jhungary
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@levina this is for you
It was early summer 2005, my second tour, somewhere in the corner of Bagram AIrfield, they built a sort of a shanty town, I know nothing about an impending Ops, but i was tasked to hand over Aerial Recon Photo and drone photo of a certain Area of Kabul.
I walk in the town, some Breaded SP operator came out of the little wooden town and thanks me for the photo, they are either DEVGRU or Delta, I can tell this much. Well, since it is not my business to snoop, I didn't do anything, I left after i hand over the photo.
About a month later (maybe about 20 days) News that and Italian Hostage was release from capitivity. Well, then I know what the hell is going on.
Hostage Taking have been a very widespread phenomenon. Most people think it does only happen in third world country, or some crazy armed robbery attemp gone wrong and led to hostage taking, but in fact, hostage taking is a very big business, and their aimed was very widespread too, from preventing war in Rome time to just want to kipnap your own kid when you fail to win custody. It is suggestede there are 1 Kidnapping/Hostage Taking case in every 12 hours involved an US Citizen anywhere in the world, scary isn't it?
The fact is, Hostage/Kipnap recovery is such a very big business, that some security solution company have their own branch of hostage recovery business, which directly counter the Law Enforcement hostage rescue team, well, sometime people just don't want to go to the cops.
Okay, now you know there are such a big business behind Kidnapping/Hostage Taking. How do organisation/individal actually recover the hostage? I hope to share with you some tactics and put a few light under the microscope.
The Schools of Thoughts
Well, basically there are two major seperate discipine dealing with hostage recovery, one is the Military via Special Force, another is Law Enforcement Hostage Rescue Team, usually conducted by Police Tactical team if there are no dedicated HRT in a department.
The term Kidnap or Hostage Taking have 2 different meaning yet with similar definition.
Kidnap refers to a confinement without holding the legal authority to do so, whereas hostage refers to a person or entity which is held by a captor as a security.
Kidnapping is generally done for ransom, whereas hostage is kept in order for fulfillment of certain conditions. Both are illegal activities and are under punishable offenses. In both the cases the person or persons under confinement are in extreme danger.
My training included basic principle of Hostage Rescue as part of my Ranger Training, I did not process in depth Hostage Rescue training nor the skill to plan and conduct an operation, as they are an specific subject under Special Forces or Police Tactical/HRT team training.
The basic principle of hostage recovery
There are 4 basic principle for hostage recovery operation, successfulness of an operation depends on the operator/planner ability to fulfill these 4 requirements
Before we go into how the 4 principle help the operation, we also need to talk about the limitation and operational parameter for Civilian Operation (LEA) and Military Operation (Special Force)
Civilian Operation
Civilian Operation usually involve Police Operation, the main stay for civilian operation is the negotiation part, which being LEA, they are not allow to use deadly force that easy. The only time when a Police Tactical operation to go ahead is either there are no way the incident can resolve via negotiation, either the demand cannot be met or the authority cannot authorise such demand, another way to escalate to a Tactical operation is when the situation upgraded by a triggering event (e.g. The hostage taker start killing hostage)
Knowing this, this offer 2 very distinct limitation on the tactical side of these operation.
1.) The environment is a closed environment, by close, the definition is controlled. Basically, being in a police force, you only have 1 hostile building, that's yours target building, other than that, all other buildings are assumed to be under police control, they can deploy their people inside other building except for the target buildings and they have absolute control of the outside environment.
How that limited the police operation with an controlled environment?? The answer is, the hostage taker would expect, not assumed, those building surrounding his area would be occupied by Law Enforcement, meaning the HT (Hostage Taker) would have idea of the police deploymment, up to and including the best possible aggress route and the HT would be preparing for a breach.
2.) The window of ooppuntity would be severely limited. Being a closed operation, the HT would expect either he/she escalate the incident via a triggering event, that WILL prompt a response, and if he/she refuse to negotiate, that WILL also trigger a response.
What that means was, the ball is basically on the HT court right now, the Police can decide when to move in, but not before negotiate fail and not after the triggering event, as both issue were not in the Police control (unless the police does not initiate negotiation, which is extremely rare.) So, when both triggering event were on the hand of HT, the HT would be prepared when the Police storm him/her.
