Last week's kidnapping of fifteen western tourists in Ethiopia underlined the vulnerability of tourists and foreign workers in the unstable parts of the middle east and north Africa. Hostage-taking has become a favoured tactic of political militants in recent years, as evidenced by the ongoing abduction of foreign nationals in Nigeria and Iraq. In the past two years, Palestinians in Gaza have captured over twenty westerners.
As a tactic, hostage-taking is by no means peculiar to the Muslim or Arab world. It has nevertheless played a central role in framing the way Europe and the United States look at the middle east. Kidnappings seem to punctuate western - particularly American - relations with the region. Such episodes include the powerfully resonant Iran hostage crisis in 1979; the series of kidnappings of US workers and officials in Lebanon through the 1980s; the more innocuous but equally evocative capture of Ion Perdicaris in 1904 (immortalised in the Hollywood blockbuster The Wind and the Lion) in Morocco; the Barbary Wars and the centuries-long history of north African "slaving" in the Mediterranean.
The Barbary Wars - fought between the United States and city-states of the Maghreb engaged in kidnapping American sailors and crippling American shipping - played a large part in the formation of the nascent federal American state. Observers today, and some notable American historians, have linked the US' first conflict in the middle east with its contemporary struggles in the region. In their view, the history of western captivity at the hands of Muslims and Arabs provides an ideological marker of the separation between the west and the middle east. The few cases of beheadings of westerners in Iraq play squarely into this perception.
The kidnapping of westerners has indeed been a frequent practice in recent years in the region. But a serious look at its wide and diverse use shows that such abductions are more emblematic of the asymmetrical strategy of insurgency than fiery religious or cultural zeal.
12 August, 2000
Kyrgyzstan: In the Kara-Su Valley, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan took four US mountain climbers hostage. The Americans eventually managed to escape.
15 April, 1998
Somalia: Somali militiamen captured nine Red Cross and Red Crescent workers north of Mogadishu. The hostages were eventually released unharmed on 20 April. The incident was thought to be part of a power struggle within the clan of Ali Mahdi Mohamed.
30 October, 1997
Yemen: Militants of the Al-Sha'if tribe kidnapped a US businessman near Sanaa. The hostage was released 27 November. The militants kidnapped the man in order to demand the release of two fellow tribesmen and in retaliation against the government's failure to deliver on public works projects.
4 February, 1997
Tajikistan: A paramilitary group led by the now executed rebel Bakhrom Sodirov kidnapped four United Nations military observers. The rebels were demanding safe passage for their supporters from Afghanistan to Tajikistan.
1 November, 1996
Sudan: A breakaway group of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA) kidnapped three Red Cross workers, who were all released on 9 December in exchange for supplies and a health survey of their camp.
13 September, 1996
Iraqi Kurdistan: During a dispute between rival Kurdish factions, members of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan abducted seven aid workers, including four French workers and a Canadian UN official.
17 August, 1996
Sudan: SPLA militants abducted six missionaries near the town of Mapourdit. The hostages were released 11 days later.
4 July, 1995
Kashmir: Members of the al-Faran separatist group abducted six western tourists, who were held in captivity for varying periods of time.
May 1993
Turkey: Militants of the Kurdish Labour Party (PKK) abduct 19 western tourists in eastern Turkey - all released eventually unharmed - in an attempt to cripple the Turkish tourist industry.
