Constricted

The rescue of Andreas Notter might have seemed too easy. It was not.

According to news reports, Notter was abandoned by his Abu Sayyaf captors as they hurried away from military units closing in on their positions. DILG Secretary Ronaldo Puno announced that security units were a mere 500 meters away from the bandit group when they dropped the hostage and ran away.

As this is being written, hopes are high that the last ICRC hostage — Italian Eugenio Vagni — will be released in a matter of days. A team of Islamic clerics are on the scene negotiating with the bandits.

Puno described the strategy adopted in this hostage situation as a combination of negotiations and military pressure. One might probably add a third ingredient: patience.

The military and police forces deployed to the area have, weeks ago, established a cordon around the bandit group. That cordon progressively tightened, constricting the room for maneuver available to the hostage-takers.

The bandits were in no position to test the perimeter. They have taken casualties in the previous skirmishes. They may be fond of flaunting their weapons in front of cameras; but these are of little use against security forces in firm defensive positions.

Earlier on, we will recall, the bandits demanded that the police and military forces pull back. They even threatened to execute their captives if the demand was not met.

By raising that demand, and backing it up with extreme threats, the Abu Sayyaf merely underscored the efficacy of the constriction strategy. The bandits’ advantage lay in having wide latitude for maneuver and evasion. The cordon progressively reduced that latitude, thereby reducing the enemy’s advantage in knowledge of the local terrain.

Every great general from ancient times knew that no army can survive for so long without a secure logistical supply route. No expeditionary force can stay too far away from a source of fresh water. And no miniscule band of fanatical terrorists can thrive without food supplies from sympathetic populations.

Faced with a tightening cordon, the Abu Sayyaf faced rapidly dwindling options. With limited room for maneuver, they had to entertain negotiations to avert an all-out military assault. To keep negotiations going, they had to yield concessions at certain milestones. I imagine they accept food from government negotiators in exchange for accepting medications for the hostages.

And so it was that they had to give up their female captive, Mary Jean Lacaba, last week. Last Saturday, rushing to avert a skirmish, they were forced to abandon another hostage. The bandits are running scared, fearing snipers and unable to predict the next military maneuver.

Puno notes that the bandit group holding the last hostage has been noticeably mobile, shuffling their position with increasing intermittence. They are like rats scampering about a progressively smaller cage.

At some point, sheer exhaustion sets in. At some point, they should be willing to yield their last hostage for a full night’s sleep.

That seems to be the point of this protracted strategy of rescuing the hostages without falling into the moral hazard of paying ransom.

The dramatic rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips last week off the coast of Somalia is a classic in dealing with armed kidnappers.

It will be recalled that Capt. Phillips heroically offered himself to the pirates in order to secure the safety of his ship and crew. With four pirates, the captain was held in a small lifeboat that was shadowed by a US Navy warship.

The US Navy had FBI hostage negotiators brought in to keep the pirates talking. They had, obviously, also positioned snipers from the elite Navy Seals positioned on deck. The snipers must have patiently kept the pirates, who were in a covered lifeboat, in their sights for hours, maybe days.

When one pirate made the threatening gesture of pointing an AK-47 at the captain’s back, he provided the Seals the reason for taking the risk. The snipers opened fire, killing three pirates and wounding the fourth. Captain Phillips was rescued.

The lesson here is that rescuers must be prepared to strike the instant there is an opening. Awaiting that opportune moment, they buy time by trying to negotiate, even with patently unreasonable men.

The rescue, via abandonment, of Notter was not simply a stroke of luck. It is one of the intended outcomes of the patient strategy of constriction that has been employed to deal with this situation.

Those holding on to Vagni now have extremely limited options. They cannot threaten to execute the hostage because that will leave them entirely without leverage to hold off the surrounding regiments of soldiers and policemen. On the contrary, they must now desperately try to keep their hostage alive, accept medications from the emissaries and try to negotiate a way out of this predicament.

These bandits must be regretting the day they decided to take the three humanitarian workers hostage. They were the worst hostages to take. It alienated them from the communities they must rely on for support.

This incident also hastened the development of a more appropriate response to situations like this one. Those in charge of managing this crisis must be commended for holding on to a strategy that required patience. That is not easy to do given the 24-hour news cycle and kibitzing by politicians.

When Vagni is finally rescued, this episode should convince the bandits that the rules of the game have now irrevocably changed.