That said. There are still enough room to build an operation form there, the question is that the police would have to choose the exact moment to initiate the attacks. So, let's try to build an operation
Intelligence/Information
Okay, now the first part the planner need to find out is the intel and information regarding the HT. Intelligence relate to how the HT is armed, how the HT position their Hostage, HT(s) background and probably most important of all, How many HT is inside an situation.
While Information regarding the HT intention of the Hostage SItuation and most importantly the Endgame of the HT.
While you can gather the intelligence by many way, from CCTV to the moment HT start taking hostage, to debriefing the released hostage, if any. But the information part, especially the endgame, is the most important.
Endgame, HT must have an endgame so they take hostage, there are something the HT want with the hostage or in exchange the hostage, otherwise they would have kill them outright. Endgame usually, but not neccessarily related to the demand the HT requested. It could be part of it, it could be a ruse. But the endgame have to be figured out by the planner before any opeartion to be conduct.
Simply, when the endgame is reached for the HT, the hostage would have no value to the HT anymore, they would be either released or killed. For an operation, the planner have to resist to allow the situation that would satisified the HT's endgame, base on the fact that you can only rescue the hostage when they still have value to the HT, some case tho, a simply agree to the request would end a Hostage situation, other time don't and it's important for LEA not to gamble on the hostage life. If there are way or chance that can guarantee to end the crisis peacefully, they should take it, otherwise, if doubt present, they should formulate a plan to rescue the hostage in place of fulfilling the HT demand.
Surprise
As mentioned before, the window of surprise are extremely small in term of a closed operation, as many aspect is expected. Surprise are mostly achieve by Chance event or by environmental factor.
The main issue is, the LEA is by Law require to resolve the hostage standoff peacefully and almost in all country's police charter, deadly force or assault should be limited to last resort.. That give away the "Timetable" of Assault to the HT. As the HT knows, the LEA would not assault during and before negotiation and would only assault after Negotiation seemsing failed (Which can be contributed by HT) and the hostage are in immiment danger (Solely contributed by the HT). So, when the HT know the negotiation phase is up, or the HT started to harm the hostage, the HT could expect an assault.
The issue should now focus on the HT would be expected an assault, but is the HT ready or Prepare for it? The principle lies in the timing of the strike, would perfer to be at the hardest, hence least probable time, or use deception to carry out the strike, which will be covered later.
One should also notice that, the longer the situation drag on, the less surprise it would to the eventual strike, it is estimated that the perfect timing (if allowed) should be within 24 hours of the situation developed. Then every hours thereafter would lose the tactical surprise, and when that happen, the HT would be prepared for it, and assault that happened outside the golden window (Within 24 hours) are usually associated with Hostage Casualty during the assault
Skills.
The individual skills of the Rescuer directly affect the operational outcome, the more highly skills the rescue are, the chance of success would be higher.
The rescuer, by definition, should understand well the dynamic of the HT/Hostage, the location of the hostage, agress and egress route, how to effective shield/isolate the hostage, and also how to isolate the HT.
The Dynamic between HT/Hostage is especially important. First thing is the understanding of the reason behind taking hostage, and thus know the "Value" of the hostage. Now, what does that mean? The meaning is simple, in the case of assault, how far would the hostage go before they will start hurting the hostage?
Now, as i said before, every hostage situation have a reason behind the hostage taking, if they would not have a purpose or value for the hsotages, they would have killed them or release them already. The value is an very important quality in hoostage rescue ops.
Traditional way to test water for hostage value is to ask the hostage to release them (Strange, ain't it?) By offering some privilege/provision in exchange of the release, this phase is called Build up the rapport. So you known if the HT is a reasonable person to deal with, try exchanging food, water, medicin or partially fulfil the HT request to see how dear the HT hold onto the hostage.
Then comes a more gambling part. Which is refusing the HT demand. If the HT would not trade Hostage for provision, this part is not recommended. Now, you test the baseline on HT on how deep they will go before executing the hostage. By refusing then allowing the request to test the "Temperment" of the HT, thus, you know how far he would go before executing a hostage.
