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06 February 2004
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Friday
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14 Zilhaj 1424
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Al Qaeda hails 1999 hijacking of Indian plane
NEW DELHI, Feb 5: A document reported to be from Al Qaeda has hailed the 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane by Kashmiri militants as a "successful operation" from which other guerillas can learn lessons.
The plane was hijacked after it left the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu, en route to New Delhi on Dec 24, 1999, and later landed in the Afghan city of Kandahar.
After a week of tough negotiations, the Indian government met the hijackers' demands and released three militants from a prison in occupied Kashmir in exchange for the passengers and crew.
"The hijackers were clearly able to lend greater prominence to their cause," the document, translated from a pro-Qaeda Arabic website, Al Palsam, said, according to a report in Thursday's Times of India.
"The whole world began to deal with the Kashmir issue anew and according to a new perspective."
One of the militants freed was Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who in 2002 was sentenced to death by a Pakistani court for kidnapping and murdering Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
The document added that the Indian authorities were "afflicted with broken spiritedness, submissiveness and grovelling as they carried out the demands of the Mujahideen in front of the whole world". -AFP
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