Understanding Global Terrorist Hostage Taking and Kidnapping

Global hostage taking and kidnapping have recently become significant security concerns for the world community. This is due to unintended consequences of globalization and terrorism. This book responds to this emerging security threat worldwide. This book is primarily based on the author's doctoral dissertation that analyzed the terrorism data collected by the Institute for the Study of Violent Groups at Sam Houston State University to study terrorist hostage taking and kidnapping. This book aims at providing a general understanding on the recent development of global hostage taking and kidnapping. This book includes three important aspects of this topic. First, it shows the prevalence and general security challenge of global hostage taking and kidnapping. Also, geographical hotspots are identified and described. Second, it summarized previous studies and writings about this topic. Also, it discusses guidelines and principles of hostage negotiation, tactical assault, crisis management, prevention, and hostage survival. Last, it shows an actual research as an example. This study statistically analyzes and predicts the chance of hostage's survival or death."