Posted on 09/03/2004 12:07:30 PM PDT by yonif
What analysts and academics describe as "hostage-barricade" situations – as in the case of the southern Russian school where 17 terrorists have kidnapped several hundred children, parents, and teachers – appears to be making a comeback after more than two decades of being relatively dormant.
Only now, in the era of modern terrorism, the stakes in terms of innocent lives are far higher, according to Dr. Boaz Ganor, executive director of the International Policy Institute for Counterterrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya.
The deadly effects of hostage taking have been only too evident in Iraq of late in a wave of kidnappings by predominantly fundamentalist Muslim groups who use their victims to put pressure on foreign governments to cease cooperation with the American-backed interim government.
The takeover of a school, however, is even more virulent because the lives of youngsters are being threatened by terrorists who are, ostensibly, suicide bombers who have publicly proclaimed willingness to blow themselves up along with their hostages if security forces try to storm the building.
Such a situation, according to Ganor, puts even added pressure on the decision-makers and ensures, from the point of view of the terrorists, that the issue remains in the public spotlight for a much longer period than in the case of "regular" suicide bombing attacks.
Terrorists, according to Ganor, have learned how to play the media and use it to their advantage and a situation like the one in Beslan in the Ossetia region of southern Russia becomes a showcase for their demands, while promulgating their ideology.
It is, to coin a phrase, a theater for terrorism being acted out live in front of a television audience of millions throughout the world and the consequences are deadly regardless of what the authorities decide.
Israel and Israelis are no strangers to the predicament imposed by the terrorists, believed to from Chechnya, on Russian President Vladimir Putin and the authorities. The Ma'alot massacre in May 1974, in which 26 Israelis, many of them children, were killed and scores wounded, is a case in point.
A terrorist squad from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine infiltrated Israel from Lebanon and reached Ma'alot in the heart of the Galilee. The aim of the terrorists was take hostages and negotiate the release of Palestinians held by Israel.
They raided a house and killed the inhabitants, then took over a school where a group of children on an annual outing happened to be sleeping over with their teacher and parent escorts.
Negotiations were initiated but then members of an elite Golani Brigade unit stormed the premises and killed all the terrorists, but not before the latter had detonated explosive devices and killed or wounded many of their hostages.
"This was, perhaps, one of the first occasions of kidnappers who were also suicide bombers and who announced their intentions beforehand, very similar to the situation now in Ossetia," Ganor told The Jerusalem Post. There were many other incidents, including Operation Entebbe some two years later, that ended with the rescue of all the hostages kidnapped in a plane hijack and who taken to Uganda.
"Israel officially adopted a policy of not negotiating with terrorists but this has not always been adhered to because of circumstances and the fact that Israeli governments are more prone to the influence of public opinion in general and that of families of victims in particular than, say, in Russia," said Ganor.
"The late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin said that if a military option existed it should be used but this is not always possible as in the cases of soldiers captured in Lebanon whose whereabouts are not known, thereby negating the possibility of military action. In the latter cases, Rabin said that real negotiations should be held.
"The situation now in Russia is one in which the authorities have a choice between negotiations or ending the siege by force. In the light of past experience, including the Moscow theater siege, the Russians are not reluctant to risk the lives of hostages rather than give in to the demands of terrorists.
"Surrendering to the demands of terrorist hijackers also entails risks in the short and long terms. It undermines any image of a strong nation and strong leadership and raises the prospect of more such terrorist attempts and even higher demands in the future.
"My advice in the current situation would be to try and negotiate the release of as many hostages as possible and then, using the best tactical means possible, to burst in and try to free the remainder.
"The problem now, in this era of modern terrorism, is how to achieve the desired aims without causing the unacceptable loss of life of innocent people – in the Ossetia case the majority of whom are children."
The Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center is hosting an international conference on global terrorism this month that will be attended by experts from throughout the world, including Russia. One of the issues relates to the question of dealing with hostage-takers who are prepared to commit suicide for their beliefs. "After the conference, maybe we will have better answers," said Ganor.
Well you forgot one important thing. With the Russians there will always be payback.
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