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Saudi Forces Storm Hijacked Russian Plane
RIYADH, March 16 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A hijacker, an air stewardess and a passenger died when Saudi special forces raided a Russian plane commandeered by three armed Chechens to the holy Muslim city of Medina, bringing a dramatic end to the hostage crisis.
Doctors at Medina airport said a woman was stabbed to death and two men shot as a tense stand-off between the Saudi authorities and the hijackers, armed with knives, was brought an end on Friday, CNN reports.
Saudi state-run television showed about a dozen commandos, pistols drawn, climbing ladders and breaking through the cockpit window and doors.
At least two hijackers were shown pinned to the ground and restrained by commandos in bulletproof vests. Television footage then cut to of dozens of passengers flooding down a mobile stairway to freedom.
More than 120 other people who had been on board the Vnukovo Airlines flight have been released. Several were injured, though the extent of their injuries is not clear, CNN adds.
"One of the hijackers killed the air stewardess when the Special Forces raided the plane. The special forces retaliated and killed the hijacker," a high-ranking Saudi official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said.
Sources in the Russian foreign ministry told Interfax that the hijackers, who slit her throat with a knife, killed the stewardess.
"The terrorists cut an artery in her neck," the sources said.
"Another woman and a passenger were wounded," the ministry spokesman said, adding that the "aim of the operation was to save the passengers and crew members with a minimum of losses."
"The operation was undertaken in a record time after the hijackers threatened to blow up the plane," he said.
The spokesman added that the assault came after "an agreement between Saudi and Russian authorities after negotiations [with the hijackers] reached an impasse."
A Russian diplomat at the scene said, "three people - a hijacker, an air stewardess and a Turkish passenger - were wounded in the raid and later succumbed to their injuries."
Later, the office of Sergei Yastrzhembsky, the top spokesman on Chechnya, said the Turkish passenger might have died at the hands of the hostage-takers.
A representative of the Chechen separatist movement identified two of the hijackers as Aslambek Arsayev, the former Chechen Interior Minister and/or minister for state security, and a veteran of the war with Russia, and his brother, Sufian, BBC reports.
Arsayev, according to Chechen sources, was wounded in the first Chechen war against Russia and is reputed to be "a man of honor."
Yastrzhembsky told Interfax news agency there appeared to have been a "shootout" onboard the Russian charter plane.
But a Saudi official had said they were armed only with a knife, a pick and what appeared to be a bomb.
Saudi security forces stormed the jet with the green light of the Russian authorities.
The Saudi official said "Moscow had offered to rush an anti-terrorist unit to Riyadh, which the Saudis had categorically refused."
"The assault was undertaken only by Saudi forces without help from any other party," he said.
The Saudis said they decided to storm the plane after reaching "a dead end" in negotiations during the 18 hours the Vnukova Airlines Tupolev 154 jet was parked on the tarmac at Medina, BBC adds.
A Saudi interior ministry spokesman, quoted by the official SPA news agency, said, "a unit of the Saudi anti-terrorist force raided the plane, freed the hostages and arrested the three hijackers in a quick operation."
Saudi authorities had earlier "rejected a demand by the hijackers to leave" Saudi Arabia, an airport official said.
Special forces were deployed after the resumption of talks following a break of several hours overnight.
The hijackers had demanded that the plane, with more than 100 hostages aboard, be given enough fuel for a flight of up to 5,000 kilometers (3,000 miles).
The demand was made shortly after contacts resumed between Saudi negotiators and the Chechens early Friday, police said.
Saudi and Russian officials said the hijackers had freed overnight or allowed to escape about 50 hostages out of the 162 passengers and 12 crew aboard after landing following the hijack Thursday afternoon of the flight from Istanbul to Moscow.
The hijackers were trying to call attention to what they considered atrocities committed by Russia in their native Chechnya, according to a Chechen representative in Jordan. At one point during the hijacking, a Chechen flag was seen taped to the side of the plane as it sat on the Medina tarmac, according to The New York Times.
"They had made political demands which are not very clear and are linked to the war in Chechnya," a Russian diplomat said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had set up a crisis cell headed by the federal security services' deputy director, Vladimir Pronichev, to handle the hijacking from their end, the Kremlin said. Pronichev said Putin had wanted to end the drama through peaceful means.
Chechen leaders, however, denied having anything to do with the hijacking to Islam's second holiest city after nearby Mecca.
"Taking hostages and blackmail is not how we lead our struggle," a rebel Internet site quoted officials representing Chechen separatist President Aslan Maskhadov as saying.
Russia has long accused Saudi Arabia of lending support to Chechen separatists.
In July, a Riyadh official denounced Russia's crackdown on predominantly Muslim Chechnya as "inhumane" and called for Chechens' right to self-determination.
The most radical Chechen faction is led by warlord Basayev and Commander Khattab, who subscribe to Wahhabism, a puritanical Islamic movement enforced in the Saudi kingdom.
Moscow has also accused Turkey of being a refuge for Chechen liberators. Ankara has denied the accusations and, in February, agreed to boost bilateral security cooperation with Moscow.
In January 1996, a pro-Chechen commando group held hostage more than 200 passengers for three days on a ferry hijacked from a Black Sea port to protest the Russian war in Chechnya.
Russian troops pulled out of the secessionist republic after defeat in the 1994-96 conflict, but stormed back on October 1, 1999, in an operation that official sources say has cost the lives of some 2,800 Russians.
Putin this year announced a partial troop withdrawal from the republic, although specifics remain vague.
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