Lebanon hostage crisis 1991, Hezbollah had released the last hostage in return for Israel's release of imprisoned Shi'ites. Lebanon hostage crisis The Lebanon hostage crisis was the kidnapping in Lebanon of 104 foreign hostages between 1982 and 1992, when the Lebanese Civil War was at its height. The hostages were mostly Americans and Western Europeans, but 21 national origins were represented. At least eight hostages died in captivity; some were murdered, while others died from lack of adequate medical attention to illnesses. Those taking responsibility for the kidnapping used different names, but the testimony of former hostages indicates that almost all the kidnappings
French support for Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War Lebanon, the Arab–Israeli conflict, and having a nonaligned movement separate from the Western and Soviet camps, French and Iraqi policy differed. Baathist ideology was fundamentally anticommunist. Iraq and the Soviet Union did not always have common political goals. Iraq and France, however, also did not always have common interests, but France was quite liberal in not tying arms sales to Iraqi actions, or other instability in the region. For example, France continued to openly trade with Iraq even when Iranian-inspired terrorists took French hostages in Lebanon. Many countries provide a level of policy control, because private exporters need government approval.