Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, a spokesman for the Iranian judiciary, claims that unnamed Americans have tried to arrange a prisoner swap to secure the freedom of captive Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian.
Kidnapped American Robert Levinson’s son Daniel penned an op-ed for the Washington Post over the weekend, in which he warned those who would visit Iran in pursuit of business opportunities created by the nuclear deal to exercise extreme caution. “My family and I cannot emphasize enough how dangerous traveling to Iran remains,” Daniel Levinson wrote.
Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s campaign offered public support to the cause of freeing American hostages in Iran.
The Islamic State announced the murder of two hostages in the latest issue of its Dabiq magazine, Fan Jinghui of China and Ole Johan Grimsgaard-Ofstad of Norway.
Iran state-media outlets are reporting that Iran has begun to blockade imports from the United States.
As Iranian Dictator Ali Khamenei led the commonly-heard “Death To America” chants in Tehran on Tuesday, he argued that “Death to America” does not really mean what it sounds like.
The video below was released by the Kurdistan Regional Security Council. Its opening moments offer helmet-cam footage from the rescue of some 70 hostages from the ISIS prison near Hawija, Iraq.
More details have emerged about the raid against an ISIS prison camp near Hawija, Iraq, where a joint American-Kurdish-Iraqi strike force rescued seventy prisoners who were about to be executed and dumped in mass graves.
The Department of Defense (DoD) has announced an American soldier was killed during a mission to rescue Kurdish hostages from ISIS near the Iraqi town of Hawija.
The Iranian government has convicted hostage American reporter Jason Rezaian of “espionage” in an outrageous secret trial.
The Islamic State has released a videotaped execution of three Assyrian Christian hostages, captured during a February offensive in Syria. The lives of hundreds more Christian captives remain in the balance, a point the savages emphasized by making three of them beg for ransom payments on camera.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani suggested on Sunday that his regime in Tehran would consider releasing three Americans held hostage in the country if the U.S. would release several jailed Iranians.
Sky News reported last week that Iran has released five senior al-Qaeda operatives, including several possible successors to Ayman al-Zawahiri as head of the organization, in exchange for an Iranian diplomat who was kidnapped in Yemen earlier this year.
SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Yemen’s Shiite Houthi rebels have released six foreign hostages, including two Americans, and flown them to the Gulf country of Oman, which helped negotiate their release, officials said Sunday.
On Thursday, police tracked an armed carjacker on a high-speed chase. He took hostages at a BBQ restaurant and was later killed.
LOS ANGELES: Several people were being held hostage in a Downey restaurant late on Thursday after an suspected carjacker blocked himself inside the building following a police chase, law enforcement and media reported.
The latest issue of the ISIS online magazine, Dabiq, includes photos of two men it claims to have taken hostage, and provides a telegram number for “whoever would like to pay the ransom” for their release.
Yemeni Houthi jihadists have reportedly taken a number of Americans hostage in Yemen as they fight to take control of the country, the U.S. State Department confirmed Monday, and one of the American captives has been identified.
The U.S.-backed unit of moderate Syrian rebels effectively disintegrated, following several kidnappings by the al-Qaeda linked Nusra Front. The group has agreed to release 7 of its prisoners, in an announcement in which the freed refer to the al-Qaeda thugs as brothers.
The Egyptian branch of ISIS has kidnapped a 30-year-old Croatian named Tomislav Salopek, who was in Egypt on business as an employee of French geology firm CGG, and is threatening to murder him within 48 hours if the Egyptian government does not release Muslim women from its jails. It is not clear exactly which Muslim women the terrorist group wants freed, as there is no shortage of them in Egyptian prisons, following the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Nigerian army announced Sunday night that it succeeded in freeing 178 Boko Haram hostages, including 101 children, captured a commander of the radical Islamist group, and destroyed several rebel camps during a military operation.
Nigeria liberated 71 people held hostage by ISIS-affiliated Boko Haram jihadists in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, including 66 women and children, according to the country’s military.
Washington, D.C. — Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was the featured speaker Thursday at a rally outside of the White House demanding Iran release four Americans taken hostage by the regime in Tehran.
