Vienna Terrorists Planned to Take Hostages, Fly to Tel Aviv : Austrian Official Says They Were in Anti-Arafat Group

Two of three Palestinian terrorists who attacked the Vienna airport said they originally planned to take hostages, force them onto a plane and fly them to Tel Aviv, Interior Minister Karl Blecha said today.

“Their intention was to cause great confusion in the departure lounge by throwing hand grenades and take hostages at the check-in counter” of the Israeli national airline El Al, Blecha told a news conference.

Blecha said his information was based on the questioning of both terrorists, but he made clear that most of the details came mainly from the less seriously wounded of the two. The third of the Palestinians was killed.

“By means of the hostages taken, they planned to extort from Austrian authorities the flight out,” he said. If they could not escape, they would have killed Israelis they had taken hostage, Blecha said.

Three Killed in Attack

Three people died in the attack Friday, including one terrorist killed by police as he attempted to flee. The two others were wounded and captured.

Almost simultaneously, four gunmen attacked the El Al check-in counter at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Airport. Fifteen people died there, including three of four gunmen. Five of the victims were Americans.

Blecha said the gunmen’s plan to commandeer a plane at Vienna’s Schwechat Airport was foiled by gunfire from police and Israeli security guards that prevented the terrorists from reaching the airport’s top floor, and forced them down a stairwell.

The two surviving terrorists, questioned separately by police and a magistrate, said they were members of the Al Asifa organization of Abu Nidal, a Palestinian splinter group hostile to Yasser Arafat’s faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

New Actions Planned

Blecha quoted one of the prisoners as saying the group was planning to fly to Tel Aviv with the hostages on board “in order to carry out new actions.”

Blecha said the two Palestinians, under treatment in a prison infirmary, told investigators “with great pride” that they belonged to the Al Asifa group of Abu Nidal, who broke with Arafat 10 years ago. One of them said he was an employee of the Abu Nidal organization, the minister said.

Austrian police held the Abu Nidal group responsible for the May 1, 1981, assassination of Vienna City Councilman Heinz Nittel, chairman of the Austro-Israeli Society, and an attack several months later on a Vienna synagogue in which two people were killed.

Blecha said the three gunmen, who were equipped with three Kalashnikov automatic rifles and seven hand grenades, made no preparations for an escape from the airport by car. But after the airport assault, they took a car and attempted to flee.

It was still unclear where the weapons came from and how they were smuggled into Austria, Blecha said.

The terrorists claimed they had traveled on Tunisian passports but destroyed them before the attack. Tunisia is the only Arab country whose citizens may travel to Austria without a visa, Blecha said.