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On March 9–11, 1977, three buildings in Washington, D.C. were seized by 12 Muslim gunmen, led by Hamaas Abdul Khaalis, who had broken from the Nation of Islam because he blamed them for murder. They took 149 hostages and killed a radio journalist. After a 39-hour standoff, the gunmen surrendered and all remaining hostages were released from the District Building (the city hall; now called the John A. Wilson Building), B'nai B'rith headquarters, and the Islamic Center of Washington. One of those killed was 24-year-old Maurice Williams, a radio reporter from WHUR-FM, who stepped off a fifth-floor elevator into the crisis (the fifth floor is where the mayor and City Council Chairman have their offices). The gunmen also shot D.C. Protective Service Division police officer Mack Cantrell, who died a few days later in the hospital of a heart attack. City Councilman Marion Barry walked into the hallway after hearing a commotion and was hit by a ricocheted shotgun pellet which lodged just above his heart. He was taken out through a window and rushed to a hospital. The gunmen had several demands. They "wanted the government to hand over a group of men who had been convicted of killing seven relatives – mostly children – of takeover leader Hamaas Khaalis. They also demanded that the movie ''Mohammad, Messenger of God'' be destroyed because they considered it sacrilegious." ''Time'' magazine noted: "That the toll was not higher was in part a tribute to the primary tactic U.S. law enforcement officials are now using to thwart terrorists—patience. But most of all, perhaps, it was due to the courageous intervention of three Muslim ambassadors, Egypt's Ashraf Ghorbal, Pakistan's Sahabzada Yaqub-Khan and Iran's Ardeshir Zahedi." == Background == The leader of the attack was former national secretary of the Nation of Islam Hamaas Abdul Khaalis. Khaalis was born in Indiana in 1921 and named Ernest McGhee. Discharged from the U.S. Army on grounds of mental instability, he worked as a jazz drummer in New York City before converting to Islam and changing his name to Hamaas Khaalis. He became prominent in the ministries and school of the Nation of Islam and was appointed its national secretary in the early 1950s.() Khaalis split with the Nation of Islam in 1958 to found a rival Islamic organisation, the "Hanafi Movement". In 1968, he was arrested for attempted extortion but released on grounds of mental illness.〔 In 1972, he published an open letter attacking the leadership and beliefs of the Nation of Islam. A year later five men broke into Khaalis' Washington home and murdered five of his children, his nine-day-old grandson and another man. The murderers were arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment. A grief-stricken Khaalis claimed the men were associated with the Nation of Islam, and that the judge in the cases had not pursued this link. () 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「1977 Hanafi Siege」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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