what cruise ship was hijacked

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This Day In History : October 10

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US Navy fighter jets intercept Italian cruise ship hijackers

On October 10, 1985, the hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro reaches a dramatic climax when U.S. Navy F-14 fighters intercept an Egyptian airliner attempting to fly the Palestinian hijackers to freedom and force the jet to land at a NATO base in Sigonella, Sicily. American and Italian troops surrounded the plane, and the terrorists were taken into Italian custody.

On October 7, four heavily armed Palestinian terrorists hijacked the Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Alexandria, Egypt. Some 320 crewmembers and 80 passengers were taken hostage. Hundreds of other passengers had disembarked the cruise ship earlier that day to visit Cairo and tour the Egyptian pyramids. Identifying themselves as members of the Palestine Liberation Front—a Palestinian splinter group—the gunmen demanded the release of 50 Palestinian militants imprisoned in Israel . If their demands were not met, they threatened to blow up the ship and kill the 11 Americans on board. The next morning, they also threatened to kill the British passengers.

The Achille Lauro traveled to the Syrian port of Tartus, where the terrorists demanded negotiations on October 8. Syria refused to permit the ship to anchor in its waters, which prompted more threats from the hijackers. That afternoon, they shot and killed Leon Klinghoffer, a 69-year-old Jewish-American who was confined to a wheelchair as the result of a stroke. His body was then pushed overboard in the wheelchair.

Yasir Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) condemned the hijacking, and PLO officials joined with Egyptian authorities in attempting to resolve the crisis. On the recommendation of the negotiators, the cruise ship traveled to Port Said. On October 9, the hijackers surrendered to Egyptian authorities and freed the hostages in exchange for a pledge of safe passage to an undisclosed destination.

The next day–October 10–the four hijackers boarded an EgyptAir Boeing 737 airliner, along with Mohammed Abbas, a member of the Palestine Liberation Front who had participated in the negotiations; a PLO official; and several Egyptians. The 737 took off from Cairo at 4:15 p.m. EST and headed for Tunisia. President Ronald Reagan gave his final order approving the plan to intercept the aircraft, and at 5:30 p.m. EST, F-14 Tomcat fighters located the airliner 80 miles south of Crete. Without announcing themselves, the F-14s trailed the airliner as it sought and was denied permission to land at Tunis. After a request to land at the Athens airport was likewise refused, the F-14s turned on their lights and flew wing-to-wing with the airliner. The aircraft was ordered to land at a NATO air base in Sicily, and the pilot complied, touching down at 6:45 p.m. The hijackers were arrested soon after. Abbas and the other Palestinian were released, prompting criticism from the United States, which wanted to investigate their possible involvement in the hijacking.

On July 10, 1986, an Italian court later convicted three of the terrorists and sentenced them to prison terms ranging from 15 to 30 years. Three others, including Mohammed Abbas, were convicted in absentia for masterminding the hijacking and sentenced to life in prison. They received harsher penalties because, unlike the hijackers, who the court found were acting for “patriotic motives,” Abbas and the others conceived the hijacking as a “selfish political act” designed “to weaken the leadership of Yasir Arafat.” The fourth hijacker was a minor who was tried and convicted separately.

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U.S. Navy SEALs and the Achille Lauro Mission

The MS Achille Lauro was a cruise ship based in Naples, Italy. On October 7, 1985 four heavily armed Palestinian terrorists hijacked the ship in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Alexandria, Egypt. Some 320 crewmembers and 80 passengers were taken hostage. Identifying themselves as members of the Palestine Liberation Front–a Palestinian splinter group–the gunmen demanded release of 50 Palestinian militants imprisoned in Israel. If their demands were not met, they threatened to blow up the ship and kill the 11 Americans on board. The next morning, they also threatened to kill the British passengers. At this juncture, highly trained U.S. Navy SEAL assault forces were launched from the U.S. to capture or kill the terrorists before they could harm any of the Achille Lauro passengers or crew.

The Achille Lauro traveled to the Syrian port of Tartus, where the terrorists demanded negotiations on October 8. Syria refused to permit the ship to anchor in its waters, which prompted more threats from the hijackers. That afternoon, they shot and killed Leon Klinghoffer, a 69-year-old Jewish-American, who was confined to a wheelchair as the result of a stroke. His body was then pushed overboard in the wheelchair. The ship then headed back towards Port Said, where, after two days of negotiations, the hijackers agreed to abandon the ship and surrendered to the Egyptians in exchange for safe passage Tunisia.

On 10 October, the four hijackers boarded an EgyptAir Boeing 737 airliner, which took off from Cairo and headed for Tunisia. U.S. Navy carrier based fighter jets located the airliner 80 miles south of Crete and, without announcing themselves, trailed the airliner in darkness as it sought and was denied permission to land at Tunis. After a request to land at the Athens airport was likewise refused, the fighters turned on their running lights, flew wing-to-wing with the airliner, and ordered it to land at the Naval Air Station and NATO base in Sigonella, Sicily.

Unbeknown to the terrorist the U.S. Navy SEAL assault force was also trailing behind them and the F-14s in two U.S. Air Force C-141 transport aircraft. When all aircraft landed somewhat simultaneously at Sigonella, the SEAL assault force immediately surrounded the escape plane with all intentions of capturing the terrorists and taking them into custody.

