The 50 Worst Terrorist Attacks (23 page)

President Boris Yeltsin refused to return from the G-7 meeting in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, saying he would not bow to terrorist threats. He called Chechnya the center of world terrorism.

Many of the hostages were criticized for identifying with the attackers and saying that they had been well-treated—classic Stockholm syndrome behavior. The freed hostages pointed out that the rebels donated their own blood for the wounded.

Basayev's wife and six children had been killed by Russian forces earlier in the month.

On June 22, 1995, Russian and Chechen negotiators agreed that the rebels would begin to disarm and Russian troops would partially withdraw from the region. The accord called for an immediate cease-fire, an exchange of prisoners, and the establishment of a demilitarized zone. The Chechen delegates agreed to help the Russian authorities search for and arrest the Budennovsk hostage-takers. General Anatoly Kulikov, head of Russian forces in the region, said the accord would be jeopardized if Basayev and his men were not handed over. He was quoted by the news media as observing, “We reserve the right to resume military actions and adopt measures to detain or destroy the criminals.”

The Russian Duma (parliament) urged Yeltsin to fire his aides, threatening a no-confidence motion. On June 29, 1995, the leading hawks in Yeltsin's government offered to resign. They included Defense Minister Pavel Grachev; Sergei Stepashin, chief of the Federal Security Service; Internal Affairs Minister Viktor Yerin; Oleg Lobov, secretary of the Security Council; Deputy Prime Minister Nikolai Yegorov; and Yevgeny Kuznetsov, governor of the Stavropol region. On June 30, 1995, Yeltsin accepted the resignations of Stepashin, Yerin, Kuznetsov, and Yegorov.

By June 26, 1995, rebels and police were still searching for Basayev, who many believed had fled to Pakistan.

On July 10, 2006, a dynamite-laden truck exploded around midnight near Ekazhevo in Inguishetia amidst the convoy of Chechen terrorists, killing Basayev, 41. It was unclear whether the government had placed the 220 pounds of dynamite on the truck or whether it was dynamite mishandled by the terrorists. Another dozen terrorists died in the explosion, which destroyed the truck and three cars in the convoy.

Overview:
Hijackers generally tried to use planes to get them to a destination originally unscheduled and to use the passengers as bargaining chips to obtain political, monetary, or other demands. In the 1960s, individuals or small groups of friends hijacked planes as an alternative form of transportation. The 1970s ushered in the era of terrorist hijackings. Increased security measures made this type of terrorist operation rare, although on occasion, terrorist hijackings occurred on flights with minimal screening. The hijackers of Ethiopian Airlines flight 961 appeared to not be as bright as more sophisticated members of terrorist organizations. They showed that it is never a good idea to let hijackers inside the cockpit, but locking the cockpit doors did not become standard practice until after 9/11.

Incident:
On November 23, 1996, Ethiopian Airlines flight ET961, a B-767 carrying 163 passengers and 12 crew, was hijacked at 11:20
A.M
. after takeoff from Addis Ababa. It was scheduled to fly to Nairobi, Kenya; Brazzaville, Congo; Lagos, Nigeria; and Abidjan, Ivory Coast, but the hijackers demanded to go to Australia to obtain political asylum. They were armed with an ax, a fire extinguisher, and a device they claimed was a bomb. At one point, a drunken hijacker forced copilot Yonas Mekuria away from his seat and played with the joystick controls, putting the plane into steep turns and banks. The hijackers refused to believe that the plane was running out of fuel, claiming that the plane could fly for 11 hours without stopovers. Rekha Mirchandani, 29, an Indian passenger, said crew members told her that the hijackers had responded, “If we die, we want others to die with us. We want to make history.” The plane crashed at 3:20
P.M
. into the Indian Ocean near the Grand Comore Mitsamiuti tourist beach in the Comoros Islands, killing 127 people, most of them Africans and Asians. The pilot, Capt. Leul Abate, tried to minimize casualties by landing in the sea near the shore, where rescuers could more quickly find survivors. However, the plane bounced and flipped before breaking apart. This was the third hijacking Abate had survived.

Police initially arrested two men for the hijacking, but determined that they were innocent when the copilot said that he did not recognize them.

