Hostage

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Three Afghan employees of a French aid organization, who had been held hostage for seven weeks by Taliban insurgents, were freed unharmed after local residents intervened, the governor of Nimruz province, Ghulam Dastagir Azad, said yesterday. The three men were kidnapped along with two French aid workers on April 3. They had been working on a project for A World for Our Children in Zaranj, in the far southwestern part of the country. The two French workers, a woman and a man, were freed separately in recent weeks, despite initial threats from the Taliban that they would kill them unless France withdrew its troops and ended its assistance to Afghanistan.

LOS ANGELES -- Today is Day 14 of the teddy bear hostage crisis.Inside a warehouse at Los Angeles International Airport, more than 2,000 stuffed toy animals that had been collected for Iraqi children remain in cardboard boxes, detained by U.S. Customs. Nearly a year after the liberation of Kuwait, the fate of these teddy bears is in limbo, awaiting the outcome of a dispute that pits a Santa Barbara, Calif., nurse against the collective authority of the United States government and the United Nations.

A man driving a stolen car led Annapolis police on a high-speed chase, then allegedly held a family hostage at gunpoint in an apartment before surrendering early Friday, police said.The incident began just before 4 a.m. when police were told that a man in a gray 1990 Volkswagen had threatened someone with a gun on Clay Street, police said.Spotting a car matching the description turning onto Forest Drivefrom Hilltop Lane, an officer turned his lights and siren on, but the car kept going, police said.

At least two inmates believed to be armed with handguns were holding two unarmed correctional officers hostage early this morning in a tense standoff at the Maryland Penitentiary in Baltimore.In a swirl of blue-top emergency lights, state police marksmen, tactical officers in riot gear and top prison officials descended on the 180-year-old stone fortress on Forrest Street. Dozens of city police secured the perimeter of the prison.The incident began between 9:15 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. in the C dormitory complex in the southwest quadrant of the maximum-security prison, where the correctional officers were accosted by at least two inmates believed to be wielding handguns.

A complicated deal to trade hostages, including 13 Westerners, held throughout the Middle East is bogged down in a dispute between Israel and Iran over the fate of Israeli navigator Ron Arad, who was shot down in 1986 over Lebanon, say knowledgeable sources from a number of countries.Israel will not go forward with negotiations on the package deal until the International Committee for the Red Cross is allowed to visit Arad and six other missing Israeli servicemen, or is shown proof they are dead, says an Israeli Defense Ministry spokesman.

An unarmed Columbia man held his wife and two children hostage inside their apartment for more than six hours yesterday before surrendering to police outside, Howard County police said.Philip Brigman, 38, of the 5400 block of Eliots Oak Road in Columbia's Harper's Choice village, was being held at the Howard County Detention Center in lieu of $30,000 bail yesterday, a District Court commissioner said.He is due for a bail review hearing today at the District Court in Ellicott City on charges of assault and battery and false imprisonment.

They came out of curiosity and boredom, clutching bottles of Pepsi, hoagies and bags of cheese popcorn. They staked out the one shady spot and waited, staring blankly at a metal door that rose and fell like the curtain at a long, ponderous play.Live, from the corner of Madison and Forest streets, it was today's hostage situation at the Maryland Penitentiary, and it was East Baltimore's hottest, cheapest ticket for some unexpected entertainment.Neighborhood residents, usually inured to the prison's uproars, stopped by to check it out. Families passing through parked their cars and hopped out. Others had heard the news when they awoke that morning and decided to make a daylong expedition of it."

As George Staples got ready for work about 4:25 a.m. yesterday, his 11-year-old daughter, Tia, ran into the bathroom screaming that someone was trying to shoot her.Moments later, in his daughter's bedroom at the family's Aberdeen duplex, he found two fresh bullet holes in the wall, fired by a woman next door during an apparent dispute with her boyfriend.Mr. Staples quickly called police, who arrived minutes later but soon scattered after more shots were fired in what would become an 8 1/2 -hour standoff that forced the evacuation of 175 residents, some of whom fled their homes before dawn in nightgowns and pajamas.

Two Maryland Penitentiary guards were being held hostage today by inmates armed with two handguns at the maximum-security prison in Baltimore following what appeared to be a bungled escape attempt there last night.State police negotiators and the leaders of the rebellious prisoners in the C Dormitory were talking over a telephone in an attempt to avert a violent confrontion between the inmates and a heavily armed contingent of State Police and Division of Correction officers who surrounded the 180-year-old penitentiary.

In response to a hostage incident at a Baltimore prison last month, Gov. William Donald Schaefer said today he is seeking legislation that would impose tough penalties on inmates who take prison or jail employees hostage.Schaefer said he will ask the General Assembly to pass a bill imposing sentences of up to 30 years. The sentence would be served concurrently with a hostage-taker's current sentence and could not be suspended.At a news conference at the Baltimore City Detention Center, the governor said he will submit the "emergency" bill next month when the legislature convenes for a special congressional redistricting session.