Simultaneously, however, Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi claimed Italian territorial rights over the NATO base, and deployed Italian Air Force personnel and Carabinieri (the national military police of Italy), who lined up surrounding the SEALs. A delicate international standoff ensued, but the situation was resolved before an assault became necessary. The U.S. eventually capitulated to the Italians and allowed the hijackers to be taken into Italian custody after receiving assurances that the hijackers would be tried for murder.

The New York Times

The learning network | oct. 7, 1985 | palestinian gunmen hijack achille lauro.

Oct. 7, 1985 | Palestinian Gunmen Hijack Achille Lauro

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On Oct. 7, 1985, the Italian cruise ship MS Achille Lauro was hijacked by four members of the Palestine Liberation Front off the coast of Egypt in the Mediterranean. The hijackers took the more than 400 passengers and crew members hostage and demanded the release of 50 Palestinians from Israeli prisons.

The Oct. 8 New York Times reported: “The hijackers were quoted as saying they would blow up the ship if a rescue mission was undertaken. According to unconfirmed reports from Israeli radio monitors, the hijackers said they would begin killing the hostages unless their demands were broadcast on Egyptian radio and television.”

The following day, after the Syrian government refused to let them dock at the port of Tartus, the hijackers decided to execute one of the hostages: Leon Klinghoffer , a 69-year-old Jewish American, was tossed off the ship — in his wheelchair and in front of his wife , Marilyn Klinghoffer — after being killed.

The hijackers surrendered on the condition that they and the hijacking mastermind Abu Abbas be given a plane to escape. However, on Oct. 10, the plane was intercepted by United States military aircraft and forced to land at a NATO base in Sicily, where Mr. Abbas and the hijackers were arrested.

The American and Italian governments argued over jurisdiction to prosecute the hijackers. Italy would not extradite the men to the United States and, though it did convict the four hijackers, allowed Mr. Abbas to escape to Yugoslavia. He remained a free man until 2003, when he was captured by United States troops in Iraq; he died in custody the following year.

The Achille Lauro, meanwhile, went back into service as a cruise ship. In 1994, it caught fire while sailing off the coast of Somalia and sank. Two of the nearly 1,000 people on board died in the accident.

Connect to Today:

Today, there are many news stories of ship hijackings by pirates off the coast of Somalia, a country described by the Piracy at Sea Times Topics as one “of grinding poverty and internal chaos.”

What comparisons, if any, can you draw between the Somali pirates of today and the Palestinian gunmen who hijacked the Achille Lauro? How do their motives differ? How do the response and approach to negotiations differ? Given the increase in attacks in recent years, would you be willing to board a ship sailing near the East African Coast? Why or why not?

Learn more about what happened in history on Oct. 7»

Learn more about Historic Headlines and our collaboration with findingDulcinea »

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i think people like this should be put in jail for ever they had no reason to be hijacking something thats not even theres ppeople dont know whats wrong with there minds till something bad happening to them they have no ida whats going on when there in troubls thats what i think

I have read of the Klinghoffer family after this horrible tragedy — and theirs was a path of great struggle, sorrow and enlightenment. LEON KLINGHOFFER was the essence of bravery and resolve. I can only hope I would perform in a similar manner if presented with such a dire situation. My GOD bless his soul and that of his (now) late-wife — and all of his family.

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The Achille Lauro Incident: When U.S. Navy F-14s Forced An Egyptair Boeing 737 Off Course

Several things happened on this day in 1985: F-14s intercepted an Egyptair B737 carrying terrorists and forced it to land at Sigonella; after an armed standoff, the B737 took off again to Rome escorted by Italian F-104s and shadowed by USN fighters…

In the night between Oct. 10 and 11, 1985, several combat planes belonging to the Carrier Air Wing 17 (CVW-17) lauched from  USS Saratoga (CV-60) to intercept the Egyptair Boeing 737 which was carrying the terrorists who had hijacked the Achille Lauro liner off Egypt.

In fact, few days earlier, on October 7, 1985, four PLF militants men had hijacked the cruise ship. Holding the passengers and crew hostage, they directed the vessel to sail to Tartus, Syria, and demanded the release of 50 Palestinians then in Israeli prisons.

After two days of negotiations (and the killing of Leon Klinghoffer , a Jewish American retired businessman who was in a wheelchair) the terrorists agreed to abandon the ship in exchange for safe conduct and were flown towards Tunisia aboard an Egyptian commercial airliner.

On Oct. 10, while the Boeing 737 was taking off from Cairo, the “Super Sara” catapulted four F-14A (two belonging to VF-74 Be-Devilers and two belonging to VF-103 Sluggers), one E-2C (belonging to VAW-125 Tiger Tails), two KA-6D (belonging to VA-85 Black Falcons) and one EA-6B (belonging to VAQ-137 Rooks)  that had the task to intercep the airliner which transported the Achille Lauro hijackers.

Another E-2C, three more F-14s and two electronic intelligence aircrafts (one EA-3B and one RC-135) took part in the mission planned by the CAG (Commander Air Group) of the CVW-17, Robert “Bubba” Brodzky.

The mission was planned to be a night, lights-out, interception. The F-14s were vectored to the Boeing 737 by the E-2C and one VF-103’s Tomcat, exactly the BuNo 160904 side number 205, approaching the 737 from rear and below, was able to made the positive identification getting very close to airliner (about fifteen feet!!) to read its registration.

The E-2C vectored five more Tomcats (even though some sources say that there were only three) to join the lights out formation just above the island of Crete. From that moment on, each communication with the Egyptian Boeing was done by the E-2C which used a VHF frequency to transmit the order to divert to Sigonella, in Italy.

