4 Hijackers Slain After Airport Siege in Singapore; Passengers, Crew Safe

Commandos stormed a Singapore Airlines passenger jet and killed four Pakistani hijackers today after a standoff at the Singapore airport, officials said.

All 118 passengers and 11 crew members were safe, said Yoe Ling Hong, the deputy defense minister.

He said the commando unit captured the European-made Airbus “in a matter of minutes” in the assault just before 7 a.m., about nine hours after the plane landed at Changi International Airport after being hijacked during a scheduled 40-minute flight here from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Two of the crew were slightly injured earlier when they escaped while hijackers were conducting negotiations, police said.

Police said earlier that the hijackers had demanded the release of a number of people detained in Pakistan, including the husband of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

The husband, 38-year-old businessman Asif Ali Zardari, has been jailed since October on kidnaping and extortion charges. He and other members of Bhutto’s center-left party also face trial on charges that they were involved in the Aug. 22 killings of 28 supporters of a rival party.

Bhutto, dismissed in August, has maintained her husband’s innocence, saying he is being used to punish her for political reasons.

The hijackers, armed with knives and hand grenades, also had insisted the Pakistani ambassador come to the airport for talks and that the plane be refueled for a flight to Australia, the sources said.

Apparently, none of the hijackers’ demands were met.