So why you need to know that? That's because there are only 2 way the tactical team can assault the HT, that's either by doing it in total stealth, which mostly impossible as the HT would be expecting. And another way is to offer yourselves, the rescuer to be a more valued target so you can have the tiny window of successfully rescuing the hostage(s)
Now imagine this, If I hold a gun to the Hostage head, An HRT member point a gun at me. Unless I don't shoot the hostage, there are no way the HRT can eliminate me before I shoot the hostage Right? So, whether or not I shoot the hostage technically depend on two things, A.) Would I get out of the sitaution, if I won't then the hostage would be of no value to me, basically I will be dead/apprehended regardless. B.) Do I want to kill the hostage?
Now, the only way the HRT can rescue the hostage and kill me is if I point the gun to the HRT, instead of the Hostage, right? As I cannot be that quick to switch back to the hostage. But for me to point my gun (I am the HT iin this case) I have to think I still have a way to get out of the situation alive, hence I would try to eliminate the HRT and the situation would remain a status quo at least, where I have the hostage.
Now, the first thing we tested I talked about would determine the relationship/dynamic of the HT and Hostages, while the second test determine how desperate the situation need to gets for the HT to kill the hostage. Understand both, then you will ensure when you assault the HT, the HT would shoot at you instead of start executing the hostage.
Deception/Diversion
When you have to assault a position, unless you know how to teleport, otherwise the HT would know/notice the force build up outside their location, so, either the LEA tactical team need to let the HT believe the build up is for something else, or have to lead the HT look away from the Build Up area. So the HT would either think the build up is normal or don't notice the build up at all.
Also, it would be essential for the Tactical team to choose a route and divert the HT attention away to the route.
A deception is used simply due to the need to lower the guard from the HT, deception range from telling the HT the demand is being made to physically made another entry point to the HT, the aim was to throw the HT off its feet when the actual assault taking place.
A divertion is used to divert the HT from where the assault is taking place. A typical divertion involve showing the HT what you want to show them. So they would expect if something happens, it would happens where the HT believe will happen, but instead happening somewhere else.
The Military Operation
Military Ops included hostage recovery too. But a lot different than what the Civil Authority encounter, while the Hostage could be HVI or some other highly regarded individual, almost all Military Responsible Rescue Ops happens on ENemy held territories (ie Behind the Enemy lines operation)
That is becasue of this, Military see their Hostage Rescue ops as a sandbox ops. Which mean the environment is open oppose to closed environment in Civilian Hostage Rescue, the environment was not controlled by the rescue, most likely than not, it was controlled by the HT.
So the 2 requirments would not be applies to Military Hostage Rescue, and the priority of the different than the Civilian Operations.
1.) First, since the environment is not contained, so, it's not the [principle of surprise and deception this case should be focus on, instead, Intelligence and Information is key to the success of a Military Rescue operation. First you need to pin point the location of the hostage, then formulate a plan for it.
2.) Other than Intelligence and Information, the skill and planning of participation into an operation is also important, the route of assault and extra, also the element of surprise would too be considered. As you don't own/control the apporach, that means Military Rescuer would probably have to fight the way thru to the hostage. The balance on how the on going operation affect the value of hostage is the prime concern.
So, let's look at the 4 principle again and how they suit the military operation.
Intelligence/Information
With the uncertainty of the location and even what's ahead of the information, intelligence and inforamtion is of PRIME IMPORTANCE. You cannot rescue the hsotage if you don't know where they were. The problem is, in a Dynamic Battlefield, how do you collect intelligence and information to the group that holding the hostage??
Intelligence collection means to locate and track the hostage, but even tho you do not know where exactly the hsotage located, you can still limit the float of the hostage by blocking roads. Essentially, you isolate the location and go door to door.
To undderstand this, one need to realise taking hostage is not a small operation, and from the location where the abduction happens, a trial of crumbs would have left by the Kidnapper and can be trace back to where they keep the hostage, you start by squeezing little off people who know someone who know something, then you work on people who know something, then you can find the right people, a town holding a foreign hostage would not go quiet, someone and somebody have to be talking somewhere, the key is can you locate those people?
