Israel Intercepts Libya Jet, Finds No Terrorists

The Israeli air force, hoping to capture Palestinian terrorist leaders, intercepted a Libyan executive jet in international airspace near Cyprus on Tuesday and forced it to land at a military air base here but did not find the wanted men on board.

The Israeli military command said it acted because the Libyan jet “was suspected to be carrying persons who were involved in planning attacks against Israel.” It did not identify those actually on board but said all had been freed.

It said the 12 passengers and crew were interrogated for five hours before they were allowed to continue their flight to Damascus, Syria.

State-run Tripoli radio said that Abdullah Ahmar, assistant secretary general of Syria’s ruling Socialist Baath Party, was among the passengers, but it did not identify the others.

‘Air Piracy,’ Syria Says

Syria condemned the interception as “air piracy” and a threat to civil aviation. At Syria’s request, the U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting Tuesday night.

Tripoli radio quoted Libya’s official Jana news agency as accusing the United States of assisting what it termed the “Jewish air pirates.”

“Vessels of the U.S. Navy, which had been maneuvering off the Libyan coast, provided the information about the Libyan plane to the air pirates,” the radio quoted Jana as saying.

In Washington, U.S. officials denied charges that the United States played a role in the interception.

Pentagon spokesman Robert Sims said, “There was no U.S. military involvement at all.” A State Department official added that Libyan charges of U.S. assistance to the Israelis are “a crock.” He added, “We had no foreknowledge or involvement in any shape or form.”

The State Department issued a statement saying that although in general the United States opposes the interception of aircraft in peacetime, “in certain very narrow counterterrorism cases, such measures can be justified.”

“The government of Israel made its own decision on the basis of its own evidence,” the statement said. “We are relieved that the aircraft was released with no loss of life or injury.”

Officials here refused to say specifically who they believed to be on board the Libyan jet, but the target was rumored to be Abu Nidal, head of a group said to be responsible for the Dec. 27 terrorist attacks on El Al Airlines’ check-in counters at the Rome and Vienna airports. Twenty people died in those rifle and hand grenade assaults, including five Americans, one Israeli and four terrorists.

Both the United States and Israel have charged that Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi was implicated in the airport attacks.

Kadafi chaired a weekend meeting in Tripoli of 22 hard-line Palestinian and other Arab groups to plan a response to U.S. economic sanctions imposed against Libya in the wake of the December massacres.

The Associated Press reported from Tripoli on Tuesday that those who attended the meeting had agreed to form a suicide force to strike at American targets worldwide if the United States attacks Libya or any other Arab nation.

Not Seen at Meeting

AP said Abu Nidal was not seen at the meeting, although his second in command was there. Also present was George Habash, head of the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the target of an earlier Israeli air interception attempt.

On Aug. 10, 1973, Israeli jets forced an Iraq Airways passenger liner to land at a secret air base in Israel, only to find that Habash had changed his flight plans at the last minute.

While it may have been an intelligence failure, Israeli officials insisted that Tuesday’s action was nonetheless justified, given the threat of international terrorism.

Some cited as a precedent the U.S. interception last fall of an EgyptAir flight carrying the men who hijacked the Achille Lauro cruise ship and killed a wheelchair-bound American, Leon Klinghoffer. The hijackers were flown to Sicily and turned over to Italian authorities for prosecution.

Abba Eban, head of Israel’s parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, conceded that Tuesday’s interception violated international law. However, he added: “What determines international reaction is the degree of success. If (the person Israel sought) had been aboard, then the world would have cheered. But since Israel failed, I’m sure there will be criticism.”

“It is known that Libya is a center of international terrorism, and the Libyan government assists the terrorist organizations to perpetrate terrorist acts against Israel, against Israelis, and against Jews,” said Yitzhak Shamir, foreign minister and alternate prime minister. “And when reports come in about such a danger, Israel has the right to take measures in order to prevent acts of murder and sabotage.”

Not Above Suspicion

A spokesman in the office of Prime Minister Shimon Peres commented: “The suspicion was the terrorists were on board, and in such a case it’s legitimate. I mean, Libya is not exactly the country that is above suspicion.”

And Deputy Foreign Minister Ronnie Milo contended that Israel was serving the entire international community by using “every means . . . to eradicate the radicalism which exists in the Middle East, and (which) is influencing life in the region and, in fact, throughout the world.”

Israel radio reported this morning that the decision to make the interception was made by Peres, Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the chief of staff, Gen. Moshe Levy.

First word of the incident came about 1 p.m. Tuesday (3 a.m. PST), when the pilot of the Libyan executive jet, reportedly a Grumman Gulfstream II, radioed air traffic control in Cyprus to say that he had been intercepted by two jets rocking their wings in the internationally accepted signal to “follow me.”

The Cyprus tower then lost contact with the jet and at one point launched an air-sea search operation in the belief that the plane might have ditched in the sea, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported.

No Shots Fired

The Israeli military command said later that the Libyan pilot “obeyed the order” to follow the fighters without any warning shots being fired. The plane landed at what Israel radio described as a military airfield in the north of the country at about 1:40 p.m.

The Libyan aircraft was finally allowed to take off again for Damascus at about 6:30 p.m. (8:30 a.m. PST), according to an Israeli military spokesman. Sources at Damascus airport said it landed there about 90 minutes later.

The Associated Press reported from Damascus that one of the passengers, Omar Harb, secretary general of the Lebanese Socialist Union, said the Israeli interceptors were Mirage fighters. About 150 commandos surrounded the aircraft as soon as it touched down, he said.

‘Frisked and Searched Us’

“They ordered us to come out one by one, and frisked and searched us down to our shoes,” he said. “Then they searched the fuselage.”

Jordan television reported late Tuesday that King Hussein had telephoned Syrian President Hafez Assad pledging his country’s support for diplomatic efforts to censure Israel for the interception.

The official Syrian Arab News Agency quoted Gen. Hekmat Chahabi, chief of staff of the Syrian armed forces, as saying: “We will answer this crime by teaching those who committed it a lesson they will not forget. We will choose the method, the time and the place.”

SANA also quoted Syrian Vice President Abdel-Halim Khaddam as saying, “We cannot let this aggression pass without letting the aggressor get the proper answer.”

‘Partners in Crime’

A commentator on Tripoli radio made similar threats: “This act is a provocation that will open the door to others, and it is only the Americans and the Zionists, those partners in crime, who will be responsible for this disruption . . . until there will not be a single remaining safe means of travel in the region.”

In New York, U.N. spokesman Francois Giuliani said that Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar is “taking this matter up urgently with the Israeli authorities. He is deeply concerned at what appears to be a serious infringement of freedom of civil aviation and an act that could aggravate the already tense situation in the area.” At the emergency meeting of the Security Council, Syrian Ambassador Dia-Allah Fattal warned that the Israeli interception was the “beginning of a new terrorism that will destroy the concept of civil aviation.”

Israeli Ambassador Benjamin Netanyahu responded that if Israel is to take action against terrorists “who are now planning their next attacks, then we must understand that we cannot allow them to hide behind their definition of international law.”

“Nor should we allow them the ultimate victory of allowing them to assign the name terrorist to those of their victims who dare fight back.”

The meeting adjourned without taking any action.