Breaking: Commercial airliner hijacked; Update: Hijackers surrender; Update: Hijackers sought political asylum
posted at 11:52 am on October 3, 2006 by Allahpundit
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In Greek airspace, according to Greek radio via Fox News. Standby.
Update: CNN says it originated in Albania and was headed for Istanbul.
Update: Looking for details, as well as for the first DU thread questioning the timing.
Update: Drudge says the plane has landed in Brindisi, Italy. Which I guess makes it an “old-fashioned” hijacking.
Update: Hijacking may have something to do with a visit from the Pope.
Update: Here’s the first news report. Two coded hijack signals were received from the cockpit.
Update: I wondered if there might be a Pope angle. A Turkish TV station says there is.
Update: Turkish Airlines, 107 passengers. The Times reported this morning how the Pope’s visit was “focusing anger” among Turks.
Update: Turkish TV says there are two hijackers and that they might be ready to surrender.
Update: Reportedly no injuries thus far.
Update: Turkey’s prime minister is at the White House today, so this might be calculated for double embarrassment.
Update: Sounds like this might end well:
Candan Karlitekin, chairman of Turkish Airlines’ board of directors, said nobody had been hurt and the hijackers were apparently not threatening passengers.
“The passengers are not under any threat,” he was quoted as saying by The Associated Press.
“They will surrender, they declared that they will surrender the moment they hijacked the plane.”
Salvatore Sciacchitano, deputy director of the Italian civil aviation authority, also said the hijackers appeared to be “not aggressive” and ready to free the passengers, AFP reports.
Update: The hijackers want to talk to Italian authorities about passing along a message to the Pope for them. Um, I think he already got that message.
Update: How did the hijackers pull this off? Did they claim to have a bomb? According to the pilot, they weren’t armed and the passengers were in no danger.
Update: Fox is talking to a correspondent in Greece who says the hijackers have agreed to give themselves up soon.
Update: Negotiations have begun. The Pope says his trip is still on.
Update: Just across on Fox — the hijackers are in custody. Looks like no one was hurt.
Update: Turkish security officials were quoted earlier as saying this was related to the Pope’s visit. Turns out it was related to the Pope — but not in the way they’d want you to think.
Earlier reports on Tuesday that the hijackers were protesting Pope Benedict XVI’s planned visit to Turkey were apparently incorrect; authorities now say that the hijackers have requested political asylum.
Turkish officials said one of the hijackers, identified as Hasan Ekinci, wrote a letter to the pope in August asking for help in avoiding service in the Turkish army.
“I am a Christian and don’t want to serve a Muslim army,” he wrote, adding that he had been attending church since 1998.
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These hijackers are no doubt “peace-loving” Muslims.
BirdEye on October 3, 2006 at 12:14 PM
allah uh akbar, allah uh akbar, oh oh oh…
allah uh akbar, allah uh akbar, oh oh oh…
****
Oh, sorry, pardon me. But it’s almost as if this muslim terror chant is heard so often…
ar_basin on October 3, 2006 at 12:16 PM
my trackbacks aren’t working.. what’s goin’ on? haven’t had trouble before.
RightWinged on October 3, 2006 at 12:18 PM
What would happen if he threw Holy water on them…? I shudder to think.
SouthernGent on October 3, 2006 at 12:28 PM
religion of peace…there is almost nothing left to say about this topic that hasn’t been regurgitated repeatedly. so i won’t.
pullingmyhairout on October 3, 2006 at 12:33 PM
With all due respect guys, let’s let the situation develope and let’s get all the facts before we start jumping to conclusions. Or is it leap to judgement? I’m not sure.
Anyway, let’s keep both our feet flat on the ground where they belong! Unless you’re lying down. Cuz that’s cool. Just as long as we don’t leap or jump arround.
.
.
.
Hopping is out too.
.
.
.
Back talking. That’s out too.
.
.
.
Don’t make the blog admin guy step in. Cuz he’ll turn this blog right arround and go home. And nobody wants that.
EFG on October 3, 2006 at 12:36 PM
EFG, are you suggesting the administrator would hijack this thread? ;-)
SouthernGent on October 3, 2006 at 12:38 PM
SouthernGent,
ToucheToucheetuocheAh, forget it. I can’t spell that blasted word. It’s French I think. Maybe Italian.Anyway, good one SouthernGent.
EFG on October 3, 2006 at 12:54 PM
Remember…Mehmet Ali Agca is Turkish.
labwrs on October 3, 2006 at 1:06 PM
Are you saying that the CIA hijacked the plane?