The hijackers were Ethiopians who had lived in Djibouti for years before coming to Addis Ababa five weeks before the hijacking. Authorities were unable to determine the motives of Alamayhu Bekele, Mateias Solomon, and Sultan Hussein, who did not belong to any political party. Kenyan survivor Kanaidza Abwao, a young hotel executive whose hand was broken in the crash, said in a press interview that the hijackers used the plane's public address system to read a statement in Amharic, French, and English: “There is a problem with the government. We were
prisoners, and now we have changed the destination. If anyone tries to attack us we are going to blow the plane up. I have a grenade.”

Among the dead was Mohamed Amin, 53, a Reuter Television cameraman whose 1984 photos alerted the world about the Ethiopian famine. He was returning home to Nairobi with Brian Tetley, who wrote the texts for Amin's photo books. Also killed was Leslianne Shedd, 28, a commercial officer with the U.S. Embassy, who was headed for Kenya to meet friends for Thanksgiving. Also missing was Ron Farris, 46, a missionary doctor returning from India to Abidjan.

No one was charged in the case.

Overview:
Most leftist Latin American terrorists had seen their heyday in the 1970s, but remained a security concern for many nations, notably Colombia and Peru, for decades. While the Shining Path had proven a more active terrorist threat for Peru, the most spectacular operation was conducted by the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru, MRTA), which resurrected the barricade-and-hostage style attack. Patient negotiations gave the government time to prepare for a dangerous but ultimately successful raid on the terrorists, who had wearied in the months-long siege. The rescue broke the back of the MRTA.

Incident:
On December 17, 1996, two dozen MR TA gunmen blew a hole in a concrete wall at 8:20
P.M
. and stormed a birthday party for Japanese emperor Akihito at the residence of the Japanese ambassador in Lima, Peru, seizing 700 diplomats, business leaders, and government officials. The gunmen told the hostages to lie on the ground and to keep silent. One hostage saw six or seven guerrillas dressed in green army fatigue pants. They covered their faces with red and white bandannas and carried small arms. Some barricaded the doors and windows with furniture. When Peruvian police fired tear gas into the residence, the terrorists pulled gas masks from small backpacks. The gunmen joined comrades who were disguised as waiters for the cocktail reception. Cartridges had been smuggled inside flowers and the Christmas cake. The rebels had rented an adjacent house three months earlier and tunneled into the grounds.

The rebels included two young women and appeared to have automatic weapons and night-vision equipment. They told hostages the garden was mined and the back door booby-trapped.

A rebel was injured in the initial firefight.

The rebels said they were protesting the Japanese government's support to the Peruvian regime. The hostages included at least 60 Japanese, including 17 Japanese Embassy staff members and representatives of
17 Japanese firms doing business in Peru, as well as guests from at least 28 countries.

The terrorists threatened to kill the hostages one by one, starting with Peruvian foreign minister Francisco Tudela, unless the government freed 400 or 500 hundred jailed insurgents, including their leader Victor Polay and Lori Helene Berenson, a New Yorker serving a life sentence in Yanamayo prison. The Marxist rebels also called on the government to change its economic policies “to benefit the poor,” a monetary “war tax” ransom, and safe passage to the Amazon jungle, where their last hostage would be released. A deadline passed without bloodshed.

Among the hostages were the president of the Peruvian Supreme Court; President Alberto Fujimori's brother; the Speaker of Parliament; Agriculture Minister Rodolfo Munante Sanguineti; the current and past chiefs of the antiterrorism police; an admiral; generals; senior intelligence officials; several congressmen; 19 foreign ambassadors, including those from Japan, Cuba, South Korea, Panama, Austria, and Spain; and other senior diplomats from Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Egypt, Spain, the United Kingdom, Guatemala, Honduras, Poland, and Venezuela. During the event, the rebels released scores of women, including Peruvian president Fujimori's mother and sister. Seven Americans were taken hostage, including four officials of the Agency for International Development. Also held were executives from Mitsui, Marubeni, Kanematsu, Fujita, Japan Water Works, Japan Airlines, Nissho Iwai, Ajinomoto, Matsushita Electric Industrial, NGS Consultants, Toyota, Nissan, NEC, Asahi Chemical Industry, and Tomen, plus employees of several Japanese trade associations and Japanese teachers. Representatives from Malaysia, the Dominican Republic, the European Union, and Uruguay were also held.

