Iran and Hezbollah, hijackers of planes
Turki Al-Dakhil/Al Arabiya/February 25/16
Saudi Arabia is confronting several schemes plotted by Iran. A few days ago, the Manila Times reported that it saw confidential documents confirming that a team of 10 people – including six Yemenis – have left Iran in separate flights via Turkey and arrived in several countries in South East Asia in an attempt to execute their plan to blow up and hijack Saudi airplanes.
Iran and its affiliates, primarily the terrorist group Hezbollah, have a history of targeting passenger planes. On April 29, 1986, Kuwait said it had thwarted an attempt by a group of 12 people to hijack a Kuwaiti Airways plane and take it to an unknown location in East Asia. Iran and its affiliates, primarily the terrorist group Hezbollah, have a history of targeting passenger planes. The investigation accused Imad Mughniyeh, then-Hezbollah’s leader of security apparatuses. In 1988, he hijacked the Kuwaiti Al-Jaberiya jet and forced it to alter its route toward Mashhad in Iran and then to Larnaca in Cyprus. Kuwaiti passengers Abdullah Khalidi and Khaled Ayoub were shot dead by Mughniyeh and dumped off the plane. Back then, Mughniyeh – upon direct orders from Hezbollah leaders – demanded the release of 17 prisoners held by Kuwait for their role in the 1983 bombings that in one day targeted the country’s major power plant, international airport, the American and French embassies, a petrochemical plant and a residential compound. Iran, Hezbollah and hijacked planes are a never-ending story of criminality that knows no limits or mercy.