During his speech to the VFW convention today, President Obama called for the release of U.S. citizens wrongfully imprisoned in Iran, but botched the last name of Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian.
“We think that this is a moment where Iran has a really important opportunity to make a humanitarian gesture and bring the Americans home,” a senior White House official explained to reporters during a conference call on Tuesday. He insisted that the U.S. government was doing “whatever we possibly can” to bring the detained and missing Americans home.
Reports surfaced over the past week of Islamic State (ISIS) terror attacks on the much-abused Kurdish border city of Kobani in Syria, but it now appears ISIS only recaptured parts of the town for a few days. Kurdish forces have reportedly driven ISIS from Kobani for the second time this year. The victory came at horrible cost, as NPR reports ISIS may have killed about 300 civilians over the past 24 hours, many of them slaughtered in a brutal house-to-house massacre.
Women and children freed from captivity under the jihadist terror group Boko Haram are being held at an undisclosed location by the Nigerian military after accusing each other of continuing to communicate with and work for the terrorist group. Nigerian officials claim they have been relocated to an undisclosed location for more focused therapy to help them work through their trauma.
Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL/IS) terrorists are now demanding $100,000 per head to free each of the 250-300 Assyrian hostages they presently have in custody, according to an officer within the Assyrian leadership.
Fresh off a horrific 12-hour siege at a Somali hotel that left 17 dead, Islamist terror group Al-Shabaab has struck in Kenya, sending a squad of gunmen on a rampage through Garissa University College.
Islamic State (ISIS) militias have uploaded a video showing the conversion to Islam of one of the Assyrian Christian hostages captured during the offensive carried out in the Khabour river valley last February. The video has provoked accusations of forced conversion under torture and the shameless exploitation of prisoners for propaganda.
Syrian Christians have this morning put out a desperate appeal for help as ISIS launches new attacks against them along the Khabour River in northeast Syria. According to Rima Tüzün of the European Syriac Union, members of the community who have taken up arms to defend themselves are without ammunition, and 17 Syriac Military Council fighters are surrounded by ISIS in the town of Tel Maghasneh.
The latest ISIS terror video is apparently running behind schedule—it was supposed to be released on Wednesday—but all indications are that it will include a threat to murder their Christian hostages, including women and children, if the bombing campaign against the Islamic State is not halted.
After a day spent in denial, the Obama administration finally seems ready to admit that an attack in Paris last month was anti-Semitic. But the denials were fun while they lasted.
Jordan has responded to a claim by the Islamic State (ISIS) on Friday that American hostage Kayla Jean Mueller was killed by collateral damage from Jordanian airstrikes, saying that ISIS has provided no proof of Mueller’s death, and is lying about either the fact or manner of her death. American officials also said they had seen no evidence that Mueller was killed.
One never knows how seriously to take the output of the Islamic State’s media apparatus, but they announced on Friday morning that their female American hostage, Kayla Jean Mueller, was killed in a Jordanian air strike.
Members of Japan’s opposition party are beginning to publicly criticize Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for his choice to send humanitarian aid to nations fighting the Islamic State, a decision blamed for triggering a hostage crisis that took the lives of two Japanese citizens.
The Islamic State’s brutal murder of its second Japanese hostage, Kenji Goto, has Japan’s government talking about vengeance — a major shift in tone for post-war Japan, observers have noted.
Yesterday, Jordan reportedly agreed to swap a female al-Qaeda terrorist for captive Jordanian pilot Mu’ath al-Kasaesbeh, held hostage by ISIS since his fighter jet went down near the city of Raqqa in December.
Jordan has reportedly agreed to release a female jihadi named Sajida al-Rishawi, imprisoned since 2006 under a death sentence for her role in a 2005 hotel bombing in Amman that killed 60 people, in exchange for captive pilot Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh, held by ISIS since his F-16 fighter went down near the Islamic State’s capital city of Raqqa last December.
In their latest Internet hostage video, the Islamic State demanded $200 million from Japan in exchange for the lives of security contractor Haruna Yukawa and freelance journalist Kenji Goto Jogo, promising they would be killed within 72 hours if the ransom was not paid. After vowing that his nation would not submit to terrorist demands, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has asked several prominent Middle Eastern leaders for help, including Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