ChrisInCanadaOrAussy on October 3, 2006 at 1:23 PM
Even money, shekels, alms, whatever denomination…
It’s gatta be our friends from the religon of
cut you into littlepiecesKini on October 3, 2006 at 1:50 PM
Yes. It is simple, Do not be afraid.
From an authoritative military manual on Jihad called The Quranic Concept of War:
Be not afraid. Take the message to the where the Islamist feel emboldened, answer the threat by imposing the counter-terror of reason, and do not hide one’s mind and one’s heart.
Simple, yes, but it takes utmost courage.
Just as Pope JP2 exemplified this courage (in facing down communism and in facing down the culture of death and in persevering with a delibitating illness), this pople, Benedict 16, will show us how it is to be done.
F. Rottles on October 3, 2006 at 1:53 PM
Reuters just reported seeing Rove in the cockpit.
BirdEye on October 3, 2006 at 1:54 PM
So, the Pope plans a visit to Turkey…
“Peaceful” Turkish Muslims hijack a commercial flight…
Sounds like a perfectly proportionate response to me…
Corky on October 3, 2006 at 1:56 PM
That’s hilarious!
Corky on October 3, 2006 at 1:57 PM
No, I am not saying the CIA hijacked the plane, although that is something that should be looked into.
What I am saying is that if we are going to start jumping arround, we should do it for a good cause.
EFG on October 3, 2006 at 2:11 PM
2 unarmed and non-threatening hijackers.
105 other passengers on a hijakced plane, and six crew members.
The two unarmed hijackers apparently have all of their limbs and organs.
In a post-9/11 world, do I detect just a small bit of complicity and sympathy to the hijacker’s message from the passengers and crew?
Bob Owens on October 3, 2006 at 2:20 PM
Down with Islam!!!!!!
It’s time we take these Muslim’s for what they really are…….Terrorists.
Women, Children, Pets…..They’re all evil and should be annihlated.
Kramer on October 3, 2006 at 2:23 PM
I’m no fan of religion, but the Pope MUST go on this trip…he MUST!
SouthernGent on October 3, 2006 at 2:24 PM
The hijackers were “not aggressive”
See? Islam IS the religeon peace!
“Please take us to Turkey, or else I’ll say please again.”
What more proof do we need?
Let me get this straight … the HIJACKERS … were “not aggressive”. So, they were … PASSIVE?
Great way to prove the Pope wrong about you. Show the world how peaceful you are … by HIJACKING A PLANE! But hey, at least they weren’t aggressive!
Pathetic primal savages. Hey Abdul, instead of stealing an airplane, why don’t you design and BUILD one?
Tony737 on October 3, 2006 at 2:28 PM
I want to know how they got the fish past customs.
Kid from Brooklyn on October 3, 2006 at 2:36 PM
I guess we heathens should start to fight back.
Too bad we have morals and respect for others.
It’s obvious these sand eating – camel humping – mohammed worshipping fools are still stuck in the stone age.
It’s too late to try and coexist.
Death is the only way they will understand they’re place in this world.
So be it.
Kramer on October 3, 2006 at 3:04 PM
Time to reevaluate, folks.
It’s good to see that no one lost their head.
Pablo on October 3, 2006 at 3:05 PM
They stiil hijacked a plane and should receive punishment for it.
Now losing ones head over Islam seems to be the real issue.
Kramer on October 3, 2006 at 3:25 PM
And that we didn’t jump to any conclusions either…
OK, enough of the snark. In all seriousness, yeah, I know that everytime something blows up in the world, our natural tendency is to think to ourselve “oh boy, what have the Muslims done this time?” And all to often recent events have confirmed just that sort of thing.
But sometimes it bites us in the ass. All we gotta do is just wait and see what the actual facts on the ground are, rather than just emoting over what we feel.
Let the “reality based” community go into hysterics over any such silly thing that sets them off. But let’s not follow them.
EFG on October 3, 2006 at 3:26 PM
Here we go! Christian hijackers implementing terrorist tactics. They volentarily used violence to secure themselves from having to implement violence against their will. Makes sense.
Egfrow on October 3, 2006 at 3:34 PM
Egfrow, I’m sure Rosie got
a hard onlaugh if she heard they’re Christians and they hijacked a plane.SouthernGent on October 3, 2006 at 3:45 PM
Yeah, it does stick in my craw that this will only give that woman more fuel for her diatribes.
