Pressure On Kuwait To Free The Bombers
Of the "Kuwait 17", 12 were Iraqis in al-Dawa, and three were Lebanese. One of these was Mustafa Badr Al Din. Al Din was sentenced to death. He was also a cousin and brother-in-law of one of Hezbollah's senior officers, Imad Mugniyah. "Analysts say, ... there is little doubt Mugniyeh and Al Din helped plan December 1983 bombings in Kuwait against the U.S. and French embassies there ...."
Both the organization of Hezbollah and the Islamic Republic of Iran - which was far larger and stronger than its neighbor Kuwait, and the location of Dawa's headquarters - worked to free their fellow Shia revolutionaries in Kuwait.
In Lebanon, Westerns hostages such as American Frank Regier and Frenchman Christian Joubert, were held by Shia radicals demanding the release of the al-Dawa terrorists as the price of the hostages’ release. On March 27, 1984 following the conviction of the al-Da'wa defendants, hostage-takers threatened to kill their hostages if the Kuwaiti government carried through with the planned execution of the al-Dawa prisoners. A month later American Benjamin Weir was kidnapped by actors demanding the same. Anglican hostage negotiator Terry Waite appealed to the Emir of Kuwait and tried to get a visa to come to Kuwait. His failure to make progress in freeing the convicted terrorists is thought to be the reason he himself was kidnapped and spent some 5 years as a hostage.
Although those sentenced to death were to be hanged within 30 days, the Emir of Kuwait did not sign their death sentence. The executions were delayed for years, until the men escaped.
Read more about this topic: 1983 Kuwait Bombings
Famous quotes containing the words pressure, free and/or bombers:
“The mother whose self-image is dependent on her children places on those children the responsibility for her own identity, and her involvement in the details of their lives can put great pressure on the children. A child suffers when everything he or she does is extremely important to a parent; this kind of over-involvement can turn even a small problem into a crisis.”
—Grace Baruch (20th century)
“A counterfeiting law-factory, standing half in a slave land and half in a free! What kind of laws for free men can you expect from that?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Suppose that humans happen to be so constructed that they desire the opportunity for freely undertaken productive work. Suppose that they want to be free from the meddling of technocrats and commissars, bankers and tycoons, mad bombers who engage in psychological tests of will with peasants defending their homes, behavioral scientists who can’t tell a pigeon from a poet, or anyone else who tries to wish freedom and dignity out of existence or beat them into oblivion.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)