Tom Fox | |
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 Tom Fox with some children | |
| Born | Thomas William Fox July 7, 1951 |
| Died | March 9, 2006 (aged 54) |
| Occupation | Peace activist |
| Children | Katherine |
Thomas William Fox (July 7, 1951 – March 9, 2006) 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.
From Clear Brook, Virginia, Fox graduated from the Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, and was a member of the Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia musical fraternity. In his career, he was a leader of youth programs at Langley Hill Friends Meeting in McLean, Virginia. Fox served in many positions in Baltimore Yearly Meeting, including a stint as Youth Programs Director, where he devoted much of his time to personally working with teenagers and young adults in the Baltimore Yearly Meeting community; he served as a Friendly Adult Presence, during the majority of the BYM Young Friends program's gatherings during the first half of the 2000s (decade) and the later 1990s. He served for 20 years in the United States Marine Band and was an accomplished player of clarinet and recorder. In a public statement his daughter Katherine mentioned that on principle he refused military discounts for which he was eligible. [2]
On November 26, 2005, Fox was taken hostage along with three other members of the CPT team in Iraq. The captors threatened to kill all hostages unless the United States freed all Iraqi prisoners held in the US and Iraq by December 8, 2005. They later extended this deadline to December 10, 2005. On December 10, 2005, Katherine Fox issued a statement saying that she and her father believe the Iraqi people have legitimate concerns about the United States' presence in Iraq, but "these grievances, however, will not be resolved by taking my father's life." [3]
On March 7, 2006 Al Jazeera aired a tape which showed the other three hostages, but did not show Fox. [4] On March 10, 2006, the U.S. State Department announced that Fox's body had been found on a garbage heap in Baghdad, shot through the head and chest. According to Iraqi police, his hands were bound and signs of torture were evident. [5] However, conflicting reports from an anonymous Iraqi police official and members of CPT stated that there were no signs of torture. [6] The autopsy report was not released.
On March 23, 2006, the remaining hostages were freed by multinational forces. [7] Muharib Abdul-Latif al-Jubouri (an Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader) is believed to have personally killed Fox.[ citation needed ] Al-Jubouri was killed in May 2007. [8]
The following is a timeline of major events during the Iraq War, following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, which may be abbreviated as JTJ or Jama'at, was a Islamic extremist Salafi jihadist terrorist group. It was founded in Jordan in 1999 and was led by Jordanian national Abu Musab al-Zarqawi for the entirety of its existence. During the Iraqi insurgency (2003–11), the group became a decentralized network with foreign fighters and a considerable Iraqi membership.
Margaret Hassan, also known as "Madam Margaret", was an Irish-born aid worker who had worked in Iraq for many years until she was abducted and murdered by unidentified kidnappers in Iraq in 2004, at the age of 59. Her remains have never been recovered.
Shosei Koda was a Japanese citizen who was kidnapped and later beheaded in Iraq on 29 October 2004, by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group, while touring the country. He was the first Japanese person beheaded in Iraq.
Charles Eugene Fager, known as Chuck Fager, is an American activist, author, editor, publisher and an outspoken and prominent member of the Religious Society of Friends or Quakers. He is known for his work in both the Civil Rights Movement and in the Peace movement. His written works include religious and political essays, humor, adult fiction, and juvenile fiction, and he is best known for his 1974 book Selma 1965: The March That Changed the South, his in-depth history of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights Movement, which led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act.
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.
Susanne Kristina Osthoff 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.
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 Swords of Righteousness Brigade is a terrorist group which kidnapped four Western peace activists in Iraq on 26 November 2005, murdered one, Tom Fox, and held the remaining three hostages until March 22, 2006, when coalition forces raided the place where the hostages were held, known as the 2005-2006 Christian Peacemaker hostage crisis.
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.
James Loney is a Canadian peace activist who has worked for several years with Christian Peacemaker Teams in Iraq and Palestine. On November 26, 2005, he was kidnapped in Baghdad along with three others: Harmeet Singh Sooden (Canadian) and Norman Kember (British), both members of the delegation he was leading; and Tom Fox (American), a full-time member of CPT who had been working in Iraq since September 2004. The widely publicized hostage crisis ended on March 23, 2006 when Loney, Kember and Sooden were freed in a clandestine military operation led by British Special Forces. Tom Fox was killed on March 9, two weeks before the release of the other hostages.
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.
Abu Ayyub al-Masri, also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, born Abdel Moneim Ezz El-Din Ali Al-Badawi, was the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq during the Iraqi insurgency, following the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in June 2006. He was war minister of the Islamic State of Iraq from 2006–2010 and prime minister of the Islamic State of Iraq from 2009–2010. He was killed during a raid on his safehouse on 18 April 2010.
Dora is a neighborhood in Al Rashid administrative district, southern Baghdad, Iraq. Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, it was home to the city's largest concentration of Christian Assyrians, as well as Mandaeans and Muslim families.
Community Peacemaker Teams or CPT is an international organization set up to support teams of peace workers in conflict areas around the world. The organization uses these teams to achieve its aims of lower levels of violence, nonviolent direct action, human rights documentation and nonviolence training in direct action. CPT sums up their work as being "committed to reducing violence by 'getting in the way'".
William Durland is a U.S. attorney, peace activist, author, educator and former member of the Virginia State Legislature. He is married to Eugenia Smith Durland and they have one son. He also has three children from a former marriage. He is a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). He graduated from Scarsdale High School in 1949 and after college graduation he joined the National Security Agency as an intelligence analyst. He served in the U.S. Army Medical Service Corps from 1954 to 1957 overseas, and was a Captain in U.S. Army JAG Reserve from 1966 to 1968.
In the 2010 Baghdad church massacre, six suicide bomber jihadists of a group called Islamic State of Iraq attacked a Syriac Catholic church in Baghdad during Sunday evening Mass, on 31 October, 2010, and began killing the worshipers. The Islamic State of Iraq, according to Agence France-Presse news agency, was a militant umbrella group to which al-Qaeda in Iraq belongs.
Mervin Eugene "Gene" Stoltzfus was an American peace activist, international development worker, founding director of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), and pioneer in the international peace team movement. Drawing upon his Mennonite roots in pacifism and conscientious objection, Stoltzfus played a critical role in the anti-war movement among American aid workers in Vietnam in the 1960s, and helped shape diverse efforts of the global peace and justice community over the next forty years. As long-time director of CPT, he developed a practical vision of international justice-making through the use of grassroots faith-based peace teams, trained in the discipline of nonviolent direct action.
Hopewell Friends Meeting House is an 18th-century Quaker meeting house located the northern Frederick County, Virginia one mile west of the community of Clear Brook at 604 Hopewell Road. Clear Brook, VA 22624. This community was the home of Thomas William "Tom" Fox (1951–2006), a Quaker peace activist, affiliated with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) murdered in 2006 in Iraq.
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.
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