After nearly three days of being held hostage by armed Qaddafi loyalists at Tripoli's Rixos hotel, more than 30 international journalists were set free on Wednesday, Aug. 24. It was apparently a tense and wild ride: In the late hours of Monday night, Saif al-Islam al-Qaddafi showed up to rouse the press corps with his convoy's appearance in the parking lot, but as the city was overrun by rebel forces, a handful of loyalist gunmen prevented journalists from leaving the hotel. With sporadic electricity, sniper fire, and threat of bombardment, journalists holed up in hallways and in the basement.
Upon being released, CNN's senior international correspondent, Matthew Chance, tweeted "Crisis ended when #rixos gunmen realised that #Libya outside of hotel doors was no longer Libya of old. Handed us their guns & said 'sorry.'"
The Rixos experience may have been rather brief -- and thankfully, bloodless -- but the hotel now deserves its place in the pantheon of legendary havens for traveling war correspondents. Here's a look at seven of the world's greatest hack haunts.
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