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 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 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." and
Declared abductor: "Revolutionary Justice Organisation".
- 1986 April 16 (?) - Abduction: British citizens John McCarthy 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
Read more about this topic: Lebanon Hostage Crisis, Timeline