Norwegian hostage Ole Johan Grimsgaard and Chinese hostage Fan Jinghui. LA Times/ISIS photo.
ISIS claims to be holding two hostages, one from Norway and one from China, and are offering them up for ransom. LA Times. The two men, Ole Johan Grimsgaard and Fan Jinghui had their pictures posted in ISIS's online magazine, Dabiq, claiming the men were "for sale". ISIS accused both Norway and China of abandoning the men by not paying their ransom. ISIS has shifted focus recently to China due to their actions against their Uighuir Muslim minority. Many Uighuir have fled from China to join ISIS in their fight in Iraq and Syria. China has never paid for hostages so it is unlikely that Jinghui's ransom will be paid by the government, though it is possible that it could be paid by civilians. Fan Jinghui is an advertising freelancer who had talked about taking a "risky path".
Grimsgaard was captured last January. According to the New York times, he was obsessed with the Middle East and made regular post about the conflict in Syria and Iraq. The Norwegian government condemns the hostage taking and will not pay a ransom for Grimsgaard. His last post on Facebook claimed that he was in Idlib.
My Comment:
Of course I hope that these men are released safely. But what on earth were they doing in Syria where ISIS could capture them? These men don't appear to be soldiers, journalists or even aid workers. So what were they doing in Syria? Grimsgaard seemed to be obsessed by ISIS, but you could say the same thing about me but I sure as hell am not going to Syria anytime soon. And neither of these men were young guys doing something stupid. They are about 50 years old, old enough to know better. Perhaps their motivations will be reviled soon, but for now, it doesn't make much sense to me.
Of course, I don't have much hope that these men will be released. I am not sure how much ISIS wants for them, but it's too much for the families of these men to pay. Neither Norway or China will pay for these hostages and I don't see either of them conducting some kind of commando raid to release them, assuming they could find them in the first place. The only hope is for a U.S. or other local power to conduct a raid, otherwise these men are most likely doomed. We have seen what ISIS has done to its hostages before...
As for China, the LA Times article is right. They have a major Islamic insurgency in their Xinjaing province. The Uighuirs have conducted many terror attacks against China and are suspected in the bombing in Thailand recently. They have rioted, murdered and bombed and there is no sign they are stopping anytime soon. Of course China has their own role in creating this mess. They have always treated the Uighuirs as second class citizens, so a revolt isn't that surprising.
What is surprising is how little coverage the insurgency gets in western media. Part of it is due to isolation. China makes sure that foreign journalists can't get to the region so almost everything we hear about Xinjaing and the Uighuirs comes from China. My guess is that ISIS will execute Jinghui to gather attention to the war in Xinjaing because it is even obscure in Islamist circles.
ISIS has a hell of a butchers bill to account for. Though they have mostly killed Syrians and Iraqis, they have killed many foreign nationals. None of these people deserved to die they way they did and I am hoping that ISIS will someday face justice for what they have done.
Finally, tomorrow is 9/11, the 14th anniversary of the attacks. I'm expecting something to go down. There is a chance that it will be a terror attack, but if not, I expect these two men to die. Symbolism is important for ISIS and I think they will want to do something for the anniversary. I don't know if they have the agents in place to attack America directly, but there are rumors of terrorists infiltrating EU among the huge wave of refugees that are swamping the continent. Hopefully I am wrong and nothing will happen but you never know...
I have to say, I am disappointed in the western media for covering this story. I heard about this story last night but I did not really see a comprehensive post from any news outlet. It took me a long time to find any information about Jinghui at all until I found the LA Times article and that article had next to no information about Grimsgaard. Much like the execution of Tomislav Salopek, the Croatian national killed in Egypt, the media seems to be asleep here. I think it might be because the hostages were not Americans or Brits, but they did cover it when ISIS executed Japanese citizens, so who knows what is going on.
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