AP reporter abducted and held captive by Hezbollah in Lebanon for years, dies at 76

By Agencies and ToI Staff 22 April 2024, 6:29 am

Edit

File - Former Hezbollah hostage Terry Anderson waves to the crowd as he rides in a parade in Lorain, Ohio, June 22, 1992. Anderson, the globe-trotting Associated Press correspondent who became one of America’s longest-held hostages after he was snatched from a street in war-torn Lebanon in 1985 and held for nearly seven years, died on April 21, 2024. He was 76. (AP Photo/Mark Duncan, File)

Terry Anderson, the globe-trotting Associated Press correspondent who became one of America’s longest-held hostages after he was snatched from a street in war-torn Lebanon in 1985 and held for nearly seven years, has died at 76.

Anderson, who chronicled his abduction and torturous imprisonment by Hezbollah in his best-selling 1993 memoir “Den of Lions,” died yesterday at his home in Greenwood Lake, New York, according to his daughter, Sulome Anderson.

Anderson died of complications from recent heart surgery, his daughter says.

In 1985, Anderson became one of several Westerners abducted by members of the Islamist terror group during a time of war that had plunged Lebanon into chaos.

As the AP’s chief Middle East correspondent, Anderson had been reporting for several years on the rising violence gripping Lebanon as the country fought a war with Israel, while Iran funded terror groups trying to topple its government.