Hostage Tactics
It is at this time during the war that kidnapping, and in some cases beheadings, emerged as another insurgent tactic. Foreign civilians bore the brunt of the kidnappings, although some U.S. military personnel were also targeted. After kidnapping the victim, the insurgents typically made some sort of demand of the government of the hostage's nation and gave a time limit for the demand to be carried out, often 72 hours. Beheading was often threatened if the government fails to heed the wishes of the hostage takers. Several individuals, including an American civilian (Nicholas Berg) and a South Korean (Kim Sun-il), among others, were beheaded during this period.
Read more about this topic: Iraq Spring Fighting Of 2004
Famous quotes containing the word hostage:
“Neither dead nor alive, the hostage is suspended by an incalculable outcome. It is not his destiny that awaits for him, nor his own death, but anonymous chance, which can only seem to him something absolutely arbitrary.... He is in a state of radical emergency, of virtual extermination.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)