Results for "ransom hostage"

Loan sharks.

Ronald J. Withrow and John Roy Young, RIP.

“Can I just check those diplomas because I just want to make sure that they are not from some med school in the Philippines.”

The martyrs no one cares about.

Plus…breaking: German journalist said freed by Taliban

I raised my eyebrow about the release of the Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo the other day. Now, the shoe drops:
An Italian journalist who was held hostage for 15 days by the Taliban in lawless southern Afghanistan was ransomed for five Taliban prisoners, the Italian government and Afghan officials confirmed Wednesday.
It appears to be the first [...]

Rusty Shackleford has all the latest developments on the latest kidnappings in Iraq:
Four American and one Austrian civilian have been kidnapped in Iraq. The five men were part of a convoy heading through the Shia dominated south of Iraq, but are thought to be held in a Sunni area. That part of Iraq is generally [...]

***updated: Spencer and Pipes respond…***

R.S.V.P, infidels
Watch the new al Qaeda video to see what an “invitation to Islam” sounds like. I’ve transcribed a sample of American al Qaeda Adam Gadahn’s rant:
“Islam is the only religion acceptable to God and came with the revealed book, the Koran, which abrogates all previous revelations, like the Torah and [...]

Paris mourned the death of Ilan Halimi today (via Haaretz):
Cries of “vive la France” and “la justice” accompanied President Jacques Chirac, his wife Bernadette and Premier Dominique de Villepin last night as they left the memorial evening held here yesterday for Ilan Halimi.
The ceremony, which was held in the Grand Synagogue on rue de la [...]

Meet Susanne Ostroff, Germany’s latest apologist for Islamic terrorism:
A former German hostage who spent 24 days in the hands of unknown captors in Iraq said her kidnappers were not criminals and had demanded humanitarian aid for Sunni Arab regions.
Speaking to Doha-based satellite channel Al-Jazeera, Susanne Osthoff said her captors told her not to be afraid [...]

Durbinization alert:
Tons of readers are e-mailing me about NBC News anchor Brian Williams’ comments tonight in which he apparently compared the Founding Fathers to modern-day terrorists. The remarks seem to pooh-pooh the story about Iranian president-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s alleged involvement in the 1979 hostage crisis at the U.S. embassy in Tehran.
Williams previewed his argument on [...]

I’ve written before on the perils of paying off throat-slitting terrorists. John Rosenthal at Transatlantic Intelligencer tipped me off to his very interesting analysis examining the correlation between ransom and civilian casualties in Iraq. Check it out.
Seems clear to me: When you subsidize something, you get more of it. Blood money for terrorists begets more [...]

There have been several new developments in the probe of the Iraqi checkpoint shooting involving Italian anti-war Communist writer Giuliana Sgrena. On Saturday night, the U.S. military released its official investigative report of the incident (details of which were leaked earlier in the week). Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, the ground commander in Iraq, has [...]

Well, well, well. Check this out from The Sunday Times-World:
March 13, 2005
Italy to stop paying ransoms
John Follain, Rome
THE Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, has promised President George W Bush that he will not pay more ransoms to free hostages in Iraq.
The Italian government has denied newspaper reports that $6m (£3.1m) was paid for the release [...]

Apropos of my column this week on Italy’s ransom payments to terrorists, here’s a new related story out of the Philippines:
Once more, the Arroyo government is claimed to be negotiating the release of hostaged Filipino accountant Roberto Tarongoy by his captors, with a counter offer of $6 million, or $4 million short of the earlier [...]

My new column focuses on an angle of the Sgrena case that I think has gotten short shrift in the MSM: Italy’s willingness to negotiate with throat-slitting terrorists.
As you may recall, I lambasted the Philippines for going wobbly and paying off the barbarians last year to free truck driver Angelo de la Cruz (see here, [...]

Still wondering about Giuliana Sgrena’s ransom?
Lucia Annunziata, former president of Italian state television RAI, “said yesterday government sources estimate Italy has paid kidnappers nearly $15 million for hostages in the past year,” according to the New York Post today. Annunziata admits:
“The frequency of our kidnappings has transformed that which was an extraordinary, emergency option into [...]

The biggest story of the weekend, which continues to spill all over today’s headlines, is the Giuliana Sgrena debacle in Iraq. LGF , OTB, and the Jawa Report, among many others, have done great jobs covering the twists and turns.
So, how much was the ransom allegedly paid by the Italian government to Sgrena’s still-unidentified terrorist [...]

For the first time since he began writing for the London Telegraph, Mark Steyn had a column pulled. He explains here. I’m taking the liberty of reprinting the full, unpublished piece. It’s important:
Whether or not it is, in the technical sense, a “joke”, I find myself, with the benefit of hindsight, in agreement with Billy [...]

Oh, God. This just in from the Philippines Daily Tribune:
A ransom of $6 million was offered and paid out to the Iraqi rebels holding Filipino truck driver Angelo de la Cruz hostage, to ensure his release before President Arroyo’s scheduled State of the Nation Address on July 26, a high level Philippine intelligence officer [...]