage held alongside him. The United States — unlike several European countries that have funneled millions to the terror group to spare the lives of their citizens — refused to pay.

...

The policy of not making concessions to terrorists and not paying ransoms has put the United States and Britain at odds with other European allies, which have routinely paid significant sums to win the release of their citizens — including four French and three Spanish hostages who were released this year after money was delivered through an intermediary, according to two of the victims and their colleagues.

Kidnapping Europeans has become the main source of revenue for Al Qaeda and its affiliates, which have earned at least $125 million in ransom payments in the past five years alone, according to an investigation by The Times. Although ISIS was recently expelled from Al Qaeda and abides by different rules, recently freed prisoners said that their captors were well aware of what ransoms had been paid on behalf of European citizenss held by Qaeda affiliates as far afield as Africa, indicating that they were hoping to abide by the same business plan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/21/world/middleeast/isis-pressed-for-ransom-before-killing-james-foley.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpSumSmallMedia&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

[Baclava]

4. You don't think they'd take Americans, given the chance? you know they would

"We are all infidels to them"

yes - but some infidels are bigger feathers in their caps

[frazzled]

5. But we don't pay ransoms.

I know people here want to romanticize these groups as some kind of freedom fighters. But in reality, they are religious fanatics who need money to carry out their goals.

[leftynyc]

6. SOME people here, you mean

There are plenty of us - a solid majority in my opinion - that see isis for the vermin they are.

[frazzled]

8. True ...

I'm guilty of taking the loudmouths for the majority, when in fact they are actually a minority (just loud, and catch my attention). My bad, with apologies to all who "get" it.

[karynnj]

9. We don't pay ransoms, but they are trying to add real pain and cost

Last edited Thu Aug 21, 2014, 01:42 PM - Edit history (1)

to American decisions on attacking. I suspect that the timing of the execution was because - for the first time - they were pushed back and lost a position that they valued. This loss is both geopolitically real and something that emotionally could have lifted the hopes and spirits of the Kurds and Iraqis and lowered theirs. Most importantly, it seems the Sunni warlords have been playing both sides. This could - as much as intended towards the US - been a message for their own people that they are the ones really in control.

[flamingdem]

12. Curious what you mean about this being a message to the Saudis

and the Sunni warlords do have an interesting role that they can exploit -- or that they are forced to play depending.

[karynnj]

13. Wow - I really can not do two things at once - I didn't mean Saudis but meant to say their own

ISIS members. Nothing profound was meant - just that the story had been their endless movement to claim more land -- until the defeats this last week. Suddenly the story was US airpower can push them back.

I have no idea how I mixed Saudi with ISIS, but I did.

[Baclava]

10. 'Before Killing James Foley, ISIS Demanded Ransom From U.S'

"The group pressed the United States to provide a multimillion-dollar ransom for his release"

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/21/world/middleeast/isis-pressed-for-ransom-before-killing-james-foley.html?_r=0

[frazzled]

11. Yes, that was what I was referring to

I read that article at 6 am this morning, over coffee—on dead-tree paper. I was surprised nobody had posted it earlier.