Information on the other hand, help you collect intelligence, but could not do much for the information stand alone, what sort of group behind the abduction determine where they operate, how strong is the group determine the size of the safehouse for the need to store the hostage, don't forget, you don't just store the hostage, you need to accomdate your own people to guard the hostage too, appprently, you cannot be in a small house if you have like 20 people involved in the kidnapping.
Passive information also help collect intelligence, information such as water and electricity consumption, foot traffic increase and etc all tell a tell-tale sign of wheere the hostage locate, in Iraq, not many people have running water and running electricity, so by looking at the hostage video, if there are electicity running in the background? Then that's telling you something.
A good operator need to be able to sort thru all those and find the information/intelligence you need for the operation.
Surprise
There goes the other principle, the surprise factor, only this time, the HT have the upper hand and you, the rescuer have to do from scratch. Surprise, however, is still important.
Since most of these Operation are going to be covert anyway, unless you want to stir up the whole hornet nest on you, you would want to surprise your enemy and only for them to notice you in the last minute? How?
Now since you are talking about an open environment, there are A LOT of angle you can work on, you can take a silent route and go in loud only when you are ready, that's the element of surprise.
Also, now that the environment is now open, yes, the HT can still prepare for it locally (the building contain the hostage) but there are no way to tell where the rescue is going to come from, hence this added to the tactical surprise element for the rescuer.
Another advantage for the rescuer is the window of hostage rescue, since this time negotiation is not a must, basically there are no "Time Table" for the assault, it now depend on when would the rescurer have the exact location. Assault can be carried out immediately, or prolonged. Tactically, the HT can still move the hostage to counter this tactical surprise, but by doing that, they wopuld ahve to throw out their preparation they did before hand, this is kind of a trade off.
Skills
Okay, skills itself is probably the same, in the end, it was a person-person encounter, as the one thing you cannot do is to rescue the hostage remotely, that mean somepoint in time, you are going to put boots on the ground, and face the kidnapper directly.
The ssame rules applies, you can do it bby stealth, which now would be a bit easier, or you can present yourselves as a bigger target than the hostage so the HT would rather Kills you and maintain the Status Quo then killing the hostage and end the situation.
Deception/Diversion
Now, deception is also considered, you cannot have soldier knocking door while the HT looks on, they would know what happens, and given the nature of Military Operation, there are no way you can conduct any kind of search operation in silent mode. Hence the importance of Deception and Diversion
What you can use is the war at hand.
During the rescue of Jessica Lynch, the diversion is for the SF, Ranger and Marine to launch an assault to a town not far from the site where Lynch was held and draw off portion of the insurgent in the hospital where Lynch is held. That is to divert attention away from the incoming rescue.
For a divertion to perfectly performed, one need to chosoe an objective not far from where the hsotage are believed to be held, and then use carry on the attack, so that it will look as if there were only normal. A substancial force may give out too much of the intention toward the actual rescue, but a small force would not draw out the enemy into a fight.
The deception plan must be considered at the strategic and operational levels of the operation. At the strategic level, the negotiations must maintain the focus of freeing the hostages by diplomatic means at all cost, even in the face of a mounting rescue attempt. On the operational level, the deception plan might give the impression to the hostage takers that the military preparations have nothing to do with the rescue of the hostages.
A good deception plan is a simple deception plan. Over complicated plan would result in several exit point where the HT can smell the deception, where the goal is achieve tactical surprise to mask the Rescuer apporach, and the plan should have done just that.
Conclusion
Hostage Rescue and Reovery is a large issue, what we gone thru today is not even 1/10 of what a successful planner would require to know. The process is long and painful, but with a competent rescue team and a decent plan, virtually no resuce is not doable.
The Skill involved, however, unfornaturately cannot be discuss here as that did make up a large part of a successful operation, but at the end of the day, planning goes with the other half, and no matter how skillful a rescuer can be, they cannot be succeed without a sound and competent plan.
