Hijacking Victims More Baffled Than Bothered

The tired passengers of a hijacked Russian airliner that landed Sunday in Israel’s southern Negev desert had one request of reporters seeking comment on their ordeal: Could they borrow a cell phone?

The first call went not to worried relatives back home in the republic of Dagestan. Instead, Alihan Ahmedov, a 43-year-old artist, phoned a friend to ask what the score was in the soccer match most of the passengers had been heading for when their flight was commandeered.

“It was 1-0. We won!” he shouted to his fellow passengers in triumph. The sparse room at the Uvda military base erupted in cheers and applause.

What began late Saturday as an alarming story of international terrorism had unraveled by Sunday afternoon into a tale of one man’s crazed exploit and the havoc it could and almost did wreak.

The hijacking was portrayed by Israeli officials initially as the work of two pro-Palestinian Muslim militants from the Russian republic of Chechnya. It turned out to have been carried out by a deranged loner armed with a fake bomb whose behavior left everyone a bit baffled, military officers said.

As the incident unfolded, Prime Minister Ehud Barak, en route to a meeting with President Clinton in Washington, felt compelled to make not one but two midair U-turns--first when he intended to return home to take charge of the crisis and then when that action proved unnecessary.

The Israeli army mobilized fighter jets and special forces when it became clear that the hijacked plane would land here. In the end, the hijacker surrendered peacefully within 15 minutes of arriving, and none of the 57 passengers and crew was injured.

The hijacker was identified as Amerkhanov Ahmed Avnerkhan, 26. His exact reasons for wanting to divert a plane to Israel remained unclear.

“I can cautiously say,” Israeli army chief of staff Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz said, “that he is a weird man.”

Mofaz said Avnerkhan presented officials with two letters and an audiotape, all containing confusing messages. He told Israeli interrogators that he wanted to come to Israel because “Jews were wise people,” Mofaz said.

Avnerkhan, in his rambling missives, spoke of his fears that the “white race” was being dominated by Asian races, Israeli officials said. Mofaz and other senior army commanders insisted that the hijacker’s grievances had nothing to do with the six-week Palestinian uprising against Israeli authority, which has claimed more than 200 lives, mostly Arab.

The plane had left Makhachkala, the Dagestani capital, on what passengers and crew thought would be a two-hour flight to Moscow, where most planned to watch their local team in a match against a Moscow team. Most were sleeping when the hijacker entered the cockpit and demanded that the plane head for Israel.

“I realized after we landed in Baku [the capital of Azerbaijan] for refueling that it was a serious problem, but I didn’t panic,” Ahmedov, the soccer-loving artist, said. In fact, those interviewed agreed, the crew and passengers stayed remarkably calm throughout the ordeal.

“The pilot said, ‘On board there is a terrorist, and he wants to go to Israel,’ ” recalled Naira Aminova, 28, a physician on her way to join her husband in Moscow for a vacation. “It wasn’t until we landed here and I saw all these military men pointing guns at the plane that I was afraid. That wasn’t a good feeling.”

Yana Markarova, 27, a university lecturer whose father coaches the Makhachkala soccer team that she was flying to Moscow to watch, said the Israeli soldiers treated the passengers well once they allowed them to get off the plane.

“The people were very friendly, and they gave us breakfast,” she said. The slightly disheveled-looking group was crowded into a small room, where it sat on plastic chairs hours after the hijacker surrendered, waiting for the Israelis to usher it back onto the plane for the flight home.

The crew refused to speak to reporters.

The drama evolved from one gripping the nation to one amusing it. Israelis awoke Sunday to frightening reports of ruthless hijackers armed with explosives demanding to land in Israel. Barak’s senior security advisor, Danny Yatom, announced with apparent certainty that the men were pro-Palestinian Chechen militants intent on doing harm to Israel in support of the Palestinian cause.

It was not clear how such misinformation spread, except that Israel, confronting a bloody Palestinian revolt, has been bracing for an even higher level of violence, possibly terrorism or assaults from outside the country. Yatom, former head of the Mossad spy agency, told reporters Sunday morning that the hijackers were calling their takeover the “Al Aqsa operation” in honor of the Jerusalem mosque that is at the center of the Palestinian uprising.

The initial reports were certainly sufficient to alarm Barak, who heard the news as he was winging his way to Washington.

Often criticized by his foes for “zigzagging” on policies, Barak made the ultimate zigzag, ordering his plane during a refueling stop in England to head home, then turning around again when, as he approached Israeli airspace, the crisis was resolved.

Israeli authorities said later Sunday that the hijacker would remain in police custody awaiting deportation. Weapons on the plane--a Kalashnikov assault rifle and several handguns--actually belonged to the crew, officials said. The hijacker’s “bomb” was tape and a blood-pressure instrument, with which he threatened to blow himself up if he was not allowed to land in Israel.

He also demanded to be allowed to give a press conference. That demand was not granted.

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Times staff writer Tracy Wilkinson in Jerusalem contributed to this report.