Only when the liner refused to comply with the order to divert, the E-2C ordered “LIGHTS ON, NOW!” that lit up all the F-14s surrounding the Boeing 737. The Hawkeye told to airliner crew that in one way or another they had to reach Sigonella and the 737 had to proceed to the airbase in Sicily.

Once on the ground, the Tomcats closed the airspace overhead for all incoming aircraft, except two USAF C-141 cargos which were carrying Navy SEALs team. As the American forces surrounded the Boeing , they were surrounded by the Italian military security (belonging to the Air Force and Carabinieri – the Military Police) forces that claimed Italian territorial rights over the base.

The diplomatic crisis was resolved after five hours of negotiations. The hijackers were left to the Italians that had to bring them to Rome with a special flight whereas the other passengers on the plane (including the hijackers’ leader, Muhammad Zaidan) were allowed to continue on to their destination, despite protests by the United States.

At around 22.00 local time, on Oct. 11, the Egyptair B737 took off from Sigonella to Rome Ciampino airport.

U.S. Major General Stiner, in command of the American Special Operations Forces at Sigonella, boarded a U.S. Navy T-39 aircraft with other American Special Operations personnel and planned to shadow the 737, as they were not certain the terrorist would be really transferred to Rome. When the Egyptian airliner took off from Sigonella at 10:00 p.m. the T-39 was not granted clearance from that runway and, without a clearance, it departed from the parallel runway.

Shortly after take off, the Egyptair B737 got a special escort by two F-104S Starfighter of the 36° Stormo (Wing) from Gioia del Colle, later joined by two additional F-104s of the 9° Stormo from Grazzanise airbase.

The 737 with its escort flight were later joined by some unknown aircraft, most probably U.S. F-14s, that approached the F-104s from behind while an EA-6B was jamming the Italian radars . Although what happened next has never been officially disclosed and some wild theories suggest the formations clashed in a sort of dogfight, it seems far more realistic that the Italians never engaged the American aircraft but remained in tight formation with the Boeing, with some pretty harsh radio comms being exchanged between the Italians and the Americans.

Anyway, as the formation made by the Boeing, the escorting F-104s and the F-14s approached Rome, the USN fighters turned back, while the T-39 continued to Ciampino. The Italian ATC (Air Traffic Control) did not clear the executive jet to land, but the T-39 declared an inflight emergency and eventually landed on RWY 15/33 at the airport: this unauthorized landing, along with the crisis at Sigonella and the American attempts to divert the B737 negatively influenced diplomatic relations between Italy and the U.S. for some time.

Anyway, despite the diplomatic crisis that followed the incident, most probably, the night intercept was, until then, the most complex aerial anti-terrorist mission ever planned.

The Be-Devilers of VF-74 were disbanded on Apr. 28, 1994, after they spent their last days as Adversary Squadron simulating aircrafts as MiG-29, MiG-31 and SU-27. Instead in the 1995 the Sluggers of VF-103  took the skull and bones left by the disbanded VF-84 and changed their name into Jolly Rogers.

• Achille Lauro incident
• Leon Klinghoffer
• United States
• USS Saratoga

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The Achille Lauro Hijacking — “These sons of bitches must be prosecuted”

On October 8, after being refused permission by the Syrian government to dock, the hijackers murdered Leon Klinghoffer, a retired, wheelchair-bound Jewish American businessman, shooting him in the forehead and chest. They then forced the ship’s barber and a waiter to throw his body and wheelchair overboard. Klinghoffer’s wife, Marilyn, who did not witness the shooting, was told by the hijackers that he had been moved to the infirmary. She only learned the truth after the hijackers left the ship at Port Said. The PLO later denied that the hijackers were responsible for the murder, and suggested that Marilyn had killed her husband for insurance money. Over a decade later, in April 1996, PLF leader Zaidan accepted responsibility, and in 1997, the PLO reached a financial settlement with the Klinghoffer family.

The Achille Lauro headed back towards Port Said, and after two days of negotiations, the hijackers agreed to abandon the liner in exchange for safe conduct. They were flown towards Tunisia aboard an Egyptian commercial airliner. The next day, October 10, the four hijackers boarded an Egypt Air Boeing 737 airliner. The plane took off from Cairo at 4:15 p.m. EST and headed for Tunisia. President Reagan approved a plan to intercept the aircraft, and at 5:30 p.m., F-14 Tomcat fighters located the airliner 80 miles south of Crete. Without announcing themselves, they trailed the airliner as it was denied permission to land at Tunis. After a request to land at the Athens airport was likewise refused, the F-14s turned on their lights and flew wing-to-wing with the airliner. The aircraft was ordered to land at Sigonella, the NATO air base in Sicily, and the pilot complied, touching down at 6:45 p.m. The hijackers were arrested soon after. The other passengers on the plane (including Zaidan) were allowed to continue on to their destination, despite protests by the United States.

Nicholas Veliotes was the U.S. Ambassador to Egypt at the time and recounts the dramatic events of the hijacking, his frustrations in dealing with the Egyptian government and his diplomatic colleagues, as well as his now famous statement which caused such a stir in Egypt and elsewhere. Edmund J. Hull was at the time the deputy in the political section and would later serve as Ambassador to Yemen. Both were interviewed by Charles Stuart Kennedy, beginning in January 1990 and October 2005, respectively. You can also read Hull’s account of 9/11 as well as when the Palestinian terrorist organization kidnapped everyone at a reception in Khartoum and eventually murdered the U.S. ambassador and Deputy Chief of Mission. You can see other Moments on terrorism here.