It was early summer 2005, my second tour, somewhere in the corner of Bagram AIrfield, they built a sort of a shanty town, I know nothing about an impending Ops, but i was tasked to hand over Aerial Recon Photo and drone photo of a certain Area of Kabul.
I walk in the town, some Breaded SP operator came out of the little wooden town and thanks me for the photo, they are either DEVGRU or Delta, I can tell this much. Well, since it is not my business to snoop, I didn't do anything, I left after i hand over the photo.
About a month later (maybe about 20 days) News that and Italian Hostage was release from capitivity. Well, then I know what the hell is going on.
Hostage Taking have been a very widespread phenomenon. Most people think it does only happen in third world country, or some crazy armed robbery attemp gone wrong and led to hostage taking, but in fact, hostage taking is a very big business, and their aimed was very widespread too, from preventing war in Rome time to just want to kipnap your own kid when you fail to win custody. It is suggestede there are 1 Kidnapping/Hostage Taking case in every 12 hours involved an US Citizen anywhere in the world, scary isn't it?
The fact is, Hostage/Kipnap recovery is such a very big business, that some security solution company have their own branch of hostage recovery business, which directly counter the Law Enforcement hostage rescue team, well, sometime people just don't want to go to the cops.
Okay, now you know there are such a big business behind Kidnapping/Hostage Taking. How do organisation/individal actually recover the hostage? I hope to share with you some tactics and put a few light under the microscope.
The Schools of Thoughts
Well, basically there are two major seperate discipine dealing with hostage recovery, one is the Military via Special Force, another is Law Enforcement Hostage Rescue Team, usually conducted by Police Tactical team if there are no dedicated HRT in a department.
The term Kidnap or Hostage Taking have 2 different meaning yet with similar definition.
Kidnap refers to a confinement without holding the legal authority to do so, whereas hostage refers to a person or entity which is held by a captor as a security.
Kidnapping is generally done for ransom, whereas hostage is kept in order for fulfillment of certain conditions. Both are illegal activities and are under punishable offenses. In both the cases the person or persons under confinement are in extreme danger.
My training included basic principle of Hostage Rescue as part of my Ranger Training, I did not process in depth Hostage Rescue training nor the skill to plan and conduct an operation, as they are an specific subject under Special Forces or Police Tactical/HRT team training.
The basic principle of hostage recovery
There are 4 basic principle for hostage recovery operation, successfulness of an operation depends on the operator/planner ability to fulfill these 4 requirements
- Intelligence/Information
- Surprise
- Skill
- Deception/Diversion
Before we go into how the 4 principle help the operation, we also need to talk about the limitation and operational parameter for Civilian Operation (LEA) and Military Operation (Special Force)
Civilian Operation
Civilian Operation usually involve Police Operation, the main stay for civilian operation is the negotiation part, which being LEA, they are not allow to use deadly force that easy. The only time when a Police Tactical operation to go ahead is either there are no way the incident can resolve via negotiation, either the demand cannot be met or the authority cannot authorise such demand, another way to escalate to a Tactical operation is when the situation upgraded by a triggering event (e.g. The hostage taker start killing hostage)
Knowing this, this offer 2 very distinct limitation on the tactical side of these operation.
1.) The environment is a closed environment, by close, the definition is controlled. Basically, being in a police force, you only have 1 hostile building, that's yours target building, other than that, all other buildings are assumed to be under police control, they can deploy their people inside other building except for the target buildings and they have absolute control of the outside environment.
How that limited the police operation with an controlled environment?? The answer is, the hostage taker would expect, not assumed, those building surrounding his area would be occupied by Law Enforcement, meaning the HT (Hostage Taker) would have idea of the police deploymment, up to and including the best possible aggress route and the HT would be preparing for a breach.
2.) The window of ooppuntity would be severely limited. Being a closed operation, the HT would expect either he/she escalate the incident via a triggering event, that WILL prompt a response, and if he/she refuse to negotiate, that WILL also trigger a response.
What that means was, the ball is basically on the HT court right now, the Police can decide when to move in, but not before negotiate fail and not after the triggering event, as both issue were not in the Police control (unless the police does not initiate negotiation, which is extremely rare.) So, when both triggering event were on the hand of HT, the HT would be prepared when the Police storm him/her.
