Kerry Chats w/Terrorist Leader in TWA Flight 847 Hijacking
Posted By Daniel Greenfield On June 6, 2014 @ 6:16 pm In The Point | 4 Comments
Here’s John Kerry having a good time with Nabih Berri, the head of the Amal Movement, and speaker of the Hezbollah dominated Lebanese parliament. What better way to follow up the Taliban deal than to meet with another terrorist hijacker.
Back in 1985, Amal and Hezbollah terrorists used the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 to demand the release of imprisoned terrorists.
A TWA airliner, Flight 847 en route from Athens to Rome, was hijacked by Shia terrorists of the Hizballah organization who demanded the release of Shia prisoners held in Kuwait, Israel, and Spain. The airliner was forced to fly to Beirut, where nineteen passengers were released, then to Algiers, where twenty-two more were freed. It then returned to Beirut where on June 15 one of the passengers, a United States Navy diver, was murdered. Seven American passengers, who, according to the terrorists, had Jewish- sounding surnames, were taken off the jet by Hizballah terrorists and sequestered in Beirut.
Then, about a dozen Amal members joined the hijackers on the airplane, and the pilot was forced once again to fly to Algiers, where sixty more passengers were freed. On the following day the airplane returned to Beirut with the thirty-two remaining passengers. Approximately 200 Lebanese Army soldiers withdrew from the vicinity of Beirut International Airport, leaving the area in the control of Amal. In response to suspicions that the United States was planning a military rescue of the hostages, the terrorists moved the passengers off the airplane and sequestered them in various groups dispersed throughout Beirut. Amal and Hizballah members mined the runways at the airport to prevent a rescue attempt.
On June 17, the third day of the crisis, Amal leader and Lebanese minister of justice Nabih Berri agreed to “mediate” and take responsibility for the safety of the hostages. Birri’s intervention appeared hypocritical because his men were holding most of the hostages and controlled the hijacked jet.
Berri took and freed US hostages. And he had plenty of relatives in Dearbornistan cheering him on.
In this city known as “Little Lebanon,“ more than 1,000 relatives of Nabih Berri`s extended family make up a good-sized American cheering section for the Lebanese leader who has emerged as a crucial figure in the latest Mideast hostage drama.
The Berri family, who call themselves Berry in the United States, began immigrating here in the 1920s from the village of Tibbnen in south Lebanon.
Relatives say Berri`s former wife, Lila, and six grown children also live in Dearborn`s Arab community.
Nabih Berri, the French-educated lawyer who is head of the Amal movement and the leading spokesman for Lebanon`s 1 million Shiites, is chief negotiator for the hijackers. It was on his order that the remaining hostages were taken from the plane at the Beirut airport and hidden around the city.
Relatives here in Dearborn are not questioning his actions. Here Berri is considered a hero. They add that he visits here at least every two years and holds a “green card“ permitting him to live permanently in the United States.
Kerry’s chummy meeting with Berri shows that he doesn’t care. It’s incredibly bad timing right after the Taliban deal backlash.
Article printed from FrontPage Magazine:
http://www.frontpagemag.comURL to article:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/kerry-chats-wterrorist-leader-in-twa-flight-847-hijacking/
