How To Free A Hostage

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Quick action may have saved the life of a Pakistani national, Amjad Yusuf Hafeez, a driver for a Saudi Arabian company. He was released last week after only a few days in captivity. Picked up on June 26 in Balad, about 50 miles north of Baghdad, Hafeez fell into the hands of a group calling itself the 1920 Revolution Brigade, an apparent allusion to the uprising against British rule in the area. In a videotape widely broadcast on Arab TV stations, his captors demanded the release of comrades from Iraqi jails and, for unclear reasons, the closure of Pakistan's embassy in Baghdad. Otherwise, they said, Hafeez would be killed in three days.

Pakistani diplomat Muhammad Iftikhar Anjum immediately contacted well-connected Iraqi religious figures. The kidnapped driver's firm started contacting sources among tribal leaders, sheiks and others. "Surprisingly enough, people seem to know, in most localities, who is doing this," says Sabah Kadhim, spokesman for Iraq's Interior Ministry. Imams put out appeals in Friday sermons and on al-Jazeera TV for Hafeez's safe return. These may have been not simple humanitarian calls but rather signals to the kidnappers that the driver's firm and Pakistan were open to a deal. As White says, "The people who can really deliver are the bad guys." Back in Pakistan, Hafeez told reporters he had witnessed captors beheading three hostages, including two English-speaking foreigners. Who they were is still unknown.

Not surprisingly, the efforts to free hostages tend to be most successful if the victim is Muslim. Of the 35 hostages who have been freed or rescued, 19 either were Muslims or came from predominantly Islamic countries. In addition to Hafeez, 13 Turkish hostages have been freed, including two last week after their company promised to stop doing business in Iraq. Others released include two Lebanese, an Egyptian, a Syrian Canadian and an Arab Christian from East Jerusalem. Filipino hostage Angelo dela Cruz was being held last week by militants who demanded that the Philippine government pull its troops out of Iraq by July 20--a month ahead of schedule. (Then there's the strange case of U.S. Marine Corporal Wassef Hassoun, a Lebanese American who disappeared and was reportedly held hostage before turning up safe last week in Lebanon.)