Abductions and forced disappearances in Middle East conflict zones have been on the rise in recent years. Christians, foreigners, women, girls and children, among others, were targeted with the aim of extorting money or property in exchange for their release. These hostages were used as leverage or bargaining chips during negotiations to impose certain terms, and silence opposing voices.

The process involves intermediaries, which is why relevant literature indicates that a pattern of illegitimate “shadowy networks” termed as “ransom economies” have already taken shape as kidnappings expanded from individual isolated cases into a thriving black market.

Full Cycle

The cycle of kidnapping begins when the targeted individual disappears suddenly. Later rumors about the hostage’s fate and the way they are treated by kidnappers are disseminated. At a later stage, kidnappers contact the concerned people to ask for a ransom to secure the release of the hostage. Very often, the requested ransom would be huge and unaffordable, as evidenced in various cases in Mali, Nigeria, Libya, Yemen, Syria and Iraq. A warning issued by the UK Foreign Office in London on May 5, stating that Boko Haram was planning to kidnap foreigners working in Nigeria for ransom, does show that this trade is thriving.

Although it is hard to measure, the size of ransom economies in Middle East conflict zones is increasing. Armed groups carry out kidnappings to secure funding. The higher the political status of hostages, the bigger the expected ransom.

A full­-blown hostage industry has developed in certain conflict zones, particularly in Yemen, Syria and Iraq. Powerful factors that contributed to the creation of ransom economy, specifically in regional conflict zones, are as follows:

Absence of Central Powers

1- Crumbling or broken structures of nation-states. The consequences of transformations that occurred in the Middle East were not limited to the fall of political regimes. They also caused the collapse of central Arab states, brought about severe changes to political power equations governing internal stability (when compared to previous periods), consequently spreading regional instability. That is, tenuous state control allowed militias, terrorist organizations and criminal gangs to expand their influence and create safe havens not controlled by governments thus increasing the impact of organized crime that destabilize the region.

Within this context, more kidnappings perpetrated by men clad in military uniforms occurred in central Baghdad, Iraq, with the latest victims being civilian activists and university students who, kidnappers claim, were wanted by the judicial authorities. Kidnappers negotiated with the victims’ families to extort ransoms on May 3, 2017. Some armed groups take advantage of the Iraqi government’s preoccupation with the war on ISIS in Mosul at a time when the rule of law is receding and impunity is increasing.

Conflict over Sovereignty

2- Growing “multi-headed” authority as is the case in Syria, Yemen and Libya. In Libya, kidnappings went on the rise in several cities often for ransom. Among the latest victims to go missing is Tripoli University professor Dr. Salem Mohamed Beitelmal, who was abducted over two weeks ago in the area of al-Siyyad on the outskirts of Tripoli.  Several militias control Siyyad, the area where the kidnapping took place. Some operate nominally under the authority of the Libyan Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Defense. No group has claimed responsibility for the abduction and it remains unclear which militia is holding him.

Moreover, in Libya, Egyptian workers were kidnapped by armed groups for ransom. In a high-profile incident on August 7, 2016, a group of 23 Egyptian workers were kidnapped by armed men in the eastern oil port city of Brega. Earlier, on July 14, 2016, five Egyptian workers from Faiyum were kidnapped by an unknown gang who asked for a ransom of 500,000 Libyan dinars. The epidemic of abductions highlights the lack of effective control by any faction claiming legitimacy on the ground, according to Heba Morayef North Africa Research Director at Amnesty International.

Friendly Fire

3- Overlapping between state security agencies. This is the case in Syria under the rule of Bashar al-Assad. Several reports point out that the military security service is the primary responsible party for abductions and kidnappings in Lattakia City and Lattakia’s countryside where the targets are children of wealthy people and merchants. One of the victims was the son of a member of the Baath Party branch in Tishreen University in March 2017. He was released for a ransom of 10 million Syrian pounds. In other cases, the hostages were released near checkpoints manned by military security personnel were ransoms were shared between a commissioned officer and the command.

Nonetheless, the regime’s military security personnel were not the only perpetrators of kidnappings. Armed pro-Assad regime gangs of thugs and criminals known as shabiha, hold hostages in the Sports City in Lattakia. The value of honor upheld by Syrian prestigious and wealthy families are exploited by kidnappers as a rising number of kidnappings targeting women and girls from known Damascene families are witnessed. Kidnappers hold girls, those unmarried in particular, hostage and threaten their families to extort ransom to secure their release. In some cases, the ransom went up to five million Syrian pounds. The phenomenon was particularly rampant in the districts of Kafr Souseh, al-Baramkeh and al-Midan.

Counter-kidnapping

4- Involved parties would agree to bargaining amid escalating internal conflicts, a rising demand on arms, and the formation of local armed militias under several names. Counter-kidnapping emerged in recent years and the aim would be to avoid paying ransoms. In southern Syria in particular, frontlines between regime-held and armed opposition-held areas were the scene of negotiations between armed kidnappers on hostage swaps where neither party has to pay ransom to the other.

