Sorry about the somewhat unwieldy thread title.
Anyway, my vote goes for this guy, Salman Raduyev. If this link doesn’t work properly, click on “The Players” to the left of the screen and then on his name. He took 3000 hostages in a hospital in a village in Dagestan. Russian forces surrounded the entire village but he still managed to bust out with 100 hostages and get back to Chechnya.
Then he got shot in the head and was presumed dead but he reappeared four months later having had plastic surgery.
Now, apparently, he’s dead. Or is he?