Hostage Crisis | featured news

Police in the US state of Alabama have killed a kidnapper, saving his five-year-old boy captive from the bunker where he had been held for six days. FBI agent Steve Richardson told a news conference Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65, was killed after negotiations deteriorated. He had been keeping the boy, Ethan, in a storm shelter since last Tuesday after abducting him from a school bus and shooting dead the driver.

All eyes are on Algeria following the hostage crisis at a BP gas facility that left at least 37 hostages -- and dozens of militants -- dead. And while we're uncovering details of what happened at the remote desert complex at In Amenas and why, we must also scrutinize what this crisis tells us about security in North Africa, or the Maghreb.

Algerian special forces stormed a natural gas complex in the middle of the Sahara desert on Saturday in a "final assault" that ended a four-day-old hostage crisis, according to the state news agency and two foreign governments. At least 19 hostages and 29 Islamist militants have been killed.

The Philippines acknowledged "inadequacies" in handling a hostage crisis that killed eight Hong Kong tourists, as anger over the botched negotiations erupted Tuesday in Hong Kong with demonstrations and harsh words.

President Barack Obama noted Wednesday's 30th anniversary of the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, while insisting he wants the United States and Iran to move beyond the "path of sustained suspicion, mistrust and confrontation" that followed the subsequent hostage crisis.