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Airline hijackings decline but remain a threat

LONDON: The unfolding Indian Airline hostage crisis forcefully returns the world's awareness to terrorism in the air, despite advances in security that have reduced the number of international hijackings.

In addition to sophisticated deterrence, there also are fewer countries where hijackers can take their planeloads of hostages and expect tolerance or even support, one expert notes.

"The improved measures in many countries have made a difference, have increased prevention and increased deterrence," Paul Wilkinson, head of the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, said on Thursday.

"The sad thing is not all countries have made the necessary improvements, so it's still possible for a terrorist movement to find a weak link in the system and smuggle a bomb aboard the airline they wish to attack or find a transferring flight connecting with it, said Wilkinson, international relations professor at St. Andrew's University in Scotland.

"It's still possible for people to board with weapons, as the latest hijacking shows," he said. "They have weapons they obviously got through the Katmandu system somehow."

The five suspected militants who are holding 155 people at an airport in Afghanistan were armed with grenades, pistols and knives when they seized control of the Indian Airlines plane December 24 after takeoff from Katmandu, Nepal.

Wilkinson said there are still "many airports in the world where the security is so poor in standard that a skilled terrorist organisation could get through with a substantial amount of weapons."

US government figures for three decades show the highest number of hijackings in 1970, when there were 74. In 1986, there were 7, but in 1995 and 1998, only 9. Although the average has declined from decade to decade, there still were 40 in 1990, 31 in 1993 and 23 in 1994.

"Commercial aviation remains an attractive target to terrorists," Wilkinson said.

Hijackings are only part of the problem, he said. There remain sabotage, attacks on aircraft on the ground, on airports and on urban offices of national airlines, which are often seen as political symbols. And some hijackings are not political, but carried out by disturbed people or those attempting to flee a country.

The Indian Airways terrorists may find it difficult to negotiate safe passage to another country, said Larry Johnson, a former US State Department official.

"We're in a new world. Ten or 14 years ago, there were countries that were aggressive supporters of terrorism, but that's past," Johnson said, "There is the possibility that the Indian Airways hijackers will negotiate their wayout, but if you don't have the support of another country then you don't have a strategy."

During the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847 to Rome, Johnson said hijackers were able to order the plane to fly twice to Algiers and three times to Beirut because they had support on the ground.

"In several places when it would stop, the terrorists would be given weapons. Some of the countries were almost supportive, almost endorsing the action," Johnson said. "We've seen the Taliban do the opposite."

The longer the Indian Airways crisis continues, the better the chance the hijacking will and peacefully, he said. APP