Thursday March 15 4:29 PM ET
Hijackers Free Women, Children in Saudi Arabia

By Fahd al-Frayyan

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - A Russian airliner carrying 174 people was hijacked by men claiming to be Chechens after takeoff from Istanbul Thursday and forced to fly to Saudi Arabia's holy city of Medina.

A Saudi official said the hijackers had released women and children and he was confident the drama would end soon.

``More than 20 women and children have been released. They are now in our care,'' Ali al-Khalaf, director of Saudi Civil Aviation told Reuters by telephone.

``We have a team negotiating with the group and dealing with them within the appropriate rules. The crisis is on its way to resolution, God willing,'' he said.

The plane, a Tupolev 154 owned by Vnukovo Airlines and originally bound for Moscow, was hijacked at 6:57 a.m. EST shortly after takeoff from Istanbul.

The airline said the plane was carrying 162 passengers, 98 of them Russian, and 12 crew. The Russian Foreign Ministry said there were 59 Turks on board. The nationalities of others on board were unknown.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, currently on a skiing holiday in Siberia, ordered the creation of a special crisis team of top officials to deal with the hijack, the Kremlin said.

Leader Said Former Minister

In Jordan, a Chechen envoy said the leader of the hijackers is a former Chechen interior minister.

``Arsaf Aslambik, a former general and Chechen interior minister, is the leader of the hijackers,'' Atfayva Fariza, a representative of the former Chechen republic and wife of a former Chechen minister, told Reuters.

``The aim of this operation is to bring to the world's attention what is going on in Chechnya and to call for international intervention in the crisis,'' she said. ``This is not a terrorist attack.''

Fariza said Aslambik, interior minister in 1998, had been wounded in Russia's war against Chechen rebels and was receiving treatment in Turkey.

She refused to give any further details on the hijack and there was no immediate confirmation of the identity of the hijackers.

Four Hijackers

Original Turkish reports spoke of two hijackers, but the head of the Russian crisis team said he believed there were four.

Vladimir Pronichev also told Russia's RTR television that it was Moscow that had negotiated the release of the women and children and of a flight attendant stabbed by the hijackers.

Earlier, Saudi television showed the plane parked at a remote area of the airport with its lights flashing. The footage did not show any security presence around the aircraft.

Turkish Transport Minister Enis Oksuz told NTV television that the hijackers had introduced themselves as Chechens.

According to Vnukovo Airlines, they demanded an end to Russia's military campaign in Chechnya.

``We still have no information about the nationality of the hijackers, whether they were Chechens or of some other nationality, but we are guiding ourselves by the fact that one of the demands of the hijackers was an end to the war in Chechnya,'' said chief executive Alexander Klimov.

Sergei Yastrzhembsky, Russian President Vladimir Putin's chief spokesman for the military campaign in rebel Chechnya, said the hijackers had no access to the pilots.

Crew Sealed Off

``The crew have battened down their door and the hijackers have no access to them,'' Interfax news agency quoted Yastrzhembsky as saying.

The Russian ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Andrei Baklanov, told Russia's ORT television that the hijackers had tried to break into the cockpit but failed.

Russia's NTV television said the Saudis had managed to hand a walkie-talkie to the hijackers who were demanding water and wanted floodlights to be directed at the plane.

A pro-Chechen press agency, which says it is the outlet for statements by separatist forces in Chechnya, said the rebels fighting Russian rule were not linked to the hijack.

``The official structures of Chechnya do not have any links to this incident,'' said a statement issued by Chechen-Press in the Georgian capital Tbilisi. ``Hostage-taking and blackmail are not our way of fighting.''

Russia is waging its second military campaign in breakaway Chechnya in four years, fighting mainly Muslim rebels. During the first war, pro-Chechen gunmen linked to the rebels briefly hijacked a boat off the Turkish coast in 1996.

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