There was clearly a split in the Egyptian government on how to handle this incident

A group of Palestinian terrorists from the Arab Liberation Front, headed by someone called Mohammed Abul al-Abbas, we learned later, hijacked the ship [between Alexandria and Port Said].

And then the hijackers just took the ship [throughout the eastern Mediterranean]. Among other things that I learned was just how big the Mediterranean was. We didn’t know where [the ship] was. All of our Navy and all of our Air Force was out looking for it. Everyone else was looking for it. We kept track of it, frankly — at least at first — from some intercepted radio broadcasts. The Secretary of State, for example, called me and started giving me instructions on what to tell the Egyptians to do when the ship came to them. I said, “That’s fine, but it’s not here.” He said, “I’ve just been informed that it’s steaming in Egyptian waters.” I said, “No, it’s off the port of Tartus, in [southern] Syria. We have an intercepted exchange of messages between the Syrians and the ship.”

Well, it eventually showed up in Egyptian waters. We asked the Egyptians to keep it in international waters and keep it isolated, while we headed for it as soon as possible. You keep it in international waters so that, if we were to mount an assault on it, no one could blame the Egyptians. You keep them isolated from the press, so that, we’ve learned, you can dampen their enthusiasm or longevity if they can’t advertise their point of view. The objective is to get the incident over quickly for essentially humanitarian reasons.

There was clearly a split in the Egyptian government on how to handle this incident. The Defense Minister was determined that these people [the hijackers] should be apprehended. The security people strongly believed that Egypt would soon arrest these criminals, who had stained Egypt’s honor — after all, the hijacking took place in Egypt — and put them on trial. The Foreign Ministry and the Presidency –and I think it was more the President — just wanted to dispose of the problem. In part they were afraid that if they put them on trial in Egypt, there would be a lot of people who would support them. And President Mubarak could just see — God, here are the television cameras, hundreds of people cheering these murderers for killing a crippled Jew….

I spent one full day–first, fighting with the British, French, Italian, and German ambassadors, who wished to accept an invitation from the terrorists, conveyed through the Foreign Minister, to meet with them to discuss the situation:  the Italian Ambassador, because it was an Italian boat; the British Ambassador, because there were British passengers on board; the German Ambassador, because there were a lot of German passengers on board; and us, because Americans were the major group of hostages. I spent several hours talking them out of this, just asking them please to check back with their governments. I finally got the German Ambassador to agree. I said that this could do no good at all. It would prolong the agony, and I urged them not to do it.

Before we broke up, we were called to the Foreign Ministry, where the signals had changed. The [Egyptian] Foreign Minister gave us 20 minutes to consider agreeing–on behalf of our governments–that we would not seek to extradite these people or prosecute them, in exchange for their surrender to the Egyptians immediately. The British Ambassador was still a bit annoyed because I had kept him from his 15 minutes–or 15 seconds–of fame. He seemed ready to agree.

I said, “And you give us 20 minutes and then what? We would have to wash our hands of this.” There were 400 people on the ship, including 20 Americans. I decided to call the bluff. I said, “No. Certainly, they would understand that I must ask my government for instructions.” So I got an open telephone line to Mike Armacost [then Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs]. And finally, and reluctantly, the other Ambassadors said that they would also ask for instructions. I said that we could not leave the ministry. We were besieged. There were hundreds of journalists there. Because no matter what anyone says, the whole story was going to be on the news wires and could prejudice the lives of our people. So I said that we should stay at the Foreign Ministry. I asked the Foreign Minister to give each one of us a room.

So we all got on the phone [to our governments]. The Italian Ambassador was the first to come to me and say, “My government says ‘all right,’ But he sort of winked and said, “You know, we’re not going to adhere to this.” I said, “Well, you don’t understand. If my government gives a promise, my government gives a promise.” The German Ambassador came to me and said, “My government is willing to say ‘Yes’ [to the Egyptian Foreign Minister’s proposal]. But you see, that’s not the whole story. My government will agree not to seek extradition. But according to our law, any of the victims can seek redress through the courts.”

I said, “OK, I understand that. Thank you.” I said that I still have no answer and that I won’t get an answer. I said, “I’m not going to get a `Yes’ [to the Egyptian proposal]. We could play with language. The language would say certain things, but not `Yes,’ and I could prepare a proposed form of words for the Foreign Minister. But not anything that tells them that they can get off scot free. My government doesn’t believe in it, and I don’t believe in it.” I’d already told the Foreign Minister that if he was really sure that no one had been hurt, that the earlier report that an American was killed was not true, then it might be easier for my government to be less enthusiastic about its pursuit of these hijackers. But I said that he would get no formal undertaking [not to pursue the hijackers].

“These sons of bitches must be prosecuted”

Hours went by. And then the ambassadors were called in and told that the Foreign Minister had received a phone call, informing him that the hijackers had surrendered to the Egyptian authorities and that the incident was over. I told the Foreign Minister, “Congratulations,” and I shook his hand. He turned to the other ambassadors and said, “I hope you’ll remember what Ambassador Veliotes just said.” I said, “Well, my congratulations meant that you ended this incident without loss of life.”

