Analysis: Iraq's kidnap scourge

By Martin Asser
BBC News Online

Pictures of terrified hostages trussed up at the feet of masked gunmen in a lawless foreign land are guaranteed to dominate every news bulletin and the front page of every newspaper and website.

In the last two weeks several dozen foreign hostages have been seized, opening a new chapter in Iraq's deepening security crisis.

British hostage Teeley was released after six days

Some have been released quickly. Others, such as the Japanese trio abducted on 8 April, have been threatened with execution if Tokyo doesn't withdraw its troops from the US-led coalition.

The unfortunate fact is that, along with the bombings, assassinations and ambushes, kidnapping was always likely to be employed by the elements in Iraq who want to derail Washington's plans.

That is not to say that kidnapping was not already a feature of life post-Saddam - on the contrary.

A little-reported phenomenon has been the snatching of hundreds of Iraqi civilians, many of them young women, who have been held for ransom by armed gangs.

Precise figures are not known - but members of well-to-do families in Baghdad and elsewhere have long been taking precautions such as not travelling alone or at night

Sitting targets

The surprising thing is kidnapping foreigners has not been used as a tactic by insurgents in Iraq until now.

Thousands of civilian foreigners are in the country, working on reconstruction and humanitarian projects, or as private security contractors - not forgetting the large media contingent.

Timeline: Hostages in Iraq

Some foreigners have armed guards, but many have little or no protection - and besides, the need for protection was thought to be against bomb attacks not kidnapping.

But now any foreigner going about their business could be snatched by anyone with a Kalashnikov - a sobering thought.

As a result, the British foreign office - which has avoided warning civilians against "essential" trips to Iraq despite the dangers - has revised its travel advice, saying "even the most essential travel to Iraq should be delayed, if possible".

Germany and France have called on all their citizens to leave the country.

Citizen targets

The aim of the Iraqi hostage-takers appears very clear - to compound the problems facing the foreign occupiers of their country and ultimately drive them out.

That is why the nationality of hostages is crucial to their fate. Japan, whose non-combat soldiers could be seen as the weakest link of the coalition, have fared among the worst.

Japan has been badly shaken by the hostage drama

Meanwhile Chinese hostages, who may have been seized in a case of mistaken identity, serve no purpose as bargaining chips because Beijing is already one of the staunchest opponents of the occupation.

Americans, such as the unfortunate Thomas Hamill, a fuel lorry driver ambushed near Falluja on 9 April, are clearly the most prized possessions.

For the same reason the UK contractor Gary Teeley is probably lucky to have been released after his abduction in southern Iraq.

New terror

There is little to explain why the abductions are taking place now - apart from it coinciding with escalating confrontation between insurgents and the occupation forces.

Both Sunni and Shia militants have taken hostages - an echo of the increasing co-operation between the two groups in recent fighting.

Meanwhile, mainstream religious leaders, both Sunni and Shia, have been issuing calls for hostages to be released unharmed and have declared the practice of kidnapping unlawful.

Coalition political leaders have refused to be deflected by the new threat of hostage-taking.

However, there have been murmurings from some members of the "coalition of the willing" - that their operations in Iraq are under review in the light of the new conditions.

So far it is early days, and the clerics' pronouncements and mediation efforts might nip the kidnapping phenomenon in the bud.

But it could become the new scourge of post-war Iraq - like in Lebanon in the latter stages of its civil war in the late 1980s and early 1990s - deterring all outsiders, friend and foe, from setting foot in a country that is deemed to be just too dangerous.