Identity of many kidnappers in Iraq remains vague
Officials say it is difficult to determine who is being held by insurgents and who is being held by criminals.
In the past 10 days, four more foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq, two Germans and two Kenyans.
Agence France-Press reports that
a video of the Germans pleading for their government to help them was broadcast Friday.
Slightly more than 300 foreign civilians have been kidnapped in Iraq since the US-led war began in March 2003. But
IRINnews.org, the new website for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, reports that Iraqi officials say the
identity of the kidnappers often remains vague. Of those 300-plus kidnapped, 39 have been killed by their abductors.
According to the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG), people involved in kidnappings are often identifiable as groups, but not necessarily as individuals. "It's very hard to say in whose hands the hostages are," Joost Hilterman, Middle East Project Director for the ICG, said.
These groups, say ICG, include foreign fighters from other Arab and Muslim countries, local insurgents and criminal gangs.
IRIN also reports that, according to a senior member of the Islamic Army, kidnapping aid workers often generates more media attention than when journalists or contractors are taken.
Ordinary Iraqis are being kidnapped too, though many of these cases often go unreported. Potential victims, both Iraqis and non-Iraqis, are "well researched" before any action is taken.
"We consider what this person represents internationally, and then a plan is worked out before the manoeuvre," added [the senior member of the Islamic Army], who is responsible for collecting background information on hostages in advance of kidnapping operations.
The personal histories of potential hostages are studied. "In one case, we even knew where the target went to primary school," he said.
Brian Conley of the left-of-center
Inter Press Service writes that criminal gangs had been active even before the US-led invasion "
flourished" in the early days of the war, when the Saddam Hussein regime collapsed and coalition forces struggled to maintain security and order. Some took to kidnapping in order to survive or to prosper.
Jawad Kathum, 31, had to pay a heavy price for the abduction of his nephew. "My nephew was kidnapped by one of these gangs in Baghdad, and they made us pay $20,000 for his return," he told IPS.
Such stories are common; nearly everyone knows someone who has been kidnapped. The kidnappers almost always demand heavy ransom. "We were forced to sell our house in order to release my nephew because there was no one who could rescue him," Jawad said.
Kidnappings have been a problem in Iraq almost from the beginning of the war, but are sharply on the increase. In September 2003,
The Christian Science Monitor reported on how
Iraqi gangs were kidnapping women and children in order to hold them for ransom.
L. Paul Bremer, then the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, told reporters that one of the big problems was that the Hussein regime had released 100,000 prisoners from the country's jails in the day before the US-led invasion. And with US forces fighting the nascent insurgent movement, they didn't have time to go after criminals.
The Saban Center at the
Brookings Institution in Washington estimates, in its Iraq Index, that in December
kidnappings of Iraqis were taking place at the rate of up to 30 per day.
In a lengthy article published in December of 2005 for the conservative
Middle East Forum on how to deal with the recent kidnappings in Iraq, Michael Rubin and Suzanne Gershowitz write that "while some foreign businessmen have been kidnapped for ransom, the motivation of kidnapping foreigners is
primarily political."
Terrorists target civilians because, in their calculation, the tactic works. Every operation has a cost. Whenever a terror cell surveys and grabs a target, it becomes vulnerable to exposure. Every terrorist operation provides forensic evidence which counter terror specialists can use to root out and roll up cells. Hostage-taking, therefore, only becomes a successful strategy when terrorists feel that the gains of their operation outweigh the costs.
Radio Free Europe reported last November on how
diplomats from several pro-Western Muslim countries (one Egyptian, two Algerians, a Pakistani, and two Moroccans) had also been abducted. Authorities believe the diplomats were murdered, although their bodies have never been found.
Another effect of the violence has been that many of Iraq's
top professionals are fleeing to nearby countries like Jordan, Syria, Turkey, or the United Arab Emirates.
The Washington Post reported Sunday on this "brain drain" brought on primarily by the lack of security and kidnappings in the country.
Also...
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Critics say US detention of suspected terrorists' wives may backfire (ABCNews.com)
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US private contractors leaving Iraq (Washington Times)
•
Needed officers lost under military gay policy (Associated Press)
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Tom Regan
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