Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

360 • KNEECAPPINGsea carriers that gives the terrorists political leverage rather than themere fact of seizing a transportation carrier.Kidnapping has become a major problem in Latin America, particularlyin Colombia, which once had the highest rate of kidnappingsin the world. By 1995 Latin America was experiencing about6,000 kidnappings per year, of which 4,000 occurred in Colombia,about 800 each in Brazil and Mexico, about 200 each in Ecuador andVenezuela, and about 100 each in Guatemala and Peru. About onehalfof the kidnappings in Colombia were by guerrilla groups suchas the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) or theNational Liberation Army (ELN). In Colombia during 1992–1995,out of 3,525 cases reported to authorities, the national police rescuedonly about 11 percent of those kidnapped, and in these cases only 70percent of those involved have been arrested, tried, and sentenced.By way of comparison, the United States experiences fewer than adozen kidnappings for ransom each year. By 2004 Iraq surpassed Colombiain the numbers of kidnappings occurring within its borders.Iraqi insurgents began kidnapping members of the U.S.-led coalitionforces and civilian contract workers, both Iraqi and foreign, as wellas ordinary Iraqis targeted for their sectarian or ethnic affiliations.In the period 2004–2007, more than 200 non-Iraqis and thousandsof Iraqis were kidnapped, often followed by their being tortured andmurdered, and sometimes by beheading. Since the U.S.-led surge oftroops beginning in early 2007, the total numbers of kidnappings andother terrorist actions within Iraq have fallen, although these activitieshave not ceased altogether.Anglo-Saxon criminal jurisprudence distinguishes between kidnappingin the form of hostage taking for political purposes or criminalextortion as described above, and abduction, which is generallykidnapping of women and children, usually for sexual purposes. Ofgreat concern to prosecutors and investigators is the phenomenon ofthe Stockholm syndrome, in which former hostages become reluctantto testify against their kidnappers or abductors.KNEECAPPING. Form of torture or punishment in which the victimis shot through one or more of his kneecaps by a small-caliber pistol.The punishment has often been used by the Irish Republican Army(IRA), Prima Linea, and other groups, either as a form of assaultagainst a targeted person, or to punish a hostage and so subdue