Dangerous Groups

5- Criminals were released after revolutions broke out in the region. For instance, unofficial estimates show that more than 16,000 convicted criminals in Libya were released during the 17 February Revolution that broke out in 2011. Their release can explain why crimes of kidnapping and abduction, for ransom in particular, were rampant. In Iraq, on October 26, 2015, the governor of Diyala Muthana, Ali Mahdi Al Tamimi, stated that non-politically-affiliated criminal gangs carried out kidnappings for ransom across the governorate following the ISIS-led great Iraqi jail break in June 2014.

Hybrid Networks

6- Interlinked criminal gangs and terrorist organizations. In recent years, roles of armed non-state actors became identical in taking advantage of power vacuum. That is, the main branches of al-Qaeda coordinate their efforts while committing themselves to what appeared to be a common protocol through tasking criminal gangs with paid kidnappings and hostage-takings.

Hence, trade in foreign hostages represents a prominent shift in the behavior of the second generation of al-Qaeda militants that emerged in the wake of Arab revolutions, especially in countries such as Yemen where the main concern of the terror organization was how to generate income. At the same time, some organizations deliberately killed hostages to undermine tourism and inflict economic damage on the state, a trend that prompted some researchers to say that it marked the end of the “era of traditional kidnapping” and the beginning of an “era of Mafiosi organized kidnapping.”

Organized Mafia

7- Collusion between states and organized mafia gangs. A good instance of this is the alliances forged between al-Qaeda and the regime of the now-ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh and the regime in Mali. The organization is, in part, a criminal network that kidnaps Western citizens and hold them hostage to extort ransom money and secure the release of imprisoned al-Qaeda elements. The situation shows that the organization was protected in the past where influential government officials used organized crime as a political tool allowing prominent figures and allies to benefit from criminal activity without recognizing what risks would this create later. This is primarily because of the nature of the state in Yemen and its tribal composition where marginalized tribes seek influential positions for themselves.

In recent years, a collaboration was formed between tribesmen and al-Qaeda elements pertaining to hostage-taking, whereby tribes kidnap people and hold them hostages and negotiations about their demands are initiated. The involved tribes would reject the offer made while al-Qaeda moves in to seize the opportunity and pay the required ransom money to take delivery of the hostages in what appears to be a sales process.

Sources of Funding

8- Funding Violence. Kidnapping in conflict zones can be attributed, in part, to a quest to fund violent crime from ransom money. Most recruitment and training activities and arms sales are funded by ransom money, which has also become a major source of funding for terrorist organizations. Nasir al-Wuhayshi, the former leader of al-Qaeda offshoot in the Arabian Peninsula, once stated that” Kidnapping hostages is an easy spoil, which I may describe as a profitable trade and a precious treasure.” This clearly shows that kidnapping does contribute in funding terrorist organizations and militias.

It should be noted that Illegal trade in human organs, practiced by terrorist organizations and ISIS in particular, has also thrived. The organization’s elements and commanders harvest organs from hostages while they are still alive, and hire foreign doctors to run an extensive system for trading in hearts, livers and kidneys at hospitals under the organization’s control in Syria and Iraq. The organs are then smuggled to neighboring countries where they are sold in the black market to specialized international gangs. 

Area-specific Bullying and Intimidation 

9- High unemployment rates during conflicts. Kidnapping in some Syrian cities such as Homs, Hama, Idlib and Aleppo has become a rampant phenomenon. Criminal gangs that are not involved in the armed conflict, have been relying on kidnappings, hostage-takings, robbery, looting and pillaging in broad daylight in city centers generating huge amounts of ransom money. As a result, intermediaries, who are often dignitaries and notables in those areas, have emerged to broker deals between these gangs and families of hostages.

When they first emerged in conflict zones, crimes of kidnapping targeted wealthy people. Later, their activity expanded with the passage of time to become very much like acts of organized area-specific bullying and intimidation, where faltering state institutions failed to counter. Consequently, victims of these acts had to sell their personal property to pay ransom money, or resort to social solidarity within the family to share the burden of the ransom.

Huge Revenue

10- Lack of alternative economic activities that can build wealth quickly. The economic situation in regional conflict zones shows that the kidnapping industry generates larger financial revenue than other non-criminal economic activities. Feasible economic alternatives, that can contribute towards stifling kidnappings, cannot develop amid weak and conflicting state institutions, divisions between elites and even collusion by some of those in power. That is because each and every done deal encourages perpetrators to go for another leading to further spreading of the phenomenon. 

The Kidnapping Business 

These hostage-taking activities constitute a full-blown economic cycle. This cycle is called “the spring of organized crime” that is underpinned by favorable circumstances for creating purely criminal or hybrid gangs that use intermediaries from tribes, families, warlords or private security firms to conduct the handover of hostages and deliver ransom money. Commission for intermediaries who broker the deals is a percentage of the total amount of money, and is proportional to the number of involved hostages, the distance they travel with their kidnappers to the delivery place. This money would be transferred through remittance companies (which ISIS did at some stages). The result is a huge full-fledged business in Middle East conflict zones.