The Terrorism Research Center, Inc. provides analyses and services on issues beyond classic acts of terrorism; this essay is a prime example. The transnational issue of kidnapping is likely to affect corporate business across the globe, particularly as employees can, and have, been snatched repeatedly for high value ransoms, causing public relations and investor confidence difficulties. On June 19, 2006, two Iraqi female translators were abducted for their work with Coalition forces ; their circumstance is not unusual, although it rarely appears in popular media. Said the study’s author: “We find that human capital losses, such as kidnapping of company executives, are associated with larger negative stock price reactions than physical losses, such as bombings of facilities or buildings.” Andrew Karolyi’s study indicated that attacks made no impact on the shares of competitors and kept targeted companies’ stock prices down for nearly a month.
Kidnappings for political purposes, however, are acts of terrorism and can be found throughout the TRC Terrorist Attack Database (TAD). To that, the Ohio State University study relied on the Counterterrorism Office of the US Department of State to list 881 acts of terrorism between 1995 and 2002, excluding 9/11 . Conversely, the TRC database chronologued 106 in 1995; 118 in 1996; 113 in 1997; 141 in 1998; 192 in 1999; 207 in 2000; 198 in 2001 (including 9/11); and 281 in 2002, for a total of 1,356 attacks around the world in the same time frame. Further, while the study found 10 attacks against McDonald’s Corporation, TRC logged 11 (and an additional one in 1993); the study found nine attacks against Royal Dutch Shell; TRC logged 11. These can all be reviewed through the online knowledgebase. The study goes on to list 15 attacks against corporations in Nigeria versus 14 in Colombia . He contends that 34 attacks targeted the oil infrastructure, while fast food restaurants were targeted in 20 cases. And, finally, he noted that 45 US-based firms were targeted, while five Canadian firms were targeted.
Looking at raw numbers will do little to assess the threat of kidnapping around the world, though. For example, according to TRC’s research and to David Lattin, a renowned K&R expert, Mexico is flanked by Colombia and Argentina for kidnapping of executives , followed closely by the Philippines . Notably, three of the four countries are not even listed in the study as kidnappings perpetrated in these countries are primarily conducted for financial gain rather than political purposes. As such they are not listed within the US State Department’s Patterns of Global Terrorism Reports. Further, OSAC lists its first six reports as focusing on K&R in Mexico, Haiti , Brazil ; again, the three are nowhere to be found in the study. A kidnapping occurs about every six hours in Mexico, and this trend is rising. Further, it is unclear if Karolyi included the phenomena of ‘quicknappings,’ which is a blending of terrorism and crime of opportunity in which a victim is snatched for a short period while his/her bank account is drained . Naturally, as police complicity is often known or suspected, victims or their families often do not report snatchings, so even the raw numbers of cases are misleading. And, finally, discounting family members (Terrorist Incident and Terrorist Incident) and/or foreign targets for kidnapping (Terrorist Incident and Terrorist Incident) also skews raw data collection, especially as US-based firms hire more in-country staff to ameliorate impressions of US arrogance and to aid in integrating US firms into local good graces. Luckily, Karolyi acknowledges that “more work needs to be done.” But, the study was released to aid the US government in assessing “the financial impact of terrorist attacks,” a contention this analyst widely discounts as misleading without access to the methodology or data set used for the study. Karolyi further acknowledged that “it could be that we are missing a lot,” a notion that begs the question: what is the value of a study released without complete data sets?
What can and should be taken from this study is the notion that kidnappings are still a booming business, especially those that target perceived wealthy businessmen, even if attention is focused on other types of acts of terrorism. As was reported in the July 2005 WAR Report: “Kidnapping victims are generally from wealthy business families…However, those considered middle class in the US, are perceived to be affluent and, consequently, prime targets, especially if their visits?are protracted, which would allow targeting and surveillance.” This is appropriate for executives worldwide, including in Iraq , Somalia , Nigeria , the Philippines , and in more traditional kidnapping hubs like Colombia, Mexico, and Russia , and the trend is likely to get worse as the US commercial market embarks into increasingly dangerous areas. Should readers be considering opening operations in these regions, pre-deployment briefings, regular geo-political analyses of the security climate, issue-specific consultations, and emergency evacuation plans should be undertaken to avoid victimization and to learn basic hostage survival skills.
