 |
Susanne Osthoff | |
|---|---|
| Born | 7 March 1962 |
| Occupation | Archaeologist |
| Known for | Being kidnapped in Iraq in 2005 |
Susanne Kristina Osthoff (born 7 March 1962) is a German archaeologist who had worked in Iraq from 1991 until being taken hostage there on 25 November 2005. She was freed by her captors on 18 December 2005.
Osthoff grew up in Grafing (Bavaria) with two brothers and one sister. She studied Near Eastern archaeology and Semitic languages at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. [1]
After her studies, she moved to Iraq to work in archaelogy, including the excavation of the 4,000 year-old Islin site. [2] She subsequently married an Iraqi Sunni Musilm of the Shammar Tribe and converted to Islam. [3] [4]
On 25 November, Osthoff and her driver vanished in Northern Iraq. [5] Two days later, a video clip was released showing the two captives surrounded by masked, armed men who read a statement threatening to kill the hostages unless the German government stopped cooperation with the Iraqi government. [5]
Susanne Osthoff and her driver were freed from their captors on 18 December 2005. [4]
A spokesperson for the German Foreign Ministry, Marin Jager, confirmed that "the German government and the German embassy in Baghdad were involved" in securing Osthoff's release. [6] However, German government officials declined to comment on whether they paid a ransom for her release. [7]
In her first interview after release, Osthoff appeared in a full niqab and told Al Jazeera that the kidnappers assured her she was safe and that they knew she was "Iraq's friend." She expressed her further comfort that she "knew [she] was not in the hands of criminals." [4] [8]
While she was showering at the German embassy in Baghdad immediately after her release, officers from the BND found "several thousand dollars" rubberbanded to Osthoff. The serial numbers on the bills matched those on the money paid to secure her release. [8]
Osthoff claims that the money was given to her by her kidnappers as "compensation" for her ordeal and restitution for £9,500 that was stolen from her when she was kidnapped. [8]
Some believe that Germany traded the terrorist Mohammed Ali Hamadi, who was convicted of the murder of US Navy sailor Robert Stethem during the hijacking of TWA Flight 847, for Susanne Osthoff's release. [9] The German government has denied that her release was linked to Hamadi's. [4]
The Japanese Red Army was a militant communist organization active from 1971 to 2001. It was designated a terrorist organization by Japan and the United States. The JRA was founded by Fusako Shigenobu and Tsuyoshi Okudaira in February 1971, and was most active in the 1970s and 1980s, operating mostly out of Lebanon with PFLP collaboration and funding from Muammar Gaddafi's Libya, as well as Syria and North Korea.
TWA Flight 847 was a regularly scheduled Trans World Airlines flight from Cairo to San Diego with en route stops in Athens, Rome, Boston, and Los Angeles. On the morning of June 14, 1985, Flight 847 was hijacked soon after take off from Athens. The hijackers demanded the release of 700 Shia Muslims from Israeli custody and took the plane repeatedly to Beirut and Algiers. Later Western analysis considered them members of the Hezbollah group, an allegation Hezbollah rejects.
Kim Sun-il was a South Korean interpreter and Christian missionary who was kidnapped and murdered in Iraq.
Kenneth John Bigley was a British civil engineer who was kidnapped by Islamic extremists in the al-Mansour district of Baghdad, Iraq, on 16 September 2004, along with his colleagues, U.S. citizens Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong. Following the murders of Hensley and Armstrong by beheading over the course of three days, Bigley was killed in the same manner two weeks later, despite the attempted intervention of the Muslim Council of Britain and the indirect intervention of the British government. Videos of the killings were posted on websites and blogs.
Margaret Hassan was an Irish aid worker who had worked in Iraq for many years until she was abducted by unidentified assailants in Baghdad during the Iraqi insurgency. Her captors subsequently filmed and released a video of her stating that she was living her "last hours" before she pleaded for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq; she has not been seen since, and her remains were never recovered.
The Islamic Army in Iraq was one of a number of underground Islamist militant organizations formed in Iraq following the 2003 invasion of Iraq by U.S.-led Coalition forces, and the subsequent collapse of the Ba'athist regime headed by Saddam Hussein. IAI was regarded as one of the largest, sophisticated and most influential Sunni insurgent groups in Iraq that led an asymmetrical military insurgency against Coalition forces. The group became known for its grisly videos of kidnappings and attacks on U.S. and Iraqi troops.
Giuliana Sgrena is an Italian journalist who works for the Italian communist newspaper il manifesto and the German weekly Die Zeit. While working in Iraq, she was kidnapped by insurgents on 4 February 2005. After her release on 4 March, Sgrena and the two Italian intelligence officers who had helped secure her release came under fire from U.S. forces while on their way to Baghdad International Airport. Nicola Calipari, a major general in the Italian Military Intelligence and Security Service (SISMI) was killed, and Sgrena and one other officer were wounded in the incident. The event caused an international outcry.