Then I went back to the Embassy, called the Defense Minister, and asked him if he could get me a plane [to go to Port Said]. I said, “I’ve got to fly to Port Said. I’ve got to get on that ship and I’m bringing a consular officer and our doctor.”…With me was Edmund Hull, a political officer…. His wife is a Palestinian. So we reached Port Said and boarded the ship. The Italian Ambassador had gone out to the ship earlier than we did, as he should have done. The minute I got on board the ship I knew that something had gone wrong.

The Egyptians claimed that they hadn’t [known about Klinghofer’s murder], up to the time I saw the Foreign Minister at about 5:00 p.m.…We finally got out to the ship at about midnight. I knew that something awful had happened. In the first place, the crew was shell-shocked. No one was sure that all of them [the hijackers] had gone, because only four of them had left. The crew thought that there were about 10 hijackers. You know, I still understand Italian. I could hear the crew muttering.

By the time I reached the captain, the Italian Ambassador was there, the ship’s officers, and Captain La Rosa, who came up to me with tears in his eyes. He handed me Mr. Klinghoffer’s passport and he said, “I’m sorry. I did my best.” Then he started to cry. At that point I said, “Well, is his death confirmed?” The captain answered, “Yes.” I said, “I’ll have to contact my Embassy.”

They gave me a phone. I got through to Bill Clark, who was DCM. I told him that we must insist to the [Egyptian authorities] that there had been a death. An American had been murdered, and we must insist that these sons of bitches be prosecuted. That was the phrase I used….

The captain had been a real hero. He had risked his life to save at least one other life. Then he showed me his instructions. He had received instructions from his company that since he was still in international waters, he was to proceed immediately to complete the cruise. To go to Ashdod [Israel–the next scheduled port]. To continue as if nothing had happened. I said to him, “But you can’t. There’s been a murder. There’s going to be a prosecution. The [Egyptian] criminal authorities are going to want to come on board.” I said things like that.

He started to cry and said, “But what can I do? I’ll be finished if I don’t follow instructions.” I replied, “I know what we’ll do.” By this time the Egyptian military had come on board, [headed by] a major general. I said to the general, “Look, you’ve got to solve the [captain’s] problem. You should take this ship into port.” He nodded and disappeared. He came back and said, “I’ve just received instructions, captain, to take you into port.” Obviously, the Defense Minister had told him, “Hell, yes, get him into port.” So we went into Port Said.

Now all this time I had been assuming that the Egyptian government was going to arrest and prosecute the hijackers. That was confirmed by the senior Egyptian military officer on the ship. So I stayed up all night and went around, talking to those hostages who were not in their cabins and could not sleep, to reassure them. And then they said to me, “Would you please go and knock on the doors of the other people? Tell them that things are really all right. You can’t imagine the terror which we have been through.”

So I went along, knocking on doors. Some humorous incidents happened when these people opened their doors. They were quite elderly people. They would say, “Who is it?” And I would reply, “The American Ambassador.” They would say, “How do we know who you are?” I replied, “Believe me, it’s the American Ambassador.” I’d tell them my name, and we’d talk and joke, and finally I’d get them to open their doors. I would go in and talk to them. The only person whose door I did not knock on was that of Mrs. Klinghoffer, because I was told that she was under sedation.

“Mr. Ambassador, we want you to know that we didn’t crack, and we always remembered that we were Americans”

Meanwhile, the [Embassy] doctor was meeting with everyone and talking to them. Edmund Hull, one of our political officers, went around and met people. He is one of those very capable officers whom you instinctively gravitate to, because they do everything right. He was going around, talking to them and reassuring them. By that time I must have looked like a terrorist myself, as I hadn’t shaved or had time to clean up. We all had breakfast and then I said, “Look, do you think that we should meet before I leave?” They said, “Yes, we’d like that very much. We want to talk to you.” They said, “Oh, by the way, would you go down and talk Mrs. Klinghoffer into joining us, just in case she would want to come?”

So I went down and knocked on her door. I entered her room and held her hand and talked to her. She had a woman friend in the room who had spent the night with her. I said, “You know, we really want you to come and be with us. All of your friends are waiting.” She said, “OK.”

And I’ll never forget when she walked into the room. She was a very pretty woman. She had cleaned up, made herself up, and put on a gorgeous, summer dress and came in to join her friends. As it turned out, there wasn’t much that they wanted to hear from me. They appreciated what we had done and what we were trying to do. They elected a spokesman. What they wanted me to know is that they were terrorized, they were just so scared, but they were also damned mad. The spokesman said, “Mr. Ambassador, we want you to know that we didn’t crack, we didn’t crawl, and we always remembered that we were Americans.”

And I thought, “My God, they are reassuring me!” I said, “May I tell people this?” And they said, “Please tell them.” So I said this to the assembled press and I called it through to Mike Armacost and suggested that he put it in his testimony to Congress. I said that these people were the heroes of this incident….

I got to the Embassy about 11:00 a.m. I was told that I had been asked to go over and see the Foreign Minister immediately. I said, “Look, I’m beat. I stink. I feel rotten. I haven’t slept for three days. I’m hungry.” So I called my wife. I said, “Honey, come over [to the Embassy] and bring some clothes.” Then I said, “Tell the Foreign Minister that I’ll be there in an hour and a half or so.” By the way, when I told my wife about what had happened on the ship, I just broke down and cried. It was just such a touching, emotional experience.

