Armed Hijackers Hold 50 Hostages Aboard Jetliner : Algeria: 36 people are released after plane lands. Pair demand fuel to continue flight.

Two young Algerians held about 50 hostages aboard a Boeing 737 for a second night, with security forces surrounding the plane at the airport in the east Algerian town of Annaba.

The armed men hijacked the domestic flight of the national carrier Air Algerie, which was carrying 88 people, including six crew members, on Friday evening. They seized the plane shortly after leaving the southern town of Ghardaia on a flight to the capital Algiers.

Late Saturday night, government negotiators at Les Salines airport, 35 miles from the Tunisian border, worked to secure the release of the remaining hostages.

The hijackers had released batches of passengers during the day Saturday, a total of 36 people.

Algiers Radio said earlier the hijackers had set free all 14 foreigners aboard the aircraft. Transport Minister Hassane Kahlouche said they included French, Italian, German and Japanese nationals.

But one French passenger, Marie Barrouillet, later told the official Algerian news agency APS that there were still 10 foreigners among the hostages, including French and Italian citizens.

APS said the plane was surrounded by security forces.

Barrouillet said the two young Algerian men stood up and went into the cockpit about 15 minutes after takeoff from Ghardaia. Both were armed, one with a machine gun.

Another unnamed woman passenger, interviewed on Algiers Radio, said the men, who did not look older than 25, ordered the pilot to fly to Tunis, but he landed at Annaba when Tunisian authorities refused to accept the plane.

Algiers Radio reported that the hijackers seemed to be protesting a crackdown on Muslim fundamentalists in Tunisia but Kahlouche said they had not made any political or ideological demands. “It’s just a criminal act,” he said.

Interior Minister Mohammed Salah Mohammedi contacted the hijackers again Saturday night and said their only demand was for fuel. But he said the plane would not leave Annaba.

“The two young hijackers are tired by the two last nights. . . . We have to take advantage of that,” he told APS.

Kahlouche said the hijackers had not harmed the six crew members or 51 remaining passengers, who include Algeria’s ambassador to Romania.

Barrouillet said the hijacker who guarded the passengers had behaved politely, but she did not understand the negotiations, which took place in Arabic. “They certainly didn’t seem like terrorists,” she said.