ISIS taking credit for downing that Russian airliner in the Sinai caused John Hinderaker to recall the same events from the 1980s, back when Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorists were kidnapping Western diplomats in Beirut. They took the American CIA station chief, William Francis Buckley, then turned him over to the Iranians who tortured him for fifteen months until he died in captivity. Then they kidnapped some Russian diplomats…
I dimly remembered a news story from several decades ago that also involved Arab terrorism, and found it via Google. Here it is, from 1986:
The KGB has adopted novel, brutal and apparently effective methods of dealing with terrorists who attack Soviet interests in the Middle East, an Israeli newspaper reported Monday.
The Jerusalem Post said the Soviet secret police last year secured the release of three kidnaped Soviet diplomats in Beirut by castrating a relative of a radical Lebanese Shia Muslim leader, sending him the severed organs and then shooting the relative in the head.
The incident began when four Soviet diplomats were kidnaped last September by Muslim extremists who demanded that Moscow pressure the Syrian government to stop pro-Syrian militiamen from shelling rival Muslim positions in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli.
The militiamen, the Jerusalem paper said, did not cease their attacks, and the body of one of the Soviet diplomats, Arkady Katkov, was found a few days later in a field in Beirut.
The KGB then apparently kidnaped and killed a relative of an unnamed leader of the Shias’ Hezbollah (Party of God) group, a radical, pro-Iranian group that has been suspected of various terrorist activities against Western targets in Lebanon.
Parts of the man’s body, the paper said, were then sent to the Hezbollah leader with a warning that he would lose other relatives in a similar fashion if the three remaining Soviet diplomats were not immediately released. They were quickly freed.
The newspaper quoted “observers in Jerusalem†as saying: “This is the way the Soviets operate. They do things–they don’t talk. And this is the language Hezbollah understands.â€
Arab terrorists never again, to my knowledge, tried to kill or kidnap Russians in the Middle East.
GoneWithTheWind
It saddens me to see our country in decline. Certainly every country/government is eventually overthrown and destroyed. We all face the same fate as Rome or worse. But to see it and to understand how it could be avoided or at least delayed is frustrating and sad. We, the U.S. are lead by idiots. I’m not saying we should go full KGB on the terrorists (well, maybe) but at least use everything we have. If you capture one of ours then we capture and kill yours. NOT one of yours but everyone we can get our hands on. Us a hammer not a slap. Total destruction if you use terror against us. If it had been up to me I would have executed every Saudi prince, princess, king, brother in law, grandparent, etc. If they had done this the first time they bombed our barracks or embassy there would never have been a 9/11. Instead we turn the other cheek, give them more targets, provide them with korans and halal food when we capture them. We are sooooo doomed.
Russian Messaging | Western Rifle Shooters Association
[…] Read it. […]
Boligat
“…provide them with korans and halal food when we capture them.”
Gitmo is case in point. Apparently anybody and his brother can go take a look see, especially if they claim to be lawyers for the prisoners. But, when it comes to housing the “refugees” from across the border, our own congressmen were turned away. We never did get a good accounting of what was going on.
Gone, you are sooo right. We are doomed.
Steve Gregg
While I sympathize with your sentiment, America is hardly doomed. Granted, our leadership is second rate and is not serious about defeating the Muslim terrorists. However, Muslim terrorists are weak and incompetent. They can not defeat America, even when we tie one hand behind our back. They are raiders, not conquerors.
America is in the midst of building a new industrial revolution composed of DNA-engineered miracles, nanobots, superstrong materials, smart materials, a massively networked environment of computerized everything, and god only knows what else. America is building the future in which ordinary people will have godlike powers to communicate as if they were telepathic and move things with their minds. We are about to enter a future of superabundance.
America is a hyperpower now. There isn’t even a word for the kind of world power America will be in fifty years.
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