US Journalist Terry Anderson Dead At 76

Terry Anderson, a U.S. journalist who was held captive by Islamist militants for almost seven years in Lebanon and came to symbolize the plight of Western hostages during the country's 1975-1990 civil war, died on Sunday at age 76, his daughter said in a statement. The former chief Middle East correspondent for The Associated Press, who was the longest held hostage of the scores of Westerners abducted in Lebanon, died at his home in Greenwood Lake, New York, said his daughter Sulome Anderson, who was born three months after he was seized. No cause of death was given.

Kept in barely-lit cells by mostly Shi'ite Muslim groups in what was known as The Hostage Crisis, and chained by his hands and feet and blindfolded much of the time, the former Marine later recalled that he "almost went insane" and that only his Roman Catholic faith prevented him from taking his life before he was freed in December 1991.

"Though my father's life was marked by extreme suffering during his time as a hostage in captivity, he found a quiet, comfortable peace in recent years. I know he would choose to be remembered not by his very worst experience, but through his humanitarian work with the Vietnam Children's Fund, the Committee to Protect Journalists, homeless veterans and many other incredible causes," Sulome Anderson said.

The family will take some time to organize a memorial, she said.

Anderson's ordeal began in Beirut on the morning of March 16, 1985, after he played a round of tennis. A green Mercedes sedan with curtains over the rear window pulled up, three gunmen jumped out and dragged Anderson, still dressed in shorts, into the car.

The pro-Iran Islamic Jihad group claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, saying it was part of "continuing operations against Americans." The abductors demanded freedom for Shi'ite Muslims jailed in Kuwait for bomb attacks against the U.S. and French embassies there.

It was the start of a nightmare for Anderson that would last six years and nine months during which he was stuck in cells under the rubble-strewn streets of Beirut and elsewhere, often badly fed and sleeping on a thin, dirty mattress on a concrete floor.

During captivity, both his father and brother would die of cancer and he would not see his daughter Sulome until she was six years old.

"What kept me going?" he asked aloud shortly after release. "My companions. I was lucky to have people with me most of the time. My faith, stubbornness. You do what you have to. You wake up every day, summon up the energy from somewhere. You think you haven't got it and you get through the day and you do it. Day after day after day."_Reuters