On April 12, 2005, at around 1 p.m. local time, a 50 year-old Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

ian national seized a regular bus

Bus

A bus is a road vehicle designed to carry passengers. Buses can have a capacity as high as 300 passengers. The most common type of bus is the single-decker bus, with larger loads carried by double-decker buses and articulated buses, and smaller loads carried by midibuses and minibuses; coaches are...

 with a number of school children in the town of Ennepetal

Ennepetal

Ennepetal is a town in the district of Ennepe-Ruhr-Kreis, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.The town was featured in the headlines when on April 12, 2005, a hostage taker snatched several school children from a school bus and took them as hostages, see Ennepetal hostage taking.- Division of the...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia

North Rhine-Westphalia

North Rhine-Westphalia is the most populous state of Germany, with four of the country's ten largest cities. The state was formed in 1946 as a merger of the northern Rhineland and Westphalia, both formerly part of Prussia. Its capital is Düsseldorf. The state is currently run by a coalition of the...

.

The kidnapper entered the bus at a bus stop in the Voerde

Voerde

Voerde is a town in the district of Wesel, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is situated on the right bank of the Rhine, approx. 10 km south-east of Wesel, and 20 km north of Duisburg.-City structure:According to art...

 district of Ennepetal. Aboard the bus, the kidnapper threatened the driver and the passengers with kitchen knives

Knife

A knife is a cutting tool with an exposed cutting edge or blade, hand-held or otherwise, with or without a handle. Knives were used at least two-and-a-half million years ago, as evidenced by the Oldowan tools...

, and tied a number of children together with some rope. He then dragged the tied-up children off the bus, at which point several children were able to flee. The man then pulled four girls aged between 11 and 16 into a nearby house, overpowering the house owner and dragging the four hostages into the cellar of the house. According to an eye witness, the hostage taker demanded to speak to the German authorities, asking for his family to be allowed to join him in Germany. However, no official contact could be established with the hostage taker.

At 6:12 p.m., police forces and a Spezialeinsatzkommando

Spezialeinsatzkommando

Spezialeinsatzkommandos are the special response units of the German state police forces. German SEKs are full-time units whose members do not perform any other duties, and are essentially the equivalent of American SWAT Teams...

 from the nearby city of Dortmund

Dortmund

Dortmund is a city in Germany. It is located in the Bundesland of North Rhine-Westphalia, in the Ruhr area. Its population of 585,045 makes it the 7th largest city in Germany and the 34th largest in the European Union....

stormed the building, freeing the hostages. One of the hostages and the kidnapper sustained minor injuries.