A legendary Palestinian hijacker has said that the hawkish Israeli premier Ariel Sharon is the only one who would benefit from the series of plane crash suicide attacks on the US, ruling out that the tragic events had been planned by any outside group.
Layla Khalid, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) who took part in hijacking planes in the early seventies, said that Sharon is investing the incident to link the Palestinian struggle to terrorism.
“Sharon is now continuing with his atrocities against the Palestinians, while the world is busy with the attacks, killing 10 Palestinians in Jenin today,” she told Albawaba.com Wednesday, adding that “the news of Palestine were not in the headlines today.”
Khalid ruled out that the Japanese Red Army, an alliance of her group, has carried out the attacks as an anonymous caller claimed Tuesday in a call to Al Jazeera satellite channel.
She believes that the whole thing was planned and perpetrated by “internal” forces that have the capability to carry out an attack of such magnitude and high level of accurate planning. However, collaboration with parties overseas is also possible, she said.
According to her analysis, the hijacked planes that crashed into the World Trade Center and destroyed both its towers must have been loaded with explosives to make the blast so powerful.
She warned of prejudicial accusations, reminding the US of the 1996 Oklahoma building blast when the a finger of suspicion was pointed at Middle Easterners but it turned out that an American had been the perpetrator.
The PFLP stopped hijacking in 1972. The operations had been executed “to draw the world’s attention to the Palestinian people’s plight” – Albawaba.com