EFG on October 3, 2006 at 3:55 PM
I just checked in and I am appalled by the “kill them all” vitriol some of you are espousing.
You are NOT helping our cause with that kind of rhetoric. Advocating genocide is not the answer. Killing jihadis? You bet. Faster please. But advocating that we kill otherwise innocent Muslims is just wrong. Like it or not, we need more Muslims to help us win this fight against the jihadis.
Maybe we should step back from situations like this till the facts are known before climbing up on this fine soapbox and spewing emotional tirades.
And all the stuff I read about the Frist thing yesterday…
I was greatly disappointed in the comments posted here. This is a political war, guys and gals. You do not win it by tossing in the towel and giving up. You win by taking the bumps and lumps along the way and continuing to move forward toward your objectives. Are your objectives to ‘teach the GOP a lesson’? If so, you’re playing right into the hands of the opposition. The opposition wants you to do exactly that. They want you to stay home and punish those ‘damned ineffective GOPers’. Well you can do that if you want. It’s your right. But that’s not what I’ll be doing. I’m not going to help the dems take back power. We’ll fix the GOP after we win the elections.
You can take it to the bank that from now until the November elections, the dems will dribble out all kinds of little surprises that they’ve been sitting on and held until this exact time. Keep that in mind as these things surface and recognize them for what they are.
You put your nation in mortal danger by not voting or worse, by voting dem in November, and in ‘08.
techno_barbarian on October 3, 2006 at 4:25 PM
Allah, I’d like to suggest that you retitle this post, “Onward Christian Soldier.”
Bob Owens on October 3, 2006 at 4:30 PM
He only wanted the plane in order to raise his plea on not serve in a Muslim army. Maybe he knows something that we don’t on what’s going to happen over there?? Or is this purely a Christian conscious of his not to serve in an all Muslim army?
Kokonut on October 3, 2006 at 4:40 PM
Would we will miss them if they were gone?
Nope.
Kramer on October 3, 2006 at 5:05 PM
Enjoy your Turkish Prison stay you goons!
Drtuddle on October 3, 2006 at 5:40 PM
techno_barbarian sez:
I just checked in and I am appalled by the “kill them all” vitriol some of you are espousing.
I’ll admit to sometimes getting hot enough under the collar that I’ve fantasized a Scorched Earth Muslim Policy.
But when I catch myself humming the M*A*S*H theme, changing it to – Genocide Is Painless – well, I pull back.
Not because I’m afraid of my own bloody-mindedness. I’m not.
Sometimes a former Marine (Murtha) will forget that the thing about resorting to violence is that it works – if you use enough of it, correctly. I don’t forget.
But too much violence is bad. It may work but you have to live with yourself afterwards.
So I favor killing Muslims. Enough of them. Not all of them.
How many is enough? Tough call. But I’m sure it won’t have been enough until huge numbers of ‘moderates’ start acting right. All the time.
That said, man, would I like to see some political scourched-earth type energy from the GOP & it’s supporters.
What? The only pervs in DC are Republicans?
Better pissed-off than pissed on. Learn it, live it.
Yeah, it’s tough to fight fire w/fire when the MSM keeps handing lighters and butane to the Dems and hands nothing to the GOP.
But the GOP isn’t even putting matches to dry kindling.
Stephen M on October 3, 2006 at 6:06 PM
Stephen M
Roger that!
We’ve been either too weak or too classy to shove the dem’s crap right back in their faces. Witness W taking the high road and not slamming Clinton about his extraordinary outbursts on FNC.
The ‘culture of corruption’ thing fits the dems a whole lot closer than it does the GOP. We got our problems, but the dems are eat up with it.
The so called moderate democrats need to take their party back from the far left fringe that controls and guides it now. That fringe is willfully misleading the party and, via the MSM, the Nation.
Their battle strategy at this point seems to be, win at any cost, no matter how deceitful. Hope it boomerangs on ‘em bigtime.
techno_barbarian on October 3, 2006 at 10:08 PM
Is this the first shot of the new crusade?
Iblis on October 3, 2006 at 10:33 PM
Non-aggressors, without weapons, hijacking a Turkish airliner.
Seeking political asylum to avoid military duty at home. An asylum of another kind, indeed.
doingwhatican on October 4, 2006 at 3:52 AM
So now that you know the terrorists are Christians, are they communion eating – altar boy humping – Jesus worshipping fools, stuck in the stone age?
EFG’s 3:26pm comment gets a well-deserved +1 from me.
Mark Jaquith on October 5, 2006 at 3:03 AM
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