Page 191 - Encyclopedia Of Terrorism

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168———Hijacking

organizations, along with a variety of other Islamic In 1961, a commercial airliner flying from Miami to
terror groups, had held strategy meetings in Lebanon. Key West, Florida, was hijacked. The plane was forced
to fly to Cuba, beginning the decade-long hijacking
See also TERRY ANDERSON; ALI ATWA; HASSAN IZZ-AL-DIN;
spree known as the “Cuban shuttle,” as planes between
IMAD FAYEZ MUGHNIYAH; TWA FLIGHT 847 HIJACKING
the United States, Cuba, and Mexico were frequently
hijacked by homesick Cubans or American leftists.
Further Reading
Although the hijacking of aircraft would soon
Anderson, Terry A. Den of Lions: Memoirs of Seven Years. become a common terror tactic for terrorist groups
New York: Crown, 1993. working to free comrades or gain publicity for
Drake, Laura. Hegemony and Its Discontents: United States a cause, many early hijackings were motivated
Policy Toward Iraq, Iran, Hamas, the Hezbollah and by simple greed. In a legendary 1971 attempt, Dan
Their Responses. Annandale, VA: United Association “D. B.” Cooper took over a Northwest Airlines plane
for Studies and Research, 1997. over the Pacific Northwest of the United States. He
Fisk, Robert. Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War. London: gathered $200,000 in ransom and then parachuted out
Deutsch, 1990.
Jaber, Hala. Hezbollah: Born With a Vengeance. New York: the back of the plane, never to be seen again.
Columbia University Press, 1997. The situation in the Middle East drove hijackings
Muller, Andrew. “We’re Coming to Get You: The U.S. Says in the late 1960s and 1970s, as Palestinian terrorists
Hizbollah Is a Bunch of Evil Terrorists Who Should Be brought notoriety to their cause. The first hijacking
Destroyed. The Lebanese Set-up Insists Its Little More related to the Palestinian movement happened in July
Than a Group of Do-gooders, and Andrew Muller 1968, when hijackers from the Popular Front for the
Discovers That, Well, Perhaps They’re Both Right.” The Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) commandeered Israeli
Independent (London), April 7, 2002, 20. El Al Flight 707 in Rome and forced it to fly to
Pelletiere, Stephen C. Hamas and Hizbollah: The Radical Algiers. Flight 707 is often referred to as the only
Challenge to Israel in the Occupied Territories. Carlisle successful hijacking attempt aboard an El Al plane.
Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army On August 29, 1969, Palestinian Leila Khaled, a
War College, 1994.
member of the PFLP, carried out her first hijacking and
captured world headlines. Khaled and a cohort stormed
the cockpit of TWA Flight 840 from Rome to Tel Aviv.
HIJACKING They redirected the plane to Damascus, where the
passengers and crew were released unharmed.
On September 6, 1970, Khaled and other Pale-
Also known as skyjacking, airline hijacking was stinian terrorists from the PFLP carried out the first
first used as an act of terrorism in the late 1960s by mass hijacking in history. Khaled, who underwent
terrorist groups who took command of flights and plastic surgery in order to pass airport security, and a
held passengers and crew hostage in order to make companion hijacked an El Al jet from Amsterdam,
political demands. Press reports have placed the while others took planes from TWA, Pan Am, and
total number of airplane hijackings throughout Swissair. Armed guards aboard the El Al flight opened
history to about 1,000. Although many past hijack- fire, taking Khaled prisoner and killing her compan-
ings ended in tragedy, the scope of hijacking horrors ion. However, the other three planes were successfully
widened on September 11, 2001, when Al Qaeda hijacked and taken to an airport near Amman, Jordan.
operatives carried out a hijacking plot that created The hijackers released the hostages in exchange for
missiles out of commercial jetliners, destroying the Palestinian prisoners, then blew up the planes. The
World Trade Center, damaging the Pentagon, and mass hijackings provoked Jordan’s King Hussein to
killing thousands. declare war on the Palestinian groups in Jordan.
The first recorded air hijacking took place in 1931, The frequent hijackings soon caused the United
in Peru. However, hijackings did not become well States and other countries to take preventive action.
known until after World War II, when Eastern Fifty countries ratified in 1970 a U.N. convention call-
Europeans attempted to take over flights and cross over ing for stricter measures toward those who unlawfully
the line from communist-controlled Europe, landing seizure aircraft. Airports introduced screening and
outside of the so-called Iron Curtain. other new security measures in the early 1970s, and the