Return of Black September

By Israel.

FOR weeks, West Germany's government had been uneasily aware that the Black September movement, which struck so viciously in Munich two months ago, would almost certainly strike again. The Arab terrorists' objective this time: freedom for the three young fedayeen who had been confined in separate Bavarian prisons since they were captured during the Olympic massacre of Israeli athletes and coaches. Last week Black September acted--and took the Germans by surprise. In one of the boldest skyjackings so far, two Palestinian terrorists commandeered a Lufthansa 727 with eleven other passengers aboard and forced the release of their three captured brethren.

The reaction in the Arab world was undisguised rejoicing. "Despite Zionist terrorism, the Palestinians are still able to present their cause to the world," crowed the Cairo newspaper Al-Gumhouria. When the Lufthansa jet landed in the Libyan capital of Tripoli, the three rescued Black Septemberists aboard--Sammar Abdullah, Abdul Kader Dannawi and Ibrahim Badran --were welcomed like conquering princes.

Angered by the alacrity with which the West Germans had agreed to turn over the three Arabs, Israel temporarily recalled its ambassador to Bonn. Complained Foreign Minister Abba Eban: "Who knows what people have been condemned to death or injury by their release?" In response, Israeli Phantoms made strikes on four Palestinian camps near Damascus. The Syrian government later said at least 65 people had been killed, few of them fedayeen.

The Israeli jets bombed Syria on the presumption that the skyjackers had come from there. Perhaps they had, since Syria is one of the few Arab states that still provide the fedayeen with camping space and money. Nonetheless, Lufthansa Flight 615 was empty when it left Damascus at 5:35 a.m. last week scheduled to Beirut, Ankara, Munich and Frankfurt. At Beirut, 13 passengers came aboard after a routine handbag and luggage check. Ten miles north of Cyprus, Captain Walter Claussen, 37, felt a gun muzzle at his neck and a soft-spoken Arab behind him on the flight deck. "I am the captain now," said the man, who called himself Abu Ali, a common Arab name. While he kept Claussen under surveillance, a companion dotted the plane with explosive charges the size of cigarette packs.

Abu Ali ordered Claussen to refuel in Cyprus and again at Zagreb; over the plane's intercom he announced the purpose of "Operation Munich": to free the imprisoned Black September trio and fly them to a friendly Arab country. By the time the 727 reached Zagreb, the West Germans were on full alert, and government officials had agreed to release the prisoners in exchange for the passengers and the plane. After taking on fuel, the plane left Zagreb and headed for Germany. Munich's Riem Airport was surrounded by policemen, border troops, armored cars and thousands of Bavarian Sunday drivers lured to the scene by radio reports. But the 727, which flew over the airport at 11 a.m., did not land. When German officials insisted it would take 90 minutes to bring the three prisoners to the airport, the terrorists ordered Claussen to return to Zagreb.

While the 727 circled the Yugoslav airport, the skyjackers broadcast a new demand--that the three prisoners be flown to Zagreb and released there. Meanwhile the Germans had worked out a set of conditions. If possible, they wanted the skyjackers arrested "without endangering the passengers and crew" of the jet. If that was not feasible, they told Yugoslav officials, the three prisoners were to be exchanged for the hostages. But if the skyjackers would not agree to the terms, the prisoners were to be returned to West Germany. In preparation for the deal, Lufthansa Board Chairman Herbert Culmann and the three prisoners boarded a Hawker Siddeley executive jet, which was to remain in West German airspace until the terrorists agreed to a direct swap.

The skyjackers, who were determined not to release the Lufthansa plane or its passengers until the released prisoners were safely in Libya, refused to accept any arrangement. Instead, they ordered Claussen to keep flying over Yugoslavia until the prisoners landed in Zagreb. Fuel ran so low that the captain had to cut off two of his three engines; if the third one shut down, the terrorists warned, they would simply blow up the plane in the sky.

Claussen meanwhile was urgently arguing against the German reluctance to accept the Arab terms. "The situation is getting more and more serious," he radioed at one point. "They really mean it. Get on with it, man." Later he implored: "Will you believe me that they've got it set in their heads that their three comrades come on board my plane without anybody being released?" Aloft over West Germany, Lufthansa's Culmann finally decided that the situation represented a "supra-legal emergency." Without consulting Bonn, he ordered the pilot of the Hawker Siddeley to fly to Zagreb and agreed to make the exchange on Arab terms. Moments after his plane touched down, the terrorists allowed Claussen to land the 727; less than a minute's fuel remained in the plane's tanks. On the ground, the Arabs were adamant that the 727 be refueled for the flight to Libya, and announced that plane and occupants would be blown up unless it was done. Unable to contact his foreign office, Kurt Laqueur, Bonn's consul general in Zagreb, agreed to the refueling. "I didn't want to play with the lives of the passengers," he explained later.

The flight to Tripoli was anticlimactic; guerrillas, crew and passengers were all so hysterically supercharged that a kind of camaraderie took hold. "One of them even served as my steward," reported Claussen later.

But the repercussions from the escapade are far from over. Critics of Chancellor Willy Brandt, who is in the midst of a tough re-election battle against the Christian Democrats, charged that the decision to release the prisoners was a "humiliation" for West Germany. Actually, Bonn was almost eager to hand over the three fedayeen; like political lightning rods, they have invited reprisals ever since the night they were captured in a gun battle at an airfield outside Munich.

Last week's surrender unquestionably hurt Bonn's relations with Israel. Whether the release had helped West German relations with Arab nations was still unclear. Brandt seemed to think it had. In an oblique campaign statement last week, he challenged opponents to answer the question: "Do you wish to leave the representation of Germany in Arab states totally in the hands of East Germany?" Beyond German politics, however, there is a more terrifying aspect to the week's events: the success of the skyjacking will presumably inspire the fedayeen to other acts of blackmail, leading in turn to even more terrible retaliation by Israel.

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