That said. There are still enough room to build an operation form there, the question is that the police would have to choose the exact moment to initiate the attacks. So, let's try to build an operation
Intelligence/Information
Okay, now the first part the planner need to find out is the intel and information regarding the HT. Intelligence relate to how the HT is armed, how the HT position their Hostage, HT(s) background and probably most important of all, How many HT is inside an situation.
While Information regarding the HT intention of the Hostage SItuation and most importantly the Endgame of the HT.
While you can gather the intelligence by many way, from CCTV to the moment HT start taking hostage, to debriefing the released hostage, if any. But the information part, especially the endgame, is the most important.
Endgame, HT must have an endgame so they take hostage, there are something the HT want with the hostage or in exchange the hostage, otherwise they would have kill them outright. Endgame usually, but not neccessarily related to the demand the HT requested. It could be part of it, it could be a ruse. But the endgame have to be figured out by the planner before any opeartion to be conduct.
Simply, when the endgame is reached for the HT, the hostage would have no value to the HT anymore, they would be either released or killed. For an operation, the planner have to resist to allow the situation that would satisified the HT's endgame, base on the fact that you can only rescue the hostage when they still have value to the HT, some case tho, a simply agree to the request would end a Hostage situation, other time don't and it's important for LEA not to gamble on the hostage life. If there are way or chance that can guarantee to end the crisis peacefully, they should take it, otherwise, if doubt present, they should formulate a plan to rescue the hostage in place of fulfilling the HT demand.
Surprise
As mentioned before, the window of surprise are extremely small in term of a closed operation, as many aspect is expected. Surprise are mostly achieve by Chance event or by environmental factor.
The main issue is, the LEA is by Law require to resolve the hostage standoff peacefully and almost in all country's police charter, deadly force or assault should be limited to last resort.. That give away the "Timetable" of Assault to the HT. As the HT knows, the LEA would not assault during and before negotiation and would only assault after Negotiation seemsing failed (Which can be contributed by HT) and the hostage are in immiment danger (Solely contributed by the HT). So, when the HT know the negotiation phase is up, or the HT started to harm the hostage, the HT could expect an assault.
The issue should now focus on the HT would be expected an assault, but is the HT ready or Prepare for it? The principle lies in the timing of the strike, would perfer to be at the hardest, hence least probable time, or use deception to carry out the strike, which will be covered later.
One should also notice that, the longer the situation drag on, the less surprise it would to the eventual strike, it is estimated that the perfect timing (if allowed) should be within 24 hours of the situation developed. Then every hours thereafter would lose the tactical surprise, and when that happen, the HT would be prepared for it, and assault that happened outside the golden window (Within 24 hours) are usually associated with Hostage Casualty during the assault
Skills.
The individual skills of the Rescuer directly affect the operational outcome, the more highly skills the rescue are, the chance of success would be higher.
The rescuer, by definition, should understand well the dynamic of the HT/Hostage, the location of the hostage, agress and egress route, how to effective shield/isolate the hostage, and also how to isolate the HT.
The Dynamic between HT/Hostage is especially important. First thing is the understanding of the reason behind taking hostage, and thus know the "Value" of the hostage. Now, what does that mean? The meaning is simple, in the case of assault, how far would the hostage go before they will start hurting the hostage?
Now, as i said before, every hostage situation have a reason behind the hostage taking, if they would not have a purpose or value for the hsotages, they would have killed them or release them already. The value is an very important quality in hoostage rescue ops.
Traditional way to test water for hostage value is to ask the hostage to release them (Strange, ain't it?) By offering some privilege/provision in exchange of the release, this phase is called Build up the rapport. So you known if the HT is a reasonable person to deal with, try exchanging food, water, medicin or partially fulfil the HT request to see how dear the HT hold onto the hostage.
Then comes a more gambling part. Which is refusing the HT demand. If the HT would not trade Hostage for provision, this part is not recommended. Now, you test the baseline on HT on how deep they will go before executing the hostage. By refusing then allowing the request to test the "Temperment" of the HT, thus, you know how far he would go before executing a hostage.
