Around the World

Hijack negotiations underway in London

LONDON - Britain's hijack negotiators settled in yesterday for what could be days of talks with the armed group still holding 157 passengers and crew on the Afghan airliner that was diverted to London's Stansted Airport after a hop-scotch journey across central Asia on Sunday.

The hostages on the plane, including about 20 children, were said to be uncomfortable but calm as they headed into their third day of captivity. Earlier yesterday, eight passengers were freed and told police they had been treated decently. But nobody could say when the ordeal might end for the others.

The standard British approach to hijacking cases is to keep the plane on the ground, surrounded by soldiers, and just keep talking. "I will say it could be a very protracted technique," said police officer Joe Edwards, one of the negotiators. "It could go on for days.''

It wasn't clear late yesterday exactly what the hijackers are seeking, but there were suggestions that they represent a dissident group battling against Afghanistan's ruling Taliban movement.

If so, the group may have been encouraged by the December hijacking of an Indian passenger jet that was taken to Kandahar, Afghanistan. case, the Indian government granted part of the hijackers' demands, releasing three jailed Kashmiri militants. In return, the hostages and the hijackers were allowed to go free.

Speaking to reporters yesterday in Islamabad, Pakistan, Afghan Ambassador Saeed Mohammad Haqqani rejected any comparison to the December hijacking.

In December, Haqqani said, the Indian government indicated a willingness to bargain. "The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan accepted that fact and we collaborated," he said.

But with an Afghan airliner now on British soil, the Taliban is taking a much tougher line. The Taliban minister for civil aviation, Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor, urged the British early yesterday to end the crisis by storming the plane.

That prospect seems unlikely, but it is also unlikely that the British will cut a deal to let the hijackers go free. Although the hijacked jet was permitted to land and take off again Sunday in three different countries, the British appear to have no inclination to let the hijackers fly away.

The Boeing 727 operated by Afghanistan's Ariana Airlines was seized by a group of six to eight men armed with rifles and grenades, according to the passengers allowed to leave the

plane. The plane, on a domestic flight, was diverted first to Kazakhstan, then to Uzbekistan, and then to Moscow. At each stop, the plane took on fuel and food and then took off again.

But when the jet entered British airspace early Monday, shortly after midnight London time, it was directed to Stansted, a relatively small airport northeast of London where Britain's anti-hijack squads train for rescue operations.

Taliban officials seemed pleased that the problem was in Britain's lap. Abdul Rahman Zahid, the deputy foreign minister, told reporters in Frankfurt: "It depends on the U.K. authorities to deal with the terrorists. It's in their hands now.''

In Islamabad, Taliban ambassador placed the blame for the hijacking on Ahmed Shah Masood's Northern Alliance, the main armed opposition group in Afghanistan.

Haqqani read a statement from the Taliban's top leader, Mohammad Omar, saying it was his regime's "policy'' not to negotiate with terrorists. "If we accede to their demands, it will open the way for further hijackings in the future,'' the statement said.

Taliban officials said they were investigating whether the armed hijackers had entered the plane "through the pilots or some other means,'' suggesting members of the Ariana flight crew might have collaborated with them.

A spokesman for Masood has denied involvement in the hijacking, and reportedly suggested that a dissident opposition leader, Gul Agha, might be responsible. But Afghan officials here discounted that possibility.

The Taliban officials said they could not confirm reports that the hijackers had demanded the release of Ismail Khan, the ailing former military commander and provincial governor who has been jailed by the Taliban since 1997.

LA TIMES-WASHINGTON POST-02-07-00 2117EST

Barak launches air attacks on terrorists

JERUSALEM - Under mounting domestic pressure to avenge devastating Hezbollah attacks on Israeli soldiers in south Lebanon, Prime Minister Ehud Barak launched air attacks today against targets deep into Lebanon, including the outskirts of Beirut, the capital.

Israeli fighter planes struck at Baalbek, knocking out power to the ancient city used as a headquarters by the Hezbollah in eastern Lebanon. They struck at power stations near Beirut and Tripoli in northern Lebanon, plunging both of Lebanon's largest cities into darkness.

Preparing for possible retaliation from Hezbollah rockets poised in south Lebanon, residents across northern Israel's mountainous border with Lebanon were ordered into bomb shelters.

Convoys of Israeli civilian cars left the town most frequently attacked, Kiryat Shemona. Israeli soldiers were ordered to report to command posts along the border with Lebanon.

The military vowed to continue striking Hezbollah targets, and warned that any retaliatory attack inside Israel would bring an expansion of the conflict and a "sharp response" by Israel.

Israel periodically bombs suspected Hezbollah sites in south Lebanon, where it has maintained a security zone since 1985. But these strikes went deeper into Lebanon than any since last June.

They were carried out as Israeli officials debated the wisdom of pulling their forces out of Lebanon completely before the July target date set by Barak in the hope that by then he could come to some arrangement with Syria, which effectively controls Lebanon.

Barak has been driven to act against Lebanon in the wake of a series of Hezbollah attacks that left four Israeli soldiers dead in south Lebanon in the last week.

The growing toll of dead and injured Israeli soldiers was brought vividly home to television viewers Sunday night with graphic close-up footage of the wounded lying on the ground receiving medical attention while they waited for a helicopter to evacuate them to a hospital. One of those killed was a medic treating the wounded.

Barak set the stage for retaliation, accusing Hezbollah of systematically violating an agreement reached in 1996 to prevent attacks on civilians. Barak said the guerrillas flouted the accord by firing from civilian villages in south Lebanon, and warned of a "painful price."

"We shall struggle, we shall see to it and we shall ensure that those who hit us will be hit," Barak told a group of young Labor Party supporters at Israel's parliament, adding, "Those who send them will be punished."

The choice of infrastructure targets, not just guerrilla sites, meant that Israel has opted to punish not just Hezbollah, but Lebanese civilians as well, as occurred last year under former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israeli officials put responsibility on the United States, as the powerful mediator of the peace process with Syria, to pressure Damascus to rein in Hezbollah. The United States said Monday it was continuing to press all sides to exercise restraint, but officials sounded resigned to Israeli action. 2

Distributed by the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service=

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