When I walked in to see the Foreign Minister, he was very reserved. We were on a first name basis — I’d known him for years. I could see immediately that [our conversation] was going to be in terms of “Mr. Ambassador” and “Mr. Foreign Minister.” He started saying things like, “The President doesn’t understand” and “How could this happen?” I tried to reply and I said, “You know, I don’t think that I know what you’re talking about.” He started in again.

He said, “Yes, but why did you have to call them ‘sons of bitches’?”

I said, “Well, aren’t they?”

He said, “Well, of course they are, and worse. But this has put real pressure on us.” I said, “Well, this was unintended, but it happened. Now, let’s talk about what you’re going to do about it.” He said, “Oh, well, we’re going to…” I said, “Now, wait a minute. Maybe I ought to talk to the President.” He replied, “No, the President isn’t talking to anyone.”

I said, “It’s not very wise for the President not to talk to anyone on this.” He said, “Oh, well,” and this and that. I said, “Look, you’ve got these people. They’re murderers, they carried out a hijacking, probably in Egyptian waters. Anyway, they’re now in your custody. We have a confirmed murder of an American, and you’re telling me that you’re not going to prosecute them?”

Then he got back to my statement — how people were interpreting this, and how this looked like a deliberate attempt to stir up my government. I said, “Well, it actually reflects my sentiments. It’s the least that I could say. But that’s not the point. The point isn’t what we are doing. The point is what you’re doing, and I urge you to make a decision that these people should be put on trial.” …

Frankly, I thought that we couldn’t prosecute them. We could have brought them in tiger cages down Fifth Avenue, and then what? They would have been released. There would be a Jewish lawyer from the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union to defend them] because, you know, of their rights in this country. I was told later, by the way, by a team from the Justice Department that I was right.

I could not get through to the President [of Egypt], and [Secretary of State] George Shultz could not get through to him. What then happened was that during that afternoon my Chief of Station [senior CIA representative in the Embassy] came in and said, “I’ve got a message for you.” The message was that if these guys [the hijackers] leave [Egypt], the U. S. is going to try to get them. I said, “Thank you.” I’d been informed….

We then found that the Egyptians were starting to play games with us. But then the plane took off, and we captured the hijackers.

The U.S. intercepts the Egyptian plane and forces it to land in Sicily

HULL:  When we finally got in Port Said, Ambassador Veliotes made his way back to Cairo to manage the crisis which now was in full swing in Egyptian-U.S. relations. I was asked to stay with the hostages, and at this stage we were joined by the regional psychologist from the embassy. We were bussed to a military airbase outside of Cairo and boarded a C-130 to be flown to Germany for medical examinations. I accompanied the hostages. In midair, we had news that American military aircraft had intercepted the Egyptian airplane that was taking the terrorists from Egypt to Tunisia, which at the time was the headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization. President Reagan had made the decision that we would so intervene and force the Egyptian airplane down at the U.S. Naval Air Station in Sigonella, Sicily. This interception caused even greater consternation back in Cairo.

So, we had an interesting situation in which the hostages, the terrorists, the U.S. special operations personnel and U.S. diplomats were co-located and to some extent, could discuss the incident. At that time, I learned that Special Ops team had been prepared to storm the vessel. The hostages on hearing of this plan to storm the vessel expressed relief that it had not occurred. The hostages had been separated into different groups. The hijackers were with those dispersed groups, had automatic weapons and had radio contact. At least some of the hostages believed that if the storming had occurred, the hijackers would have opened up with automatic weapons, and there would have been many casualties.

The next move came from the Italians. Balancing their diplomatic interests as they saw them and knowing that this was a highly sensitive subject in the Arab world, the Italians decided to move the hijackers to Rome out of American custody. General Steiner who was commanding the Special Operations forces insisted on accompanying the hijackers.

When the Italians refused, he ordered his small jet to take off from the base without clearance and he flew over, just over, the heads of the Italian authorities and directed his airplane to Rome. His concern was well-founded because eventually the Italians did release Abu Abbas, who was not among the hijackers of the Achille Lauro but who had come to Italy to meet with his men who had been hijackers and who was responsible with commanding the operation. So this caused a great stress to U.S.-Italian relations as well.…

The Egyptians were outraged, especially by the interception of the Egypt Air flight. The Egyptians believed that they had done a service to the U.S. by arranging for the hijacking to end without further loss of life….

VELIOTES: The plane landed at Sigonella. The first reaction I received was from the Egyptian Defense Minister. I stayed on the phone for 45 minutes, giving him therapy. I told him, number one, that he couldn’t resign. He figured that he was such a good friend of ours and that we had made his position untenable….He asked, “Don’t you know what’s happened?”

I said, “No.” He said, “Your forces have surrounded our plane. We cannot allow this. We must fight you.” I said, “Well, for heaven’s sake, this has to be sorted out.” Fortunately, it was. It was nothing but bad judgment on our part. If you’ll remember, our forces surrounded their [the Egyptians’] plane, and the Italian Carabinieri surrounded our forces.

Q: Our Ambassador to Italy at the time, Max Rabb, said that he was trying to get this sorted out, and he was told no, that this was all in the hands of LTC Oliver North and that they only took orders from him.

Finally, the four hijackers were taken off the plane. The four persons actually involved were prosecuted. The plane then went on with this guy, Mohammed Abul al-Abbas, whom we had never heard of. I honestly didn’t know who he was. The Egyptians I talked to didn’t know him. As a matter of fact, they asked me, earlier that day or the day before, “Who in hell is this guy?” I asked Washington and never got an answer.

