Word: hijackings
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Only a few at the topmost levels of U.S. policymaking had foreseen how Veliotes would get his wish. More than 30 hours after the seagoing hijack drama had ended, a flight of four F-14 Tomcat fighter-interceptors from the aircraft carrier Saratoga pulled alongside a chartered EgyptAir Boeing 737 jetliner just south of the Mediterranean island of Crete. The Egyptian aircraft had left Cairo's Al Maza military airport 1 hour and 45 minutes earlier, apparently headed for Tunis. Aboard it were the hijackers, accompanied by two representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization and a number of Egyptian diplomats...
From the beginning, Israeli officials insisted that Arafat not only had been aware of the hijack plot before it took place, but had been involved in the planning. Well before the EgyptAir interception took place, some diplomats and intelligence analysts had reached the conclusion that the Achille Lauro hijacking was in fact a bungled terrorist attempt to launch an attack on the Israeli harbor of Ashdod, using the cruise liner merely as transport. They also believed that while Arafat was aware of the plan to attack Ashdod, neither he nor P.L.F. Leader Abul Abbas knew about the liner hijacking...
That theory received indirect support on the day of the EgyptAir interception. A P.L.F. statement delivered in Cyprus accepted responsibility for the hijacking, apologized, and admitted that Ashdod was the original terrorist target. Said the statement: "The aim of the operation was not to hijack the ship or its passengers or any civilian of any nationality...
...that Weir might have been held for a time in Iran. To that, U.S. spokesmen responded with a frosty "No comment." But top Administration officials clearly indicated that Syria had no part in Weir's release, despite the prominent role Damascus played in securing the freedom of the TWA hijack victims. A senior State Department official may also have pointed indirectly to Iran when he said the U.S. had offered to help ease the isolation of countries "now outside the pale of international behavior" if the hostages were returned...
According to one hostage, the hijackers acted "like mental cases," demanding at different times a helicopter, millions of dollars, automatic weapons and flight plans for Europe and the Middle East. Following the plane to Curaçao was a team of commandos from Venezuela. During the 17 hours the plane sat on the runway, while passengers sweltered inside, a team of anti-hijack specialists from the U.S. arrived. In the dark hours of Tuesday morning, a commando crept under the plane and deflated one of its tires; the other three tires were then shot out, immobilizing the aircraft...