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Hijacked Afghan plane in Moscow, refuelling

MOSCOW: A hijacked Afghan airliner with about 160 passengers on board landed at Moscow's Sheremetyevo-1 airport on Sunday but its final destination remained unclear.

The Boeing-727 plane, belonging to Afghanistan's national carrier Ariana, touched down at 9:41 p.m. (1841 GMT), a duty officer at the Russian Emergencies Ministry told Reuters.

Itar-Tass news agency quoted Russian law enforcement sources as saying the plane, seized on Sunday on an internal flight from Kabul to the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif, would refuel in Moscow then head on to London.

It earlier made brief stopovers at the Kazakh city of Aktyubinsk and the Uzbek capital Tashkent.

Afghan Islamic Press, an independent news agency based in Pakistan, reported that six hijackers armed with pistols and grenades were demanding the release of Ismail Khan, a key opposition figure who had been in a Taliban jail since 1997.

He was detained by Afghanistan's ruling Islamic Taliban movement after it swept to power in 1996 on its way to controlling some 90 percent of the war-torn state.

The anti-Taliban opposition alliance has denied any involvement in the hijacking, saying earlier that a dissident called Gula Ajha was responsible.

According to Taliban and Afghan aviation estimates, the Boeing-727 left Kabul with 186 people on board - 21 children, 11 infants, 140 adults and 14 all-male crew.

RUSSIAN SPECIAL FORCES TALK TO HIJACKERS

Thirteen passengers were released during the stopovers in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

Interfax news agency reported 181 meals and a refuelling had been requested at Sheremetyevo airport. Interfax also said Russia's Alpha anti-terrorist security force had been on alert for the possible landing in Moscow.

Tass said Russian special forces had started negotiations with the hijackers, but it gave no details.

Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor, the Taliban's minister for civil aviation and tourism, said his government had had no contact with the hijackers and had no clue as to their identity.

Ariana is banned from flying abroad by U.N. sanctions which have also been imposed against the Taliban movement itself for its refusal to extradite or expel Saudi-born terrorist suspect Osama bin Laden.

Russia and Central Asian states including Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan suspect the Taliban of backing what they call "international terrorists" involved in the Chechen conflict and various armed forays last year into Central Asian territory.

The Taliban in turn accuses Moscow of arming and training anti-Taliban fighters.

The hijack was the second involving Afghanistan since an Indian Airlines Airbus was held at gunpoint in Kandahar at the end of last year in an eight day drama.

HIJACKED PLANE TAKES COMPLICATED ROUTE

The Ariana plane followed a complicated route after leaving Afghanistan. Interfax said the plane made an emergency landing at Aktyubinsk due to a fuel leak, but an official there said he was unaware of technical problems.

In Tashkent the 10 passengers were released into the safekeeping of the Afghan consul Ali Ahmed and they told him the hijackers numbered either seven or eight, did not wear masks but told people not to look at them.

The hijackers spoke both Pushto, the lingua franca of the Taliban, and Dari (Persian) the language of the opposition and minority ethnic groups.-Reuters