So the Egyptian plane flew to Rome, and the question is, what’s going to happen to Mohammed Abul al-Abbas? Well, we know what happened. The Italian Government fell after Mohammed Abul al-Abbas sneaked away on a Yugoslav plane….

The Italian legal authorities asked if any of our people, any of our hostages, would be willing to come to Sigonella and identify the [hijackers]…. And every one of them said, “Yes,” and it was almost like something out of a novel or a movie. Marilyn Klinghoffer, when she identified the man who, we think, killed her husband, spit in his face.

Taking the Heat – The Messy Aftermath

That ended that phase of it, but, of course, the relationship between Egypt and the United States was at an impasse. [President] Mubarak insisted that President Reagan apologize. Reagan insisted that Mubarak apologize, and things continued the way they were. This is when a career officer with experience as an Ambassador plays a very important role. You are most important and effective when Washington is utterly disorganized and in chaos. This is where we were. We had the Legal Adviser’s Office [in the State Department] running this situation. We had 16 other people [involved]….

So, as luck would have it, about three days into this impasse, and certain elements of the [Egyptian] press were calling for my assassination, the Egyptians had put us in the deep freeze….

So I said [to an embassy staffer] “I think I ought to give a press conference today. I’ve never met the press in Cairo, except individually, at lunches, and off the record. What do you think?” He had great feelings about it and said, “I think so.”… And I started out that the United States very much regrets the necessity of having to stop the Egyptian plane, and I likened it to a bus on which some criminals were trying to escape. The police stopped it. But I used the words “regret” and “necessity.”

So in the press came and I handed out this press statement in the full glory of the TV cameras and everything. I said, “I’d like to add that we want to commend the Egyptian government for its handling of this Achille Lauro hijacking.” I said, “That [the hijacking] took place before the Egyptians became involved, and the Egyptians speedily brought this to a resolution which saved the hostages–and there were 400 people, remember–from additional trauma and possible, physical violence. For political, as well as humanitarian reasons, this was the way to handle it.” So I said that. And I played down stopping the [passengers] from leaving the boat, stopping the plane, and all of that, and emphasized the positive. I didn’t clear any of this, of course [with the State Department].

I was told later on that when [my statement] hit Washington–I had called Dick Murphy [Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs] and told him, “Look, Dick, I’m not going to put any pressure on you or anyone else. You can see my remarks as I’m making them.” And I’m told that the first reaction was outrage in certain quarters. And then, the next day, we sent back the details:…the detailed blueprint of how to reestablish the Egyptian-American relationship at its previous level. Everyone accepted that, and it was the blueprint from which we worked. Then, because this concerned the Middle East, funny things happened.

About six weeks later the Libyans hijacked an Egyptian airplane, full of Egyptian hostages, and took it to Malta. The Egyptians asked us if we would escort the Egyptian aircraft [carrying an Egyptian commando team to Malta] because it would be within range of Libyan fighters. They [Egyptian fighters] didn’t have the range [to escort it]. So planes from the Sixth Fleet — of course, it was planes from the Sixth Fleet that had hijacked the Egyptian plane — were escorting the Egyptian Army to Malta, where they were going to rescue their hostages from the Libyans. We had two of our own soldiers on board [the Egyptian aircraft], ostensibly as observers. But basically the Egyptians wanted to make sure that we were really going to escort them [the Egyptian Army commando team]….

I read it, picked up the phone, called Mike Armacost, and said, “Mike, for Christ’s sake, cancel that. This is a Mossad [Israeli intelligence organization] report. Anyone who has served in the Middle East will know the Israeli style. I mean, you guys didn’t even paraphrase it. And therefore, the [Italians] will dismiss it.” Well, Mike admitted that he didn’t quite know what I was talking about–someone else was handling this. And, sure enough, the second telegram I received was about an Italian Foreign Ministry official telling our DCM [in Rome], “This is a Mossad report. How do you expect us to act on [the basis of] Israeli propaganda?”

And then, you know, the [Italian] government fell….

Here we are, the same people who were insisting that Mohammed al-Abbas [aka Muhammad Zaidan] had to be tried, regardless of consequences for American policy in Europe and the Middle East, including NATO bases. To me it’s not coincidental that this happened after this series of events in Sigonella. Not so much intercepting the plane, but what happened afterwards. The Spaniards canceled the bases agreement. [They seemed to be saying], “That’s the way the Americans recognize the sovereignty of their partners.” It was unbelievable, but it was a tough time. To me, as an individual, it was tough. But we got things back on track…. I’ll say this about [President] Ronald Reagan. He did not bear grudges. I mean, Ronald Reagan, in this sense, had a real grasp of the broader subject. He wanted to get on with our work….

One final comment:  While I was holding the line in Cairo on U.S. policy at no negotiations, no concessions to terrorists, Ollie North and Bud McFarlane, et al, were trying to ransom the hostages in Lebanon by giving the Iranians military equipment.

HULL:  Ambassador Veliotes became the scapegoat. Ambassador Veliotes was particularly castigated for the language he had used when the Achille Lauro was approaching Port Said. It had been salty language. Ambassador Veliotes took this scapegoating with great professionalism, even stoicism. I never heard him complain, I never heard him fault Washington but at the end of the day it was the Ambassador who was forced to leave Cairo prematurely and pay the price of the diplomatic crisis.

