In a tense and riveting narrative, The ISIS Hostage details freelance photographer Daniel Rye's 13-month ordeal at the hands of the Islamic State after he was captured in Syria, and the misery inflicted upon him, and 19 other hostages, by their guards.This compelling account also follows Daniel's family and the nerve-wracking negotiations with his kidnappers. It traces their horrifying journey through impossible dilemmas, and offers a rare glimpse into the secret world of the investigation launched to locate and free not only Daniel, but also the American freelance journalist and fellow hostage James Foley.Written with Daniel's full cooperation and based on interviews with former fellow prisoners, jihadists, and key figures who worked behind the scenes to secure his release, The ISIS Hostage reveals for the first time the torment suffered by the captives and tells a moving and terrifying story of friendship, torture, and survival.

In August 2014, ISIS surged onto the global stage with the horrific killing of a journalist who had been held hostage by the group. The gruesome video was followed by several others as ISIS sought to capture and maintain the attention of the world media and encourage recruits to join them. ISIS's treatment of hostages has led some to take their own lives instead of being captured. But not all hostages are equal under the Islamic State. This book will explore to role of hostages under ISIS, from those who are killed or forced to fight to those who are used for their value as propaganda or their ability to generate income, in the form of bribes, for the Islamic State.

The ISIS insurgency group has been taking hostages in their holy war since April 2004. Since then, they have continuously in dramatic fashion captured over 200 hostages and thousands of Iraqi citizens in their area. Some of the hostages were either killed, rescued or freed. The outcome of the lives of the hostages are unpredictable but usually they are fatal. Since 2004, some of the captives were often filmed in captivity and many of them were also beheaded on film. Some, while not beheaded on film, their whereabouts cannot be found. There are various reasons they kidnap hostages which ranges from influencing foreign governments to make decisions, demanding ransom money or discouraging travel to their area.

In August 2014, ISIS surged onto the global stage with the horrific killing of a journalist who had been held hostage by the group. The gruesome video was followed by several others as ISIS sought to capture and maintain the attention of the world media and encourage recruits to join them. ISIS's treatment of hostages has led some to take their own lives instead of being captured. But not all hostages are equal under the Islamic State. This book will explore to role of hostages under ISIS, from those who are killed or forced to fight to those who are used for their value as propaganda or their ability to generate income, in the form of bribes, for the Islamic State.

Based on his groundbreaking reporting for Vanity Fair, Hunting Season is award-winning journalist James Harkin's harrowing investigation into the abduction, captivity, and execution of James Foley, at the hands of the masked militant known as "Jihadi John" (Mohammed Emwazi), and the fate of more than two-dozen other ISIS hostages. On August 19, 2014, the jihadist rebel group known as ISIS uploaded a video to YouTube. Entitled "Message to America," the clip depicted the final moments of American journalist James Foley's life--and the gruesome aftermath of his beheading at the hands of a masked executioner. Foley's murder--and the choreographed killings that would follow--captured the world's attention, and the Islamic State's kidnapping campaign exploded into war. Hunting Season is a riveting account of how the world's newest and most powerful terror franchise came to target Western hostages, who was behind it, and why almost no one knew about it until it was too late.

A powerful and sophisticated underground business delivers thousands of refugees a day all along the Mediterranean coasts of Europe. The new breed of criminals that controls it has risen out of the political chaos of post-9/11 Western foreign policy and the fiasco of the Arab Spring. These merchants of men are intertwined with jihadist armed organizations such as al Qaeda in the Maghreb. They have prospered smuggling cocaine from West Africa and kidnapping Westerners. More recently, the destabilization of Syria and Iraq coupled with the rise of ISIS offered them new business opportunities in the Middle East, from selling Western hostages to jihadist groups to trafficking in refugees numbering in the millions. Overall, the kidnapping industry today is bigger than the illegal drug trade and worth hundreds of billions of dollars annually. Merchants of Men is based on exclusive access to hostage negotiators actively involved in ransom negotiations and rescue missions, counter-terrorism experts, members of security services, and former hostages, among many others. The reader will discover that the protocols of prevention and rescue change according to the type of abduction and the designated targets, and will come to know first hand the range of experiences of kidnapping victims. Will the West once again reap the benefits of the political chaos it has sown in its own backyard? From colonization to the advent of "friendly" dictatorial regimes, today's fast-aging European nations are buyers on the refugee market. New workers are needed, and the merchants of men are supplying them. But only skilled, highly educated refugees are wanted. As a tsunami of migrants and refugees floods Europe, new questions almost too numerous to count must be answered.