NationStates Jolt Archive


Terrorists Free U.S. student after learning he wasn't an Israeli

TeHe
11-06-2006, 03:08
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5068478.stm




West Bank gunmen free US student

Palestinian gunmen have released a US student in the West Bank just hours after abducting him.

Activists claiming to represent the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades seized him in the city of Nablus, apparently mistaking him for an Israeli.

They threatened to kill the student, Benjamin Bight-Fishbein, unless Israel freed all its Palestinian prisoners.

But he was handed over to Palestinian security forces after his kidnappers learned of his real nationality.

Mr Bight-Fishbein - an undergraduate from Brown University in the state of Rhode Island - told Reuters news agency that his lone visit to Nablus had been "a big mistake".

Manhunt

On Saturday, news that a hostage had been seized sparked a frantic search by Israeli and Palestinian forces to try to track down the kidnappers, Reuters reports.

"In the end, I got the impression that they were in over their heads and they were going crazy talking on the phone. They clearly had no idea what they were doing," Mr Bight-Fishbein told the agency.

Palestinian security sources said an investigation had begun into who carried out the kidnapping.

The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades are an offshoot of the Fatah movement, led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

The brigades are splintered into various groups that often have little co-ordination with each other.


Wow. Maybe we're not quite as hated as I thought...
Freising
11-06-2006, 03:11
Hmm, strange
DesignatedMarksman
11-06-2006, 03:21
Hopefully the student remember info to help find the kidnappers so they could be shut down.
Amrotville
11-06-2006, 03:43
You know, I would have liked to have been there for the Awkward moments when the revealed they had made a terrible mistake, and they apologized for any inconvenience.
AllCoolNamesAreTaken
11-06-2006, 03:44
It's not that they are "not that bad", they just realized kidnapping/executing a U.S. citizen would be a VERY bad move on their part. We already supply Israel with tanks, etc, but if the palestinians moved against Americans, we would stop saying "take it easy now, don't go crazy, just build a fence, give peace a chance" to Israel, and instead say "meh, kill the fuckers. We'll take care of the veto's in the UN."