So why you need to know that? That's because there are only 2 way the tactical team can assault the HT, that's either by doing it in total stealth, which mostly impossible as the HT would be expecting. And another way is to offer yourselves, the rescuer to be a more valued target so you can have the tiny window of successfully rescuing the hostage(s)
Now imagine this, If I hold a gun to the Hostage head, An HRT member point a gun at me. Unless I don't shoot the hostage, there are no way the HRT can eliminate me before I shoot the hostage Right? So, whether or not I shoot the hostage technically depend on two things, A.) Would I get out of the sitaution, if I won't then the hostage would be of no value to me, basically I will be dead/apprehended regardless. B.) Do I want to kill the hostage?
Now, the only way the HRT can rescue the hostage and kill me is if I point the gun to the HRT, instead of the Hostage, right? As I cannot be that quick to switch back to the hostage. But for me to point my gun (I am the HT iin this case) I have to think I still have a way to get out of the situation alive, hence I would try to eliminate the HRT and the situation would remain a status quo at least, where I have the hostage.
Now, the first thing we tested I talked about would determine the relationship/dynamic of the HT and Hostages, while the second test determine how desperate the situation need to gets for the HT to kill the hostage. Understand both, then you will ensure when you assault the HT, the HT would shoot at you instead of start executing the hostage.
Deception/Diversion
When you have to assault a position, unless you know how to teleport, otherwise the HT would know/notice the force build up outside their location, so, either the LEA tactical team need to let the HT believe the build up is for something else, or have to lead the HT look away from the Build Up area. So the HT would either think the build up is normal or don't notice the build up at all.
Also, it would be essential for the Tactical team to choose a route and divert the HT attention away to the route.
A deception is used simply due to the need to lower the guard from the HT, deception range from telling the HT the demand is being made to physically made another entry point to the HT, the aim was to throw the HT off its feet when the actual assault taking place.
A divertion is used to divert the HT from where the assault is taking place. A typical divertion involve showing the HT what you want to show them. So they would expect if something happens, it would happens where the HT believe will happen, but instead happening somewhere else.
The Military Operation
Military Ops included hostage recovery too. But a lot different than what the Civil Authority encounter, while the Hostage could be HVI or some other highly regarded individual, almost all Military Responsible Rescue Ops happens on ENemy held territories (ie Behind the Enemy lines operation)
That is becasue of this, Military see their Hostage Rescue ops as a sandbox ops. Which mean the environment is open oppose to closed environment in Civilian Hostage Rescue, the environment was not controlled by the rescue, most likely than not, it was controlled by the HT.
So the 2 requirments would not be applies to Military Hostage Rescue, and the priority of the different than the Civilian Operations.
1.) First, since the environment is not contained, so, it's not the [principle of surprise and deception this case should be focus on, instead, Intelligence and Information is key to the success of a Military Rescue operation. First you need to pin point the location of the hostage, then formulate a plan for it.
2.) Other than Intelligence and Information, the skill and planning of participation into an operation is also important, the route of assault and extra, also the element of surprise would too be considered. As you don't own/control the apporach, that means Military Rescuer would probably have to fight the way thru to the hostage. The balance on how the on going operation affect the value of hostage is the prime concern.
So, let's look at the 4 principle again and how they suit the military operation.
Intelligence/Information
With the uncertainty of the location and even what's ahead of the information, intelligence and inforamtion is of PRIME IMPORTANCE. You cannot rescue the hsotage if you don't know where they were. The problem is, in a Dynamic Battlefield, how do you collect intelligence and information to the group that holding the hostage??
Intelligence collection means to locate and track the hostage, but even tho you do not know where exactly the hsotage located, you can still limit the float of the hostage by blocking roads. Essentially, you isolate the location and go door to door.
To undderstand this, one need to realise taking hostage is not a small operation, and from the location where the abduction happens, a trial of crumbs would have left by the Kidnapper and can be trace back to where they keep the hostage, you start by squeezing little off people who know someone who know something, then you work on people who know something, then you can find the right people, a town holding a foreign hostage would not go quiet, someone and somebody have to be talking somewhere, the key is can you locate those people?
