Abu Sayyaf, officially known by the Islamic State as the Islamic State – East Asia Province, is a Jihadist militant and pirate group that follows the Wahhabi doctrine of Sunni Islam. It is based in and around Jolo and Basilan islands in the southwestern part of the Philippines, where for more than four decades, Moro groups have been engaged in an insurgency seeking to make Moro Province independent. The group is considered violent and was responsible for the Philippines' worst terrorist attack, the bombing of MV Superferry 14 in 2004, which killed 116 people. The name of the group is derived from the Arabic abu, and sayyaf. As of April 2023, the group is estimated to have about 20 members, down from 1,250 in 2000. They use mostly improvised explosive devices, mortars and automatic rifles.
The Entebbe raid or Operation Entebbe, officially codenamed Operation Thunderbolt, was a 1976 Israeli counter-terrorist mission in Uganda. It was launched in response to the Palestinian-led hijacking of an international civilian passenger flight operated by Air France between the cities of Tel Aviv and Paris. During a stopover in Athens, the aircraft was hijacked by two Palestinian PFLP–EO terrorists and two German RZ terrorists, who diverted the flight to Libya and then to Uganda, where they landed at Entebbe International Airport to be joined by other terrorists. Once in Uganda, the group enjoyed support from Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.
Nicholas "Nick" Ribic is a Canadian who fought in the Bosnian Serb Army where he was also known as Nikola Ribić. In 1995, he took four United Nations peacekeepers hostage and used them as a human shield to try to force a halt to the ongoing bombing of Serb-held territories in Bosnia by NATO forces.
The Moscow theater hostage crisis was the seizure of the crowded Dubrovka Theater by Chechen terrorists on 23 October 2002, which involved 850 hostages and ended with Russian security services killing or causing the death of 172 people. The attackers, led by Movsar Barayev, claimed allegiance to the Islamist separatist movement in Chechnya. They demanded the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya and an end to the Second Chechen War.
Neuilly-sur-Seine, or Neuilly, is a wealthy suburb immediately west of Paris.
Neuilly-sur-Seine, also known simply as Neuilly, is an urban commune in the Hauts-de-Seine department just west of Paris in France. Immediately adjacent to the city, north of the Bois de Boulogne, the area is composed of mostly select residential neighbourhoods, as well as many corporate headquarters and a handful of foreign embassies. One of the most affluent areas of France, it is the wealthiest and most expensive suburb of Paris.
Les Sablons is a station on Line 1 of the Paris Métro in the commune of Neuilly-sur-Seine west of the city. In 2019 Les Sablons ranked 53rd in passenger volume among the system's 302 stations. The station is located under Avenue Charles de Gaulle, a major traffic artery between Etoile and La Defense. It has four entrances, a pair located on each of the medians on opposite sides of the Avenue.
The Beslan school siege was a terrorist attack that started on 1 September 2004, lasted three days, involved the imprisonment of more than 1,100 people as hostages and ended with the deaths of 333 people, 186 of them children, as well as 31 of the attackers. It is considered to be the deadliest school shooting in history.
Brice Hortefeux is a conservative French politician. He was Minister of the Interior, Overseas Territories and Territorial collectivities. He was previously Minister for Labour, Labour Relations, the Family, Solidarity and Urban Affairs and Minister-Delegate for Local Government at the Ministry of the Interior and was a Member of the European Parliament.
Human rights violations were committed by the warring sides during the second war in Chechnya. Both Russian officials and Chechen rebels have been regularly and repeatedly accused of committing war crimes including kidnapping, torture, murder, hostage taking, looting, rape, decapitation, and assorted other breaches of the law of war. International and humanitarian organizations, including the Council of Europe and Amnesty International, have criticized both sides of the conflict for blatant and sustained violations of international humanitarian law.
The Cokeville Elementary School hostage crisis occurred on Friday, May 16, 1986 in Cokeville, Wyoming, United States, when former town marshal David Young, 43, and his wife Doris Young, 47, took 154 hostages – 136 children and 18 adults – at Cokeville Elementary School.
The 1983 Kuwait bombings were attacks on six key foreign and Kuwaiti installations on 12 December 1983, two months after the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing. The 90-minute coordinated attack on two embassies, the country's main airport, and petro-chemical plant was more notable for the damage it was intended to cause than what was actually destroyed. What might have been "the worst terrorist episode of the twentieth century in the Middle East" killed only six people because of the bombs' faulty rigging.
"Bomb Iran" is the name of several parodies of the Regents' 1961 song "Barbara Ann", originally written by Fred Fassert and popularized in a "party" cover version by the Beach Boys in 1965. The most popular of the parodies was recorded by Vince Vance & the Valiants in 1980. "Bomb Iran" gained a resurgence in notoriety in 2007 during John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign.
The Battle of Vrbanja Bridge was an armed confrontation which took place on 27 May 1995, between United Nations (UN) peacekeepers from the French Army and elements of the Bosnian Serb Army of Republika Srpska (VRS). The fighting occurred at the Vrbanja Bridge crossing of the Miljacka river in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, during the Bosnian War. The VRS seized the French-manned United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) observation posts on both ends of the bridge, taking hostage 12 French peacekeepers. Ten were taken away, and two were kept at the bridge as human shields.
Kayla Jean Mueller was an American human rights activist and humanitarian aid worker from Prescott, Arizona, United States. She was taken captive in August 2013 in Aleppo, Syria, after leaving a Doctors Without Borders hospital. Media had long reported that a 26-year-old American aid worker was being held by ISIS without naming her, at her family's request. In 2015, she was killed in uncertain circumstances. The operation that killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was named Operation Kayla Mueller, after her.
Crime in Taiwan ranges from food adulteration, bombing, assassination attempts, hostage crisis, murder etc. However, crime statistics show that crime rates in Taiwan are among the lowest in the world, and are relatively low compared to much of the developed world. A 2020 report named Taiwan the second-safest country in the world, based on low crime rates and a high number of survey respondents who indicated that they felt safe walking alone at night.
The siege of Lamitan took place on 2 June 2001 when members of the Islamic terrorist group Abu Sayyaf entered the city of Lamitan, one of two Christian settlements in the predominantly Muslim province of Basilan in the Philippines. They took over a church and a hospital and held priests, medical staff and patients hostage. Government forces surrounded the Muslim extremists, preventing their escape. However, the Abu Sayyaf group managed to break out of the cordon by using their hostages as human shields.
On 25 and 26 May 1995, NATO conducted air strikes against positions of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) at Pale, as part of Operation Deny Flight, during the Bosnian War.
The Neuilly kindergarten hostage crisis took place from 13-15 May 1993, when Érick Schmitt, a depressed and unemployed businessman, held a kindergarten class in Neuilly-sur-Seine hostage for two days. He was armed with a flare gun and strapped with explosives, and was eventually killed on 15 May during a RAID assault. There were no other casualties. The police response to the crisis was controversial due to the circumstances under which Schmitt was killed and the involvement of future French president Nicolas Sarkozy.
