An American journalist who was held hostage in Lebanon in the 1980s has died.

Associated Press correspondent Terry Anderson, one of the oldest hostages in the United States, abducted from the street in war-torn Lebanon in 1985 and held for nearly seven years, died Sunday at age 76.

Terry Anderson, who described his abduction and harrowing imprisonment by Islamic militants in his best-selling 1993 memoir “The Lion’s Den,” died Sunday at his home in Greenwood Lake, New York, the Associated Press (AP) news agency reported Sunday. . news, citing the reporter’s daughter, Suloma Anderson.

The cause of death is not yet known, although the daughter said Anderson had recently undergone heart surgery.

Returning to the United States in 1991, Anderson taught journalism at several universities but also struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder, the AP reported.

He received millions of euros in frozen Iranian assets after a federal court found the country was responsible for their seizure, but ended up losing everything, even declaring bankruptcy in 2009.

In 1985, he was one of several Westerners kidnapped by members of the Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah during a war that plunged Lebanon into chaos.

As the AP’s chief Middle East correspondent, Anderson spent years reporting on the rising violence engulfing Lebanon as the country fought a war with Israel and Iran financed militant groups trying to overthrow the government.

On March 16, 1985, a day off, he took a break to play tennis with former AP photographer Don Mell and was driving Mell home when armed kidnappers pulled him from the car.

The target, he said, was the fact that he was one of the few Westerners still in Lebanon and that his role as a journalist had raised suspicion among Hezbollah members.

What followed was nearly seven years of brutality, during which he was beaten, chained to a wall, threatened with death, often had guns pointed at his head, and was often kept in solitary confinement for long periods of time.

Anderson was the oldest of several Western hostages Hezbollah has kidnapped over the years, including Terry Waite, a former envoy for the Archbishop of Canterbury who arrived to try to negotiate his release.

According to his stories and those of other hostages, he was also the most hostile prisoner, constantly demanding better food and treatment, discussing religion and politics with his captors, and teaching the other hostages sign language and where to hide messages so they could communicate in private. .