Information on the other hand, help you collect intelligence, but could not do much for the information stand alone, what sort of group behind the abduction determine where they operate, how strong is the group determine the size of the safehouse for the need to store the hostage, don't forget, you don't just store the hostage, you need to accomdate your own people to guard the hostage too, appprently, you cannot be in a small house if you have like 20 people involved in the kidnapping.
Passive information also help collect intelligence, information such as water and electricity consumption, foot traffic increase and etc all tell a tell-tale sign of wheere the hostage locate, in Iraq, not many people have running water and running electricity, so by looking at the hostage video, if there are electicity running in the background? Then that's telling you something.
A good operator need to be able to sort thru all those and find the information/intelligence you need for the operation.
Surprise
There goes the other principle, the surprise factor, only this time, the HT have the upper hand and you, the rescuer have to do from scratch. Surprise, however, is still important.
Since most of these Operation are going to be covert anyway, unless you want to stir up the whole hornet nest on you, you would want to surprise your enemy and only for them to notice you in the last minute? How?
Now since you are talking about an open environment, there are A LOT of angle you can work on, you can take a silent route and go in loud only when you are ready, that's the element of surprise.
Also, now that the environment is now open, yes, the HT can still prepare for it locally (the building contain the hostage) but there are no way to tell where the rescue is going to come from, hence this added to the tactical surprise element for the rescuer.
Another advantage for the rescuer is the window of hostage rescue, since this time negotiation is not a must, basically there are no "Time Table" for the assault, it now depend on when would the rescurer have the exact location. Assault can be carried out immediately, or prolonged. Tactically, the HT can still move the hostage to counter this tactical surprise, but by doing that, they wopuld ahve to throw out their preparation they did before hand, this is kind of a trade off.
Skills
Okay, skills itself is probably the same, in the end, it was a person-person encounter, as the one thing you cannot do is to rescue the hostage remotely, that mean somepoint in time, you are going to put boots on the ground, and face the kidnapper directly.
The ssame rules applies, you can do it bby stealth, which now would be a bit easier, or you can present yourselves as a bigger target than the hostage so the HT would rather Kills you and maintain the Status Quo then killing the hostage and end the situation.
Deception/Diversion
Now, deception is also considered, you cannot have soldier knocking door while the HT looks on, they would know what happens, and given the nature of Military Operation, there are no way you can conduct any kind of search operation in silent mode. Hence the importance of Deception and Diversion
What you can use is the war at hand.
During the rescue of Jessica Lynch, the diversion is for the SF, Ranger and Marine to launch an assault to a town not far from the site where Lynch was held and draw off portion of the insurgent in the hospital where Lynch is held. That is to divert attention away from the incoming rescue.
For a divertion to perfectly performed, one need to chosoe an objective not far from where the hsotage are believed to be held, and then use carry on the attack, so that it will look as if there were only normal. A substancial force may give out too much of the intention toward the actual rescue, but a small force would not draw out the enemy into a fight.
The deception plan must be considered at the strategic and operational levels of the operation. At the strategic level, the negotiations must maintain the focus of freeing the hostages by diplomatic means at all cost, even in the face of a mounting rescue attempt. On the operational level, the deception plan might give the impression to the hostage takers that the military preparations have nothing to do with the rescue of the hostages.
A good deception plan is a simple deception plan. Over complicated plan would result in several exit point where the HT can smell the deception, where the goal is achieve tactical surprise to mask the Rescuer apporach, and the plan should have done just that.
Conclusion
Hostage Rescue and Reovery is a large issue, what we gone thru today is not even 1/10 of what a successful planner would require to know. The process is long and painful, but with a competent rescue team and a decent plan, virtually no resuce is not doable.
The Skill involved, however, unfornaturately cannot be discuss here as that did make up a large part of a successful operation, but at the end of the day, planning goes with the other half, and no matter how skillful a rescuer can be, they cannot be succeed without a sound and competent plan.
There's no way a normal soldier can convincingly pull off NGO character and successfully trick HT in handing over the hostages without acting classes.
