Kidnapping is a well-established terrorist tactic, whether for ransom, to secure the release of prisoners, or pressure for changes in political strategy. However, its effects on its victims and their families are often overlooked. How does the kidnapping of their loved ones affect victims’ families and their attitudes towards the state, justice, and revenge?

This paper examines these issues by drawing on interviews with 30 families who had loved ones kidnapped in 2014 in Arsal, Lebanon, and held hostage by the Islamist groups Jabhat Al-Nusra and Islamic State (IS). The Arsal hostage crisis allows for a granular look at the traumatic impact of terrorist kidnappings on its victims: it involved hostages who were released, executed, and disappeared (with their remains found three years later). Given the likelihood of further kidnappings in the region, lessons must be learned.

This briefing note contains insights into how the families’ perspectives can inform policy and practice when responding to such crises. Such analysis also lays bare existential Lebanese problems, such as the failure of the State to control its borders, the spillover of the Syrian conflict, radical Salafist extremism, Hizbullah’s unilateral engagement in Syria, the capability and capacity of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), and the weakness of the state and its reliance on regional actors.

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