Word: beirutization
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...British journalist John McCarthy freed in Beirut last week after 1,940 days of captivity? Why now, after nearly a year of uneasy silence, punctuated by occasional threats about the fate of the remaining 12 Western hostages? And who orchestrated McCarthy's release: Iran? Syria? His captors? As ever, there was a stated trade-off. Islamic Jihad, a radical Shi'ite cell that operates beneath the larger umbrella of the pro-Iranian Hizballah, armed McCarthy with a sealed letter addressed to U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar. It is believed to call for the release of 300 Shi'ites...
...pace of liberation quickened on Saturday, when another Hizballah faction called the Revolutionary Justice Organization issued a communique stating that one American hostage would be set free within 72 hours. The message was accompanied by a photograph of Joseph Cicippio, the comptroller of American University of Beirut, who was abducted on Sept. 12, 1986. On Sunday, however, the group released a different hostage, Edward Austin Tracy, 60, a writer from Burlington, Vt., who was snatched one month after Cicippio. Tracy, who had spent 1,757 days in captivity, was driven immediately to Damascus to be turned over to U.S. authorities...
...freedom, speculation intensified that other hostages -- possibly American journalist Terry Anderson, the longest-held prisoner -- would soon be released. But room must always be left in the Middle East for the unanticipated: eight hours after McCarthy's release, French relief worker Jerome Leyraud was seized by two kidnappers in Beirut. It was the first abduction of a Westerner in Beirut since May 1989, and it too had a cold logic. An anonymous phone call from a man claiming to speak for the hitherto unknown Organization for the Defense of Peoples' Rights warned that if another hostage was released, Leyraud would...
Syria's response indicated that Damascus was outraged by the abduction. Syrian troops, joined by Lebanese forces, quickly mounted a search for Leyraud, checking cars halted at roadblocks erected every 25 yards in West Beirut. Damascus also delivered an ultimatum, warning that Leyraud must be set free within 48 hours or security forces would go door-to-door, raiding homes to find him. Shortly after the raids began, Lebanon's National News Agency reported on Sunday that Leyraud had been freed. An anonymous caller said the kidnappers had released the Frenchman to promote efforts to gain freedom for Lebanese prisoners...
McCarthy also said mildly that his first two years as a prisoner were "very difficult." In fact, the years after he was kidnapped in Beirut in 1986 were hellish. Brian Keenan, an Irish teacher released last year who spent part of his captivity with McCarthy, described life with Islamic Jihad: "Tiny, tiny cells, constant blindfolds, prolonged days in the dark, sometimes weeks without light." The guards, he said, "just could not control the urge to beat very badly." When he and McCarthy were moved from one vermin-infested flat to another, they were covered with tape and stuffed under...