A Victory for Terrorism

By Thomas A. Sancton. Reported by Mohammed Aftab/Islamabad and William Stewart/Damascus

Blackmail, suspicious moves and abject surrender arouse anger and protest

Terrorism lives or dies on whether it achieves success. --Israeli Scholar Benzion Netanyahu

As the three young men clambered down the exit ramp at Damascus airport, holding their pistols high, their V-for-victory signs said it all. It was no empty bravado. They had just pulled off one of the most successful acts of terrorism in recent memory. They had commandeered a Pakistan International Airlines jet with impunity. They had held more than 100 people hostage for 13 days. In an escalating series of ultimatums, they had killed one passenger and threatened to blow up the others. Finally they had hit the jackpot: they won the release of 54 prisoners from Pakistan's President Mo hammed Zia ul-Haq -- and apparent freedom for themselves. The Pakistani prisoners, many of them accused murderers and all of them opponents of Zia's military regime, were duly flown to Damascus. As for the hijackers, their surrender to Syrian authorities appeared to be a mere formality on the road to convenient "disappearance."

Thus in an era when political skyjackings had seemed to be declining, a trio of determined gunmen brought that brand of political blackmail back to the forefront of world attention -- and proved that it could work. The incident continued to have ominous repercussions long after the last hostage had returned to the welcoming embrace of his family. It heightened international tensions, sparked a hot row between Washington and Moscow, and raised widespread fears of a possible new wave of hijackings. Warned Alitalia Security Chief Aristide Manopulo: "This could lead to a full-scale return to international air terrorism. The Pakistan hijack was completely successful and could open the way to others." (See box.)

Who was to blame for this spectacular triumph of terrorism? The list of suspects was long and tangled. First there were the security guards at Pakistan's Karachi International Airport, who inexplicably allowed three men to board a commercial jetliner with pistols and hand grenades. Then there were the Soviet and Afghan authorities at Kabul airport, where the hijacked plane stayed for six days. Despite repeated entreaties from Islamabad and Washington, they had shown little willingness to work toward ending the standoff. There were the Syrian officials in Damascus, who refused to let Zia send a Pakistani antiterrorist unit and also declined to launch a Syrian commando raid against the hijackers. There was Zia himself, who apparently had no military option left and therefore chose to give in to the demands to avoid a "bloodbath." Finally, there was the Libyan government, which initially offered asylum to the 54 Pakistani inmates--then reneged while its disinvited guests were literally in midair.

In the end, the Syrians were left to pick up the pieces. They accepted the Pakistani prisoners, put them up temporarily in the Damascus airport hotel and granted them "asylum." Syrian authorities seemed less certain what to call the disposition of the hijackers. A government spokesman said they were not being granted formal political asylum but rather, temporary refuge for "humanitarian" reasons. In light of Syria's past habit of letting hijackers disappear, neither prosecution of the threesome nor their return to Pakistan seemed likely.

Two of the gunmen had been wanted by Pakistani authorities even before the hijacking. The trio's 22-year-old leader, Salamullah Khan, a former science student at Karachi's Jinnah College, was accused of murder and other serious crimes. Nasir Jamal Khan, 22, also a former science student, was allegedly involved in the killing of another undergraduate. Only the third hijacker, Arshad Hussain, who was also a Karachi college student, had no previous police record.

All three claimed to belong to an underground group called Al Zulfikar, presumably named for ex-President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whom Zia deposed and had executed in 1979. An American passenger on the ill-fated flight, Frederick Hubbell, 29, said the hijackers were "deliberately erratic. Sometimes they were kind, sometimes they became very brutal--after all, they killed a man." Their victim: Pakistani Diplomat Tariq Rahim, shot in full view of the other passengers and dumped on the tarmac at Kabul.

Most of the 54 freed prisoners were dangerous criminals, according to Islamabad authorities. Nineteen were accused of murder or attempted murder. Revealingly, six had been charged with smuggling Soviet-made arms into Pakistan. Two had been convicted as Soviet spies and sentenced to 14 years. Eight others were charged with distributing antigovernment literature. The rest had been held on various charges of sabotage and subversion.

As more details emerged last week, the incident took on broader international dimensions. A central issue was the extent of Soviet and Afghan collaboration--or at least acquiescence--in the hijacking. Afghan authorities at Kabul airport had not only refused to let Pakistani negotiators talk to the hijackers, for instance, but had actively encouraged Islamabad to capitulate. Though their troops clearly controlled the airport, Soviet authorities turned down at least five U.S. requests that they help end the standoff. The Soviet claim: they had no responsibility for "the actions of the Afghan government." So flagrant had Moscow's obstructionism appeared that State Department Spokesman William Dyess concluded: "I don't see how the Soviets can entirely escape responsibility for what took place."

Moscow was quick to issue a sharp rejoinder. It denounced the State Department's remarks as "deliberate lies" intended to bolster U.S. "allegations of Soviet-backed international terrorism."

Few Western observers were persuaded by Moscow's protestations. "The connection between this terrorist activity and the Soviet Union is what really struck Europeans," said Dominique Moisi, deputy director of Paris' Institut Francais des Relations Internationales. "The Afghan regime and the Soviet Union connived at supporting an act of blatant international terrorism," charged Paul Wilkinson, professor of international relations at Scotland's University of Aberdeen.

Some of the most damning evidence of possible Soviet-Afghan complicity was provided by freed passengers afterward. Said Stewardess Naila Aziz: "The hijackers had only hand grenades and pistols at the time of the hijacking--but at Kabul they also had submachine guns." Dyess cited eyewitness reports to the effect that in Kabul "all three hijackers stood [on the tarmac] in view of Afghan and Soviet security personnel, without any apparent concern for their own safety." Passenger Hubbell's wife Charlotte said that the hijackers boasted of having been trained by the Palestine Liberation Organization. The P.L.O. connection seemed intriguing, since the organization has ties to three countries that, in one way or another, were involved in the hijacking episode: the Soviet Union, Syria and Libya.

Ironically, the hijacking may ultimately prove beneficial to the man against whom it was mounted: Zia. For one thing, the hijackers' professed allegiance to Bhuttoist sedition gave Zia a strong excuse to crack down even harder on his P.P.P. opponents at home. Second, the incident turned out to be an embarrassment to the Soviets, who have been seeking to destabilize Zia's regime because of his opposition to their Afghanistan invasion. Finally, the hostages-for-prisoners exchange allowed Zia to assume something of a humanitarian guise while evicting 54 dangerous political enemies. As he put it last week, Pakistan had rid itself of "some bad eggs." Perhaps. The rest of the world could only hope that Zia's troubled country had not also exported the seeds of more terrorism. --By Thomas A. Sancton. Reported by Mohammed Aftab/Islamabad and William Stewart/Damascus

With reporting by Mohammed Aftab/Islamabad and William Stewart/Damascus

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