The 50 Worst Terrorist Attacks Read Online Free Page B

headlines in September 1970 by diverting several European-origin planes to Dawson’s Field in Jordan. The Jordanian regime’s ultimate reaction to the Palestinian radicals’ challenge, eventually dubbed Black September, in turn led to the formation of a rival Black September Organization (BSO).
Incidents
    West Germany. On September 6, 1970, at 12:20 P.M ., two PFLP members took over Trans World Airlines (TWA) flight 741, a B-707 flying from Frankfurt to New York with 145 passengers and 10 crew. The plane was diverted to Dawson’s Field, Zerka, Jordan, a former U.K. Royal Air Force (RAF) landing strip in the desert. This was the first of a well-coordinated series of hijackings carried out by the PFLP. The group demanded therelease of three PFLP members held in West Germany for the attack on the airline bus in Munich on February 10, 1970; three held in Switzerland for the Zurich attack on the El Al plane that had resulted in the killing of the copilot on February 18, 1969; and an unspecified number of fedayeen held in Israeli prisons. They later demanded release of Leila Khaled, held in a British jail after an unsuccessful hijacking attempt in the Netherlands. The group threatened to blow up the planes with the passengers inside by 3:00 a.m. on Thursday, September 10, 1970.
    A Beirut spokesman for the PFLP explained in a statement to the news media that U.S. planes were seized “to give the Americans a lesson after they supported Israel all these years” and to retaliate for U.S. peace initiatives in the Middle East.
    Upon landing, the guerrillas allowed 127 passengers from the planes at Dawson Field, mostly women and children, to go free in Amman. The remaining hostages were men from West Germany, the United Kingdom, Israel, and the United States. The planes were surrounded by commandos, who in turn were surrounded by troops from Jordan’s army, including 50 tanks and armored cars. The Swiss and Germans were willing to deal unilaterally with terrorists to free their own nationals, but British Prime Minister Edward Heath called upon all five governments to take a common position. International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) representative M. Rochat, who had acted as intermediary in the Athens Seven case on July 22, 1970, told the PFLP in Amman of their stand, which was to release the seven prisoners upon the release of all passengers. The Germans sent Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski, a German Social Democrat party member, to Amman to negotiate on September 7, 1970. On September 11, two more Americans were released from the TWA jet. Another 18 hostages were secretly taken to Zerka and hidden in homes, because the attack squad began to distrust their PFLP leaders in Amman and wanted extra insurance against a double cross.
    The Israelis preferred to be observers in the Berne Five, and thus the Red Cross was named by only four of the members as their intermediaries. A three-member liaison group of Red Cross officials went to Amman to confer with PFLP members. The hijacking of the BOAC VC-10 led to an extension of the deadline in hopes that the United States would have more time to pressure Israel to capitulate. On September 12, 1970, the PFLP gave a five-minute warning that women and children would be released in Amman. The planes held at Dawson’s Field were evacuated and destroyed by PFLP explosives experts. On September 13, the last West German hostages were freed. Fifty-eight hostages remained, including the 18 secretly held in Zerka.
    The activities of the PFLP on Jordanian territory proved too much for King Hussein to tolerate, and Jordanian troops engaged the fedayeen in a series of bloody battles in what became known as Black September, in which approximately 7,000 died. Negotiations became of secondaryimportance to the embattled PFLP, and hostages were rescued sequentially by Jordanian army troops. On September 29, 1970, the Swiss government announced that seven Arab guerillas would be released