Douglas Wood was an Australian construction engineer who had worked with the American military, and was held hostage in Iraq for six weeks between May and June 2005, before being rescued.
Members of the Iraqi insurgency began taking foreign hostages in Iraq beginning in April 2004. Since then, in a dramatic instance of Islamist kidnapping they have taken captive more than 200 foreigners and thousands of Iraqis; among them, dozens of hostages were killed and others rescued or freed. In 2004, executions of captives were often filmed, and many were beheaded. However, the number of the recorded killings decreased significantly. Many hostages remain missing with no clue as to their whereabouts. The United States Department of State Hostage Working Group was organized by the U.S. Embassy, Baghdad, in the summer of 2004 to monitor foreign hostages in Iraq.
Norman Frank Kember is an emeritus professor of biophysics at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry and a Christian pacifist active in campaigning on issues of war and peace. As a Baptist, he is a long-standing member of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America and the Fellowship of Reconciliation. As a conscientious objector to military service, he worked in a hospital in the early 1950s, which stimulated his interest in medical physics. He has been involved with the "Peace Zone" at the annual Greenbelt Festival.
The Christian Peacemaker hostage crisis involved four human rights workers of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) who were held hostage in Iraq from November 26, 2005 by the Swords of Righteousness Brigade. One hostage, Tom Fox, was killed, and the remaining three freed in a military operation on March 23, 2006.
Mohammed Ali Hammadi, also known as Mohammed Ali Hamadi is a Lebanese terrorist who is one of the list of FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists, being most notable for being the lead hijacker in the TWA Flight 847 hijacking. An alleged member of Hezbollah, he was convicted in a West German court of law of air piracy, murder, and possession of explosives for his part in the 14 June 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847.
Jill Carroll is an American former journalist who worked for news organizations such as The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, and the Christian Science Monitor. On January 7, 2006 while working for the Monitor, she was kidnapped in Iraq, attracting worldwide support for her release. Carroll was freed on March 30, 2006. After her release, Carroll wrote a series of articles for the Monitor on her recollection of her experiences in Iraq. She participated in a fellowship at Harvard University's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy and returned to work for the Monitor. She later retired from journalism and began working as a firefighter.
Thomas William Fox was an American Quaker peace activist, affiliated with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) in Iraq. He was kidnapped on November 26, 2005, in Baghdad along with three other CPT activists, leading to the 2005–2006 Christian Peacemaker hostage crisis. His body was found on March 9, 2006.
The Lebanon hostage crisis was the kidnapping in Lebanon of 104 foreign hostages between 1982 and 1992, when the Lebanese Civil War was at its height. The hostages were mostly Americans and Western Europeans, but 21 national origins were represented. At least eight hostages died in captivity; some were murdered, while others died from lack of adequate medical attention to illnesses. During the fifteen years of the Lebanese civil war an estimated 17,000 people disappeared after being abducted.
Kidnapping and hostage taking has become a common occurrence in Afghanistan following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Kidnappers include Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters and common criminal elements.
Amanda Lindhout is a Canadian humanitarian, public speaker and journalist. On August 23, 2008, she and members of her entourage were kidnapped by Islamist insurgents in southern Somalia. She was released 15 months later on November 25, 2009, and has since embarked on a philanthropic career. In 2013, she released the book, A House in the Sky: A Memoir, in which she recounts her early life, travels as a young adult, and hostage experience. In 2014, the book was optioned to become a major motion picture by Megan Ellison, with Rooney Mara playing the role of Lindhout.
Harmeet Singh Sooden is a Canadian-New Zealand anti-war activist who volunteered for the international NGO Christian Peacemaker Teams in Iraq. He was held captive in Baghdad with three others for almost four months until being freed by multi-national forces on 23 March 2006.
The 2015 Qatari hunters kidnapping set off a hostage crisis of nearly a year and a half in Iraq and involved negotiations and deals between many neighboring states. On Wednesday 16 December 2015, at about 3:00am local time, a party of 28 Qatari hunters, including members of the ruling royal House of Thani, were taken hostage in Muthanna Governorate, Iraq, in the desert area of Busaya not far from the border with Saudi Arabia. The Qataris remained in the hands of their kidnappers until 2017, when a deal in Syria and the payment of a ransom led to their release.
The kidnapping of Angelo dela Cruz, a Filipino Overseas Filipino Worker working in Iraq, is an event that led to the withdrawal of Filipino soldiers from the Multi-National Force – Iraq, a United States-led multinational coalition which was a participant in the Iraq War.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
