• News Wrap: Sydney mourns hostage victims

    News Wrap: Sydney mourns hostage victims

    Dec 17, 2014 01:41 AM EST

    ... This makeshift memorial, one city block from the Lindt cafe, marks the loss of two innocent lives after a self-styled sheik took 17 people hostage. The prime minister, Tony Abbott, also laid flowers after admitting there were difficult questions to face. Why, for example, was the hostage taker, Man ...

  • Deadly hostage siege in Australia was ‘act of a desperate man’

    Deadly hostage siege in Australia was ‘act of a desperate man’

    Dec 16, 2014 12:30 AM EST

    ... JUDY WOODRUFF: We return now to the deadly hostage standoff in Australia. Stuart Cohen is a freelance journalist based in Sydney. He's been reporting the story for NPR. I spoke to him a short time ago via Skype. Stuart Cohen, thank you for talking with us. First of ...

  • Hostage situation unfolds at cafe in Sydney

    Hostage situation unfolds at cafe in Sydney

    Dec 15, 2014 02:20 AM EST

    Police are responding after at least one gunman reportedly took hostages at a cafe in Sydney on Monday morning. An unknown number of hostages are being held in an "armed incident," which is ongoing at the Lindt Chocolate Café in the city's central business district, Reuters reported. A black ...

  • Understanding the risks of rescuing hostages - Part 2

    Understanding the risks of rescuing hostages - Part 2

    Dec 09, 2014 02:12 AM EST

    ... hostages may be killed during the initial abduction, attempting to resist. A hostage may be killed while attempting to escape his or her captors. A hostage may be murdered in cold blood by their captors, or a hostage may be killed during the course of the rescue. Of those hostages ...

  • White House defends deadly Yemen hostage mission - Part 1

    White House defends deadly Yemen hostage mission - Part 1

    Dec 09, 2014 02:12 AM EST

    ... tried and failed to free American journalist James Foley, held by the Islamic State group in Syria. Foley and four other Western hostages were later beheaded by Islamic State members. The al Qaeda branch had no immediate response to the failed U.S. raid or the death of the hostages.

  • Behind the failed rescue effort of American hostage in Yemen

    Behind the failed rescue effort of American hostage in Yemen

    Dec 06, 2014 09:42 PM EST

    ... armed gunmen inside who were holding the hostages. A gun battle broke out, and in the – before the commandos could get inside the compound, both hostages had been shot as the militants fled. The commandoes hurried to get both hostages, Luke Somers and a South African aboard the aircraft and ...

  • American hostage killed during rescue attempt in Yemen

    American hostage killed during rescue attempt in Yemen

    Dec 06, 2014 04:14 PM EST

    ... his entire time here," Al Kadas wrote. Al-Arashi, his editor at the National Yemen, recalled a moment when Somers edited a story on other hostages held in the country. "He looked at me and said, `I don't want to be a hostage,'" al-Arashi said. "`I don't ...

  • News Wrap: Obama ordered review of U.S. hostage response

    News Wrap: Obama ordered review of U.S. hostage response

    Nov 19, 2014 12:29 AM EST

    ... if his party loses its majority in the election. GWEN IFILL: President Obama has ordered a review of how to respond to Americans being taken hostage overseas. The White House confirmed the existence of the review, which it said began last summer, after news of the latest beheading of an ...

  • Latest Islamic State propaganda video depicts British hostage as war correspondent

    Latest Islamic State propaganda video depicts British hostage as war correspondent

    Oct 28, 2014 07:31 PM EST

    ... street, and building to building.” This isn’t Cantlie’s first appearance in an IS propaganda video. The militant group has used the British freelance photojournalist in several other videos, often featured as the group’s spokesman. Islamic State has beheaded four hostages, two American journalists and two British nationals.

  • Slain French hostage was ‘full of enthusiasm’

    Slain French hostage was ‘full of enthusiasm’

    Sep 24, 2014 08:56 PM EST

    Herve Gourdel, a 55-year-old mountain guide, was abducted on Sunday as he was hiking the remote Djura Djura mountains of northern Algeria. He was killed by extremists in a video released Wednesday that YouTube quickly pulled off the Internet.