The 50 Worst Terrorist Attacks Read Free Page B

went on to develop a partnership with George Habash’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), conducting joint and contract attacks for the PFLP. Its membership eventually was picked off by authorities in a worldwide manhunt.
    The group came to international attention with the daring hijacking to North Korea of a Japan Airlines (JAL) plane. Its profile increased with machine-gun attacks in airports, bombings, counterfeiting, trafficking in women, and other criminal activities. While playing high-stakes hostage negotiation gambits, the group’s attack squads generally had an exit strategy and did not seek martyrdom for Marx.
    Incident: On March 31, 1970, a JAL B-727 left Tokyo for Fukuoka, but was hijacked shortly after a 7:30 a.m. takeoff by nine members, ages 16 to 27, of the Japanese URA (Sekigun-ha, Red Army Faction), who wielded samurai swords, daggers, pistols, and pipe bombs and demanded to be flown to Pyongyang, North Korea. The plane carried 3 crew, 4 stewardesses,and 122 passengers, mostly Japanese, including tourists, businessmen, students, a Roman Catholic Maryknoll priest, doctors on their way to a three-day medical conference in Fukuoka, and two Americans, including Herbert Brill. The terrorists tied up the male passengers, while others passed out candy to the children on board. They tied copilot Teiichi Ezaki to his seat. The pilot, Captain Shinji Ishida, claimed that the plane could not reach North Korea without refueling and landed at Itazuke air base outside Fukuoka at 8:59 a.m. Negotiations continued for five hours; the group allowed 12 children, 10 women, and an ailing elderly man to leave the plane in exchange for refueling. Two escort jets accompanied the plane as it left the air base.
    The South Koreans attempted to give the impression to the hijackers that the plane had entered North Korean airspace. They fired antiaircraft shells at the plane, scrambled fighter planes, and escorted it to an airfield that identified itself as Pyongyang but was really Kimpo Airport in Seoul. The airport was disguised to look like what Pyongyang might possibly look like, with soldiers and policeman dressed in communist uniforms. Girls sung greetings, and a bullhorn called for them to enter North Korea. The terrorists saw through the ruse when they spotted an American car parked nearby, as well as a U.S. Northwest Airlines plane and a U.S. Air Force DC-3 parked on the runways. The officials could not produce a photograph of Kim Il Sung and were tripped up on several points of communist dogma. The group threatened to blow up the plane if any more attempts to end the hijacking were made.
    The plane was moved to a corner of the airfield. The hijackers flicked the passenger cabin lights continually during the night in an attempt to demoralize the occupants. They also denied attempts to send food aboard, accepting only a few sandwiches. When mechanics wheeled a battery cart near one of the engines, the group interpreted this as meaning that the authorities would try to dismantle one of the engines. The hijackers again threatened to set off the pipe bombs that two of them were carrying. Japanese officials had identified two of the group as wanted on explosives charges—Takamaro Tamiya, 27, the group’s leader, and Tsuneo Umeuchi, a medical student—which gave credibility to the threat.
    The following day the temperature in the cabin rose to 107 degrees, and the hijackers allowed food, water, cigarettes, and blankets on board. They had also let slip their 8:00 A.M. deadline for clearance to fly out of Seoul. They were often extremely agitated and gave the impression that they were serious about harming the passengers despite their general politeness. Japanese Ambassador Masahide Kanayama urged caution on the part of the South Koreans.
    Japanese vice minister of transportation Shinjiro Yamamura flew to Seoul to negotiate with the hijackers, along with the ambassador, who had established radio