Word: iraqi
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...cloudless evening late last week when Iraqi Airways Flight 006 lifted off from Beirut International Airport bound for Baghdad. Aboard the Caravelle jet were 74 passengers and eight crew members, none expecting much more than a smooth hop to the Iraqi capital. Suddenly, Israeli Phantom jets pounced, ordering the helpless captain to fly instead to a military airbase near Haifa. He obeyed. As he told Beirut Control: "I don't want a repeat of the Libyan thing," in which Israeli jets last February shot down a Libyan airliner over the Sinai, killing 108 of the 113 aboard, after...
...Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, whom Israeli intelligence believed were on the flight. They were not. After carefully interrogating everyone aboard, the Israelis allowed them to reboard, and the Caravelle returned to Beirut less than three hours after taking off. Among the passengers were the Iraqi Planning Minister and an Iraqi ambassador, who were treated with proper diplomatic deference...
There were conflicting reports as to just what had tripped up the Israelis. One account said that they had confused the flight with another Iraqi plane scheduled to leave Beirut at about the same time. Another was that due to a long delay in taking off from Beirut, Habash finally decided not to wait and canceled his reservations...
With Soviet acquiescence, if not encouragement, Iraq's left-wing Baathist regime has been generating border trouble with both Iran to the east and Kuwait to the south. Skirmishes between Iraqi and Iranian border guards are common. Russia (along with China) has supplied weapons to guerrillas trying to overthrow Sultan Qabus of Oman. If these rebels were successful, they could bottleneck the gulf by sinking a supertanker in the narrow channel that is now negotiated by 100 ships in the Strait of Hormuz each day. The short-range Soviet aim seems to be to keep the U.S. on edge...
...Progress. As the plane neared the Middle East, new problems began to appear. After Beirut and Damascus airports refused landing permission (probably in fear of later Israeli reprisals), the 747 flew on to the Iraqi city of Basra, near the head of the Persian Gulf. The terrorists might well have received a warm reception at the hands of the Israeli-hating Iraqis, but Basra's airport was too small to allow the jumbo jet to land. Finally, the plane landed at Dubai, one of seven tiny states that make up the United Arab Emirates, at the mouth...