Hijackers Had Put Dynamite on French Jet

The four Muslim extremists killed by French paramilitary forces Monday had planted dynamite in the Air France jetliner they hijacked, apparently intending to at least threaten to blow up the plane carrying them and 170 hostages as it flew over Paris, French investigators said Tuesday.

About 20 sticks of dynamite connected to detonators were found in bunches under one seat near the cockpit and under another in the midsection of the wide-body Airbus A-300. That was enough, said French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua, “to blow the plane to bits in mid-flight.”

The revelation offered the first strong evidence of the ultimate goal of the hijackers, who commandeered the Paris-bound airplane on the airport tarmac in Algeria’s capital Saturday and were killed 54 hours later in Marseilles in a daring French police commando raid in which 25 people were injured.

And it suggested the lengths to which the hijackers, members of the Armed Islamic Group fighting the military-backed government in Algeria, were willing to carry their demand that France end its support for the Algerian regime.

Throughout the standoff in Marseilles, where the plane arrived before dawn Monday, French negotiators had refused to meet the hijackers’ demand that the jet be refueled and allowed to fly to Paris.

Pasqua said Tuesday that authorities had strong suspicions, after receiving an anonymous tip from a caller to a French consulate in Algeria and questioning some of the 63 hostages released Saturday, that the heavily armed hijackers had dynamite and planned “a suicide mission over Paris.”

The authorities also were suspicious of the hijackers’ request for nearly three times the amount of fuel that would be necessary to fly to Paris.

Early Monday, Prime Minister Edouard Balladur and Pasqua decided that the only option was to keep the plane in Marseilles and use the elite “intervention force” of the national police to end the standoff.

The hijackers, who already had killed three hostages in Algiers, had set a 5 p.m. deadline Monday for being allowed to fly to Paris, where they said they wanted to hold a news conference. So determined were French authorities to keep the plane on the ground in Marseilles that they offered to take television crews on board “so (the hijackers) could make their declarations,” Pasqua told a news conference.

But shortly after 5 p.m., when one of the hijackers pointed a weapon out a cockpit window and fired at the control tower, the black-uniformed police moved in, killing the gunmen and freeing the hostages in a seven-minute operation.

Officials said Tuesday that they weren’t sure whether the hijackers would have carried out the suicide mission. But they said the guerrillas may have intended to use the threat of detonating those explosives in a fuel-laden plane, over a metropolitan area of 8 million, to press the French government to withdraw support for the rulers in its former colony.

Meanwhile, the violence in Algeria continued Tuesday when four Roman Catholic priests, three French and one Belgian, were killed by assailants that the Algerian government said are Islamic fundamentalist guerrillas. The four priests, members of an order known as the White Fathers, were shot to death in Tizi Ouzou, 70 miles east of Algiers. The assailants escaped, and no group has yet claimed responsibility for the shootings.

The most radical anti-foreigner guerrillas battling to install Islamic rule in Algeria are members of the hijackers’ organization, the Armed Islamic Group, or GIA. It says it wants to purge the North African nation--which won independence in 1962 after 114 years of French colonial rule--of Western influences. And it has repeatedly pressed the French government to halt its economic and political support of the Algerian regime, which seized power by force three years ago when an Islamic party won the first round of parliamentary elections.

Since then, an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 people have been killed, many in clashes between the Algerian government and Islamic fundamentalists. Of more than 70 foreigners killed, 24 have been French expatriates.

President Francois Mitterrand held a reception Tuesday in Paris to honor the 50-member police unit that freed the hostages, and he expressed “the nation’s gratitude” for its actions. Earlier, officers were applauded by hostage families awaiting the return of their loved ones at Orly Airport outside Paris.

Of those injured in the raid, 16 were passengers and crew members and nine were police officers. Eight of the police had gunshot wounds, and one lost several fingers on his right hand in a grenade explosion.

Meanwhile, France’s top terrorist prosecutor began interviewing the hostages. And the leader of the hijackers was identified by the police Tuesday as Abdallah Yahia, head of one of the more militant cells of the GIA.

The hijacking marked the most serious intrusion of the Algerian conflict in France, which is home to about 1 million Algerians.

In the past 15 months, police have stepped up their efforts to identify supporters of the Algerian guerrilla movements in France and have expelled several dozen suspected terrorists. Human rights groups have complained, though, that the crackdown has given police a free hand to harass all foreigners of color.

Although France recognizes the Algerian government, it has urged that country’s leaders to negotiate with the militants.