Abortive airport attack injures 12

Press, 18 April 1979, Page 8

Abortive airport attack injures 12

.NZPA-Reuter Brussels ; The Belgian police are' I hunting one or two members | of a Palestinian commando Igroup which injured 12, people during an abortive attempt to attack an Israeli' (airliner and its passengers at Brussels Airport. I Two other guerrillas were ’taken into custody after the (group hurled a bomb from a (gallery into the transit hail | at the airport as a Boeing I 707 of Israel's El Al airline ( arrived from Tel Aviv. AIL [the injured were Belgians. I: The two guerrillas were captured after a gun-battle | with El Al security men in . plain clothes and the Belgian police, in which one of the Palestinians was wounded in the shoulder. A Belgian police Colonel, 1 Francis de Vos told journal-’ ■ ists: “A small group of three ■ or four terrorists, who later ■ said they belonged to the Palestine Liberation Organi isation, tried to attack an El I Al plane.” ; Police sources said the I guerrillas apparently found [ security too tight, and hurled ; their bomb before the El A! passengers reached the tran- : sit hall. Every Israeli plane i arriving at Zaventem Air- • port, 16km from Brussels city centre, is escorted by armoured vehicles. In Beirut an organisation calling itself "Black March,” in an apparent reference to

; last month’s signing of; (the peace treaty between ■ Egypt and Israel, claimed re-' ; sponsibility for the attack. i. It called on Belgian, (authorities to release the two captured guerrillas. Belli gium last month welcomed the Egypt-Israel treaty. Colonel de Vos ‘•aid that ■both arrested men were ■ Palestinians, one from the 11 Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip, ’land were carrying Lebanese: ;ior Iraqi passports. He said that as they sur-. !!rendered they threw a writ-, I ten message to the police ■■demanding that the Belgian > Prime Minister should come. Ito the airport and arrange il for a plane to fly them out ii of the country. They were ; I armed with Soviet-made automatic rifles. The wounded man had the] ’bullet removed from his’ i( shoulder at a Brussels hospi-; •;tal. v Yasser Arafat’s Palestine 1 -[Liberation Organisation has I’denounced the attack. I “We denounce such at-! ■! tacks,” said the P.L.O.’s offilicial spokesman in Beirut,] I]Mahmoud Labadi. "We have’ I,’nothing to do with it.” Mr Labadi also said he [had no knowledge of the socalled “Black March" guerJrilla faction. Other Palestin’(ian officials in Beirut and ’independent observers conil tacted by the Associated 'Press knew nothing about’ >;the “Black March” group. |