Lives on the line : the hostages still held captive by extremist group IS

[EndoftheWorld]

Lives on the line: the hostages still held captive by extremist group IS

PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 21 January, 2015, 1:13pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 21 January, 2015, 1:29pm

Associated Press in Beirut

Islamic State fighters cheer after capturing a young Jordanian pilot (centre) whose plane crashed in their de facto stronghold of Raqqa. The photo was released with permission from the terror group in December 2014. Photo: AP

The Islamic State group has been indiscriminate in its adbuctions - taking journalists, aid workers, businessmen and military officers captive - in a bid to extort ransoms from their home countries.

Experts suggest ransom demands may rise as the terror group's illicit revenue streams from oil decline.

Tuesday’s video featuring two Japanese hostages marks the first time the Islamic State group has publicly demanded cash.

The extremists requested US$132.5 million from hostage James Foley’s parents and political concessions from Washington, though neither was granted, US authorities say, and Foley was subsequently beheaded. They asked for a similar amount for two other American hostages, authorities have said.

The Islamic State group has suffered recent losses in US-led airstrikes, and with global oil prices down, their revenue from selling stolen oil has dropped. The extremists also have made money from extortion and robbing banks during its August offensive in Iraq.

Before the oil price drop, the Islamic State group made as much as US$2 million a day selling pilfered oil, and used the funds to pacify as many as 8 million people living in its self-declared caliphate, said Greg Ohannessian, an analyst at the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis.

Besides Foley, the Islamic State group has beheaded American hostage Peter Kassig, Israeli-American Steven Sotloff, and British captives David Haines and Alan Henning.

The group has also shot dead hundreds of captives. mainly Syrian and Iraqi soldiers, and has celebrated its mass killings in graphic videos.

Here is a list of people believed to have been held hostage by the militants.

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HELD CAPTIVE:

Journalist Kenji Goto (left) and Haruna Yukawa appear in an IS ransom video in orange prison garb. Photo: AFP

Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawa

The Islamic State group threatened to kill the two Japanese hostages in a video released on Tuesday unless they receive US$200 million in 72 hours.

Yukawa, in his 40s and the founder of a private security company, was kidnapped in Syria in August after going there to train with militants, according to a post on a blog he kept.

Goto is a respected Japanese freelance journalist who went to report on Syria’s civil war last year.

"I’m in Syria for reporting,” Goto wrote in an e-mail to an Associated Press journalist in October, before he was abducted. “I hope I can convey the atmosphere from where I am and share it.”

Jordanian pilot Mu'ath al-Kaseasbeh was carrying out airstrikes when his plane went down in enemy territory. Photo: EPA

Mu'ath al-Kaseasbeh

The 26-year-old Jordanian pilot is the first foreign military pilot to fall into Islamic State hands since an international coalition began its aerial campaign against the group in September.

He was carrying out airstrikes against the militants when his F-16 went down near the Islamic State group’s de facto capital of Raqqa in northeastern Syria on December 24. His captors have not made any public demands for his release.

British photojournalist John Cantlie has appeared in several Islamic State propaganda videos, likely made under duress. Photo: AP

John Cantlie

The British photojournalist has appeared in several Islamic State propaganda videos delivering statements, purportedly from the Syrian border town of Kobani and Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, likely under duress.

Cantlie has worked for several publications, including The Sunday Times, The Sun and The Sunday Telegraph, and was kidnapped with American journalist James Foley in November 2012. An Islamic State militant beheaded Foley in August last year.

Cantlie's family has apparently had a long link with revolution: his great-grandfather saved the life of Sun Yat-sen, the founder of modern China.

The priest travelled to meet Islamic militants in Raqqa, Syria, but was captured. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Father Paolo Dall'oglio

The Italian Jesuit priest went missing in July 2013 after travelling to meet Islamic militants in Raqqa. He has not been heard from since.

Lebanese cameraman Samir Kassab was kidnapped while on duty. Photo: AP

Samir Kassab

A Lebanese national who worked as a cameraman for satellite channel Sky News Arabia and was kidnapped October 15 while working near Aleppo, Syria’s commercial capital, where there has been heavy fighting since rebels seized part of the city in 2012.

Sky News Arabia reporter Ishak Mokhtar is among several journalists held hostage by the extremist group. Photo: AP

Ishak Mokhtar

A Mauritanian reporter for Abu Dhabi-based Sky News Arabia who was kidnapped October 15 while working near Aleppo.

Unidentified American woman

She was captured last year in Syria while working for aid groups. US officials have asked that the woman not be identified out of fears for her safety.

Three Red Cross workers

The trio were taken near Saraqeb, in Syria’s Idlib province, in October 2013. The organisation has declined to provide information on their identities or who has them, out of fears for their safety.

Seven Lebanese soldiers

Abducted in August during a cross-border militant raid in the Lebanese border town of Arsal.

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FREED:

The Islamic State has also released several hostages, reportedly in exchange for ransom money. There has been no official confirmation from any of the countries involved.

Here are those who survived the ordeal.

Greta Ramelli (left) and Vanessa Marzullo disembark from a plane early on January 16 after being freed by IS militants. Photo: AFP

Greta Ramelli and Vanessa Marzullo

Two Italian aid workers, aged 20 and 21, returned home this week after being held hostage in Syria by militants for more than five months.

They were kidnapped while working for the aid group Horryaty, which specialises in health and clean water projects.

They were last heard of on December 31 when a video was posted online showing them dressed in black robes and headscarves and urging the Italian government to do everything it could to bring them home.

L-R: Ricardo Garcia Vilanova and Javier Espinosa upon their arrival at a military airbase in Madrid, after they were freed by the terror group. Photo: AP

Javier Espinosa, Ricardo Garcia Vilanova and Marc Marginedas

Three Spanish journalists who were released last March after being held hostage for months.

Espinosa, 49, and Vilanova, 42, were seized on September 16 as they tried to cross the Syrian border to Turkey.

Vilanova is a freelance photographer.

Award-winning reporter Espinosa has been a Middle East correspondent for El Mundo since 2002 and is based in Beirut. When he returned home, he was pictured running to embrace his son on the tarmac.

"Pure happiness," wrote Espinosa's girlfriend, the journalist Monica Garcia Prieto, on Twitter.

The third Spanish journalist, Marc Marginedas, who was seized separately in Syria in September was also freed. He is a correspondent for El Periodico.

From left: Edouard Elias, Didier Francois and Nicolas Henin (with his children) breathe a sigh of relief after arriving in Paris. Photo: Reuters

Edouard Elias, Didier Francois, Nicolas Henin and Pierre Torres

They were released in April after being held hostage for 10 months.

Francois and Elias, a freelance photographer, work for Europe 1 radio. Henin and Torres are freelance journalists.

The four went missing in June 2013 in two incidents. Two of the French journalists were taken after being interrogated by extremist fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in the eastern province of Raqqa.

According to a Syrian activist, Henin and Torres aroused the fighters' suspicion after he and the two journalists entered a school and asked to take photographs of them as they played football.

Nicolas Hammarstrom and Magnus Falkehed

The Swedish freelance journalists were released in early January after a month and a half in captivity.

Swedish officials declined to say who seized them or how they were set free.

With additional reporting by Agence-France-Presse