It was a hijacking with a difference.
There were no political demands. There wereno negotiations over hostages.
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| The moment the hijack was thwarted |
The hijackers had a far more sinister planfor Air France Flight 8969 - one that was to provide a blueprint for the alQaeda attacks of 11 September, 2001. It was thwarted only after a siege ofquite extraordinary drama.
The story began on Christmas Eve, 1994.Four men in Algerian police uniforms boarded the Air France flight as it sat onthe tarmac in Algiers.
They said they needed to check thepassengers’ passports but their nervous behaviour - and the fact they werearmed - raised the suspicions of one of the flight attendants.
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| Hijackers belonged to Armed Islamic Group (seen here) |
Algerian troops based at the airport alsogrew suspicious: they had not expected the plane to be searched. They begansurrounding the plane, at which point the four ‘police’ revealed that they wereterrorists. The plane had been hijacked.
The first thing they did was to make allthe women on board cover their heads. They then broadcast a chilling messageover the intercom: ‘Allah has selected us as his soldiers. We are here to wagewar in his name.’
The airport control tower tried tonegotiate, but the terrorists were very different from those involved inprevious hijacks. They said - ominously - that they intended to fly the planeto Paris.
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| The plane on the ground: destination, Eiffel Tower |
The Algerian authorities refused to removethe landing stairs, thereby preventing the plane from taking off. The hijackersdecided to force the issue. They singled out one of the passengers - anAlgerian police officer - and shot him in the head.
‘Don’t kill me. I have a wife and child,’were his last words.
The leader of the hijackers, Abdul Yahia,was ruthless and fanatical. No less fanatical was his sidekick, named Lofti. Hewas given the nickname ‘Madman’ by the unfortunate hijacked passengers. Anotherhijacker was known as ‘the Killer’, since it was he who undertook theshootings.
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| First, the hijack. Then, the movie: The Assault |
He soon led away his second victim, acommercial attaché from the Vietnamese Embassy in Algiers named Bui Giang To.He was also shot in the head
The night time hours were extremely tense,although there were no more shootings. In the morning - on Christmas Day - theFrench Interior Minister learned some terrible news from a mole in the Algiers IslamicGroup who had planned the hijack.
‘The terrorists’ true aim was to crash theplane in Paris,’ he said. In fact, they intended to crash it into the EiffelTower, thereby destroying one of the great symbols of France.
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| Hijackers' goal |
When the plane was once again refusedclearance for take off, a third passenger was shot. The French government nowpleaded with its Algerian counterpart to allow the plane to get airborne, butwith only enough fuel to reach Marseilles.
On 26 December, the plane finally took off,touching down in Marseilles at 3.30am. The hijackers demanded 27 tonnes offuel, far more than the 9 tonnes needed to reach Paris. The inevitableconclusion was that the plane was to be turned into a deadly fireball.
By now, a crack French military unit was onstandby, waiting to storm the aircraft. The moment for action came at 5pm, whenYahia was about to order the death of another passenger.
The crack forces rapidly moved theair-stairs towards the airplane. They then forced the doors and entered theplane, firing all the time. The hijackers returned fire and bullets were soonflying through the cabin. Grenades were also detonated, filling the plane withdense smoke.
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| Deadly 9/11 attacks |
The fire-fight was described by one flightattendant as ‘an apocalypse.’ But it was an effective apocalypse. Within 20minutes, all four hijackers were dead and the 166 passengers and crew wereescorted to safety. They were shocked, stunned and exhausted from their ordeal,but at least they were still alive.
The hijackers never reached Paris and theirultimate goal of the Eiffel Tower. But they provided the blueprint for a verysimilar, and far more deadly hijacking on 11 September, 2001.
On that occasion, nearly 3,000 innocentpeople tragically lost their lives.
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UK paperback |
NOW PUBLISHED IN PAPERBACK
And for my American readers, it is now published under the title: The Boy Who Went to War: The Story of a Reluctant German Soldier in WWII available here
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Newly published US edition |
'Idiosyncratic and utterly fascinating... an extraordinary tale of hardship, horror and amazing good fortune' James Delingpole, The Daily Mail
