Negotiation provides more resources to terrorists  Negotiation can help the terrorists who are negotiating in several ways. First it buys time; if the terrorist group has previously been hard pressed by the state's military then this time can be used to rest, recover and resupply, in effect for preparing for the next campaign. This is what happens whenever there is a ceasefire, or a unilateral break, in the campaign in Lebanon or Palestine as those states which are aligned to the terrorist groups such as Syria and Iran seek to resupply their allies. [1]  Second in some cases negotiation can involve the state handing over resources to the terrorist group. This is most often the case with hostage negotiations where the terrorists demand the release of other terrorists who have been captured so boosting the groups manpower or else demand a ransom in return for the release of hostages. Somalia has over the last decade regularly seen payouts of ransoms to groups of pirates who have links to islamists [2] and are accused of having links to terrorists. While pirates are the highest profile ransoms the same occurs with terrorist groups, it is estimated that $70million has been paid to secure the release of western captives since 2010. [3] Releasing terrorists can also sometimes be used as a confidence building measure leading up to negotiations, which can mean helping the terrorist groups even before there are negotiations. This has most recently occurred with Israel releasing 26 Palestinian prisoners, including Yusef Irshaid who murdered an Israeli, three suspected ‘collaborators’ and planned car bombings, in order to restart peace talks. [4]  [1] Spiegel, Peter, and King, Laura, ‘Israel Says Syria, Not Just Iran, Supplied Missiles to Hezbollah’, Los Angeles Times, 31 August 2006,   [2] Spiegel Staff, ‘Terror on the High Seas: Somali Pirates Form Unholy Alliance with Islamists’, Spiegel Online, 20 April 2009,   [3] Press Association ‘David Cameron To Tell G8 ‘Stop Paying Ransoms To Terrorists’’, Huffington Post, 18 June 2013,   [4] Harris, Ben, ‘Who Israel released’, Jewish Telegraphic Association, 14 August 2013,