The rebels' Communique No. 1, from the Edgar Sanchez Special Forces commanded by Comrade Edigiro Huerta, issued the group's demands to end the “military occupation.” The group contacted radio and television stations throughout the day. They asked to see Jorge Santistevan, Peru's human rights ombudsman, and Reverend Hubert Lanssiers. The duo were turned back from the residence by Peruvian authorities.

The rebels permitted all female hostages and four elderly Japanese guests to leave on December 17, 1996.

The Peruvian government refused to negotiate, although the Japanese government announced that the hostages' safety was its first priority.

The gunmen, who included at least three non-Peruvians, permitted family members to send in fresh clothing to the hostages via the Red Cross. The guerrillas asked for cellular telephones from a specific company, toothbrushes, toilet paper, sutures, bandages, and an X-ray machine. Captives were permitted to make brief phone calls.

Michael Minnig, a Swiss Red Cross official, led the negotiations. Four ambassadors were released on December 18, 1996, to serve as “hostages on parole” and were to “act as a link for communications,” according to
Canadian ambassador Anthony Vincent, who often shuttled between the residence and the outside world during the negotiations.

On December 19, 1996, two shots were fired at 4:30
P.M
. inside the compound. At 6
P.M
., four men—two Japanese businessmen and two Peruvians, one of them a businessman—were freed for medical reasons.

Apoyo pollster Alfredo Torres, one of 38 hostages released on December 20, 1996, reported that the terrorists “classified” the hostages by their “value,” sending the more valuable 180 upstairs. Torres released the results of a poll of the first floor hostages, indicating that 78 percent thought their treatment was favorable, 83 percent said that the worst thing was uncertainty, and 87 percent said that the attack revealed a serious security lapse.

Also freed were the ambassadors of Brazil, Egypt, and South Korea, who were chosen by the remaining diplomats to “establish channels of communication.” The rebels also sent out a 12-point communique.

The press reported that the rebel leader was Nestor Cerpa Cartolini (alias Comrade Evaristo or Commandante Huertas), a Marxist ideologue and the only MRTA leader at large. A former textile union official, he was one of the group's founders in 1984 and served as its military commander. He demanded to talk to the prisoners and the media, but a speech by President Fujimori seemed to rule out both options.

On December 22, 1996, in a “Christmas gesture,” the MRTA released 225 hostages, among them all of the Americans; the ambassadors of Panama, Cuba, and Venezuela; along with Elmer Escobar, the representative to Lima of the Washington-based Pan-American Health Organization. Until his release, Escobar had served as the principal coordinator for health care inside the residence. The freed Austrian ambassador reported that each terrorist had 15 kilograms of explosives strapped to his body.

On December 24, 1996, the rebels freed Uruguayan ambassador Tabare Bocalandro Yapeyu. Uruguay later confirmed that a Uruguayan appeals court had released Sonia Silvia Gora Rivera and Luis Alberto Miguel Samaniego, two MRTA members imprisoned in December while entering the country with false passports, but denied that it had arranged for the ambassador's release.

On Christmas Day, the rebels freed a Japanese Embassy first secretary, who was led out in a wheelchair.

On December 26, 1996, at 1:45
A.M
., an explosion was heard inside the residence. Observers suggested that an animal had set off a mine.

The Peruvian government suspended a March 1993 accord that permitted the Red Cross to visit 4,000 accused or convicted terrorists, including the 404 MRTA prisoners. Police also detained 28 people, including 6 women, on suspicion of being involved in the siege.

The rebels freed another 20 hostages on December 28, 1996, after having their first direct talks in the residence with Education Minister Palermo. The freed hostages included the ambassadors of Malaysia and the
Dominican Republic and a Peruvian businessman. After they were released, Minnig used a bullhorn to read a rebel communique, in which the MRTA criticized the rival Shining Path terrorists. The freed hostages said that the guerrillas had strapped explosives to their bodies and had boobytrapped the entrances.

Other hostages were sequentially released during the following months. On January 7, 1996, at 4:00
A.M
., a rebel fired his gun; no injuries were reported. Negotiations had been suspended for the previous five days.