Devout groupies and a  band of terrorists

Devout groupies and a  band of terrorists

It turns out that the Hezbollah hijacking of Kuwait Airways Flight 422 was so easy even a pair of Korean movie star groupies could have done it. (Stock photo)
It turns out that the Hezbollah hijacking of Kuwait Airways Flight 422 was so easy even a pair of Korean movie star groupies could have done it. (Stock photo)

After a very organised group of terrorists hijacked the Kuwait Airways jumbo jet Flight 422 from Bangkok to Kuwait City for 16 days and killed two of their hostages in April of 1988, there was an investigation.

Fair enough at this remove from the event to say that the investigation was also very organised. It included very thorough people from three-letter agencies from more than a dozen countries -- Thailand included -- who never trumpet their successes and in fact hold them secret.

The group got pretty well all the answers they sought about the hijacking -- who, from where, why and most especially how? The hijackers were Lebanese, all members of the Shia-aligned and Iran-backed Hezbollah, or Army of God. It was and is an Islamist group particularly adept at terrorism and often acting abroad as Tehran's special operations group commandos. Hezbollah has operated belligerently within Thailand on terrorist missions before and since the 1988 hijacking.

The "why?" part was already clear from the violent and chilling 16-day ordeal of the jumbo jet's passengers and crew as it bounced from airport to airport around the Middle East and Africa. The masterminds wanted Kuwait to release 17 Shia comrades-in-arms imprisoned after a December, 1983, wave of bombings on two foreign embassies, the airport and other key Kuwaiti locations.

(Spoiler: The hijackers failed to free them under the doctrine of "We never negotiate with terrorists". It's not universally true but in this case it was.)

Airport security personnel patrol outside a passenger building at Suvarnabhumi airport.

It turned out the toughest part of this post-action investigation was the "how"? How did the hijackers get on Flight KU 422 in Bangkok as half a dozen ordinary passengers, and then turn into a well-oiled terrorist team with AK47s and grenades three hours later, when the Boeing 747 was over the Arabian Sea?

Long story short although it took months of investigation, the answer was pretty simple. It was so simple that even a pair of star-struck groupies could have figured out how to do it. Which a pair of star-struck groupies did figure out nine days ago in a piece of deja vu theatre that amused or annoyed pretty well everyone in Thailand, not to mention international and airline security teams around the world.

The short answer is that both the murderous hijacking and the obsessive movie fans had inside help.

The weapons used by the hijackers of Flight KU 422 were put on the flight by a worker of a Thai contractor while the aircraft was undergoing the usual clean-up and cabin maintenance at Don Mueang.

A female cleaner was given several heavy but smallish packages containing -- she didn't know this part, it seems -- broken-down rifles and a packet of grenades. While doing her job, she also stuck the weapons above the false ceiling of one of the plane's toilets. The intimidated woman who hid the weapons was also paid 500 baht. When interrogated, she finally cooperated fully with the investigators.

Exactly as with the pair of flibbertigibbets determined to be the first to greet actor-idol Lee Jong-suk at Suvarnabhumi a week ago last Friday, the only tool the hijackers actually needed during their Bangkok stopover were a couple of airport workers armed with the magic ID cards that literally open doors that are fortified to keep out unauthorised people.

Of course, an illegal airport intrusion requires more than just compliant pass-holders willing to risk their careers for love and/or money. Even the idol-worshipping Instagrammers had to start with a plan.

The hijackers, it turned out, had plenty of organisational help, including from one or more employees from a well-known Silom-area travel agency that never has been charged.

The men in nominal command of the public security theatre at Don Mueang airport 30 years ago and at Suvarnabhumi airport nine days ago haven't been very embarrassed.

Suvarnabhumi deputy general manager Kittipong Kittikachorn described the fangirls' exploit as merely staff misconduct "which has nothing to do with Suvarnabhumi's usual security standards."

Technically correct, but two things.

One, it's not the perception of the public, which knows from the media and Instagram blabbing that two Thai Clueless clones, not nearly as smart as your average terrorist team, had no trouble bursting through security doors and directly confronting a VIP airline passenger.

Two, it's hardly the first blunder by airport security, which has been caught pants-down in quite serious failures.

One example: Remember (almost no one does, unfortunately, it was three years ago) when the former Bangkok police chief Pol Lt Gen Kamronwit Thoopkrachang sailed through Suvarnabhumi security with his little friend, the five-shot .22-calibre revolver?

By coincidence, the newest version of the US government's annual, country-by-country analysis of terrorist threats says exactly that. "Thailand's vulnerability to international terrorism is its status as a transit and facilitation country ... given its high volume of travellers through Bangkok's main airport".

Theatre performances including airport security theatre can only be effective if the public views the acting as credible. The success of the security breach of Sept 14 by two movie fans on a lark gives a strong impression that security's not up to snuff.

Alan Dawson

Online Reporter / Sub-Editor

A Canadian by birth. Former Saigon's UPI bureau chief. Drafted into the American Armed Forces. He has survived eleven wars and innumerable coups. A walking encyclopedia of knowledge.

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