Hostage Crisis

Iran Hostage Crisis

بحران گروگانگیری

(1979-81) Political crisis involving Iran's detention of U.S. embassy staff. Anti-American sentiment in Iran fueled in part by close ties between the U.S. and the unpopular leader Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi peaked when Pahlavi fled Iran during the 1979 Iranian revolution. When the monarch entered the U.S. for medical treatment, Islamic militants stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and seized 66 Americans. The hostage-takers, who enjoyed the support of the new Iranian regime of Imam Khomeini, demanded the shah's extradition to Iran, but President Jimmy Carter refused and froze all Iranian assets in the U.S. The Iranians released 13 women and African Americans on Nov. 19-20, 1979, and another hostage was released in July 1980. A rescue attempt in April 1980 failed. Negotiations for the hostages' return began after the shah died in July 1980, but the remaining 52 hostages were kept in captivity until Jan. 20, 1981, when they were released moments after the inauguration of Ronald Reagan. Iran Hostage crisis contributed to Carter's failure to win re-election.
(Wikipedia) - A hostage crisis develops when one or more terrorists or criminals hold people against their will and try to hold off the authorities by force, threatening to kill the hostages if provoked or attacked. Typically, the party of the hostage-taker(s) will issue demands to the forces keeping him/her, or them, surrounded. In a planned hostage crisis, there is often a list of political or religious demands, often including the release of imprisoned friends or allies. In cases where the hostage situation was improvised as a desperate attempt to avoid capture, the demands usually revolve around exchanging the lives of the hostages for transport to safety. Journalists sometimes use the alternative term siege to describe these incidents. However, events like the Waco Siege are not necessarily hostage crises, because third parties are not being held or threatened. Hostage crisis

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A hostage crisis develops when one or more individuals or an organized group hold people against their will and try to hold off the authorities by force, often threatening to kill their hostages if provoked or attacked.

Typically, the party of the hostage-taker(s) will issue demands to the forces keeping them surrounded. In a planned hostage crisis, there is often a list of political or religious demands, often including the release of imprisoned friends or allies. In cases where the hostage situation was improvised as a desperate attempt to avoid capture, the demands usually revolve around exchanging the lives of the hostages for transport to safety.

Journalists sometimes use the alternative term siege to describe these incidents. However, events like the Waco Siege are not necessarily hostage crises, because third parties are not being held or threatened.

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See also items containing :Hostage Crisis

• Iran Hostage Crisis