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Achille Lauro hijacking: A tragic example of maritime terrorism

The hijacking of the Achille Lauro in 1985 resulted in death of one passenger

As part of its ‘Learn from the past’ series, SAFETY4SEA remembers the hijacking of the cruise ship ‘Achille Lauro’ in 1985 by four heavily armed Palestinian militants who posed as passengers, resulting to the brutal murder of one passenger. The attack lasted only two days but spurred a global concern over the shaping dimensions of maritime terrorism.

• Type of incident : Hijacking
• Vessel(s) involved : ‘Achille Lauro’ (cruise ship)
• Date : 7 October 1985
• Place : off Alexandria
• Fatalities : 1
• Pollution : No

The incident

On 3 October 1985, the ‘Achille Lauro’ left Genoa, Italy for a 12-day cruise in the Mediterranean Sea with 748 passengers.

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On 7 October, at Alexandria, 651 of the passengers from the Achille Lauro left for a bus tour of the pyramids. They were to rendezvous with the ship hours later at Port Said. As such, only 97 remained onboard.

Four terrorists stormed into the ship’s dining room, shooting their automatic weapons over the heads of the passengers who were eating. Passengers started screaming; some tried to escape but were stopped by terrorists.

Shortly after, the Captain was requested to come immediately to the bridge where hijackers demanded him to sail the ship 300 miles to the northeast to the Syrian port of Tartus. They also ordered the 450 crew to continue with their normal duties but to stay clear of the hostages.

The terrorists claimed to have a total of 20 hijackers onboard. Only later it would be discovered that they were only four.

Before the hijackers enforced radio silence, the crew managed to send out an S.O.S. which alerted the international community that Palestinians had seized an Italian ship.

The tourists that had visited the pyramids reached Port Said by 10:30 but found no ship. At first, they were told that traffic in the canal had delayed the ship but at 1:30 a.m. were given the truth.

The next day, the hijackers began to separate the hostages by their origin. They were looking for Jews and Americans.

Meanwhile, the ship was denied permission to enter the Port of Tartus and returned off Port Said where Egyptians and Palestinian Liberation Organization officials negotiated an end to the hijacking.

The four Palestinians were given safe passage out of Egypt in exchange for the release of the hostages and the ship.

Of course, this was agreed based on the pretext that they had done no harm to any of the passengers.

However, this was not the case. They had already killed one passenger.

Upon arriving off Tartus, the leader terrorist demanded that the Israeli Government be contacted and given the demand that 50 Palestinians held in its jails be freed, including specifically Samir Kuntar, a Lebanese friend of Abu Abbas, the mastermind behind the hijacking. They would begin killing hostages if the prisoners were not released, he warned. Israel did not respond.

As the deadline neared, they began to decide whom to kill. They selected Leon Klinghoffer, a Jewish-American 69-year-old man in a wheelchair. They took him on the open deck, shot him and threw his body overboard.

On 15 October, the Reagan Administration told reporters that a partially decomposed body that had washed up on the Syrian coast was that of Leon Klinghoffer.

Background events

The hijacking of the Achille Lauro was planned and executed by one of the three factions of the Palestine Liberation Front. The PLF was one of the eight constituent groups that had originally formed the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) which was under the chairmanship of Yasser Arafat.

Reports at the time suggested the hijacking of Achille Lauro was an act of retaliation for the Israeli bombing of the PLO headquarters in Tunis.

The Palestinians had hidden their weapons in the gas tank of a car parked in Italy in preparation for boarding the ship. A cabin steward, with the hijackers’ stateroom in his responsibilities, surprised the four Palestinians, as they were trying to clean the gasoline residue off their weapons, by entering the unlocked door to their room in order to deliver complimentary fruit.

It was believed that the hijackers planned to launch an attack on Ashdod, Israel, but they panicked and moved to hijack the ship instead.

Subsequent events

The incident sparked the so-called Sigonella Crisis.

US Navy planes intercepted the Egyptian airliner carrying the hijackers and the mastermind of the attack, Abul Abbas.

The plane was forced to land at a US-Italian military base in Sicily (the Sigonella), where Italian authorities arrested the four hijackers but allowed Abbas to leave the country despite suspicion over his involvement. It was later confirmed that he had been directing the hijacking via radio.

This created a diplomatic tension between the US and both Egypt and Italy.

In 1986, the four hijackers—Youssef Magied al-Molqui, age 23; Ahmad Marrouf al-Assadi, 23; Ibrahim Fatayer Abdelatif, 20; and Bassam al-Askar, 17—were tried in Italy. The three eldest received sentences ranging from 30 to 15 years in prison. al-Askar was convicted in a separate trial. Italy sentenced the mastermind Abu Abbas in absentia to five terms of life imprisonment for his role in the Achille Lauro hijacking, but he never served it. He was located in Iraq during the 2003 invasion of the country and died in custody the next year.

Lessons learned

The incident came in addition of several terrorist attacks at sea which spurred a general worry that maritime was a new terrorist trend. It also posed several questions concerning the security measures taken by passenger shipping in general, given that the terrorists so easily penetrated the Achille Lauro.

Reports at the time said one of the terrorists had taken the ship several times, even obtaining friendly relationship with some of the crew, which means that the frequency of travel in the same liner never raised suspicions enough so as to check at least more carefully his passport. Other reports said that when a crew member asked one of the terrorists what his origin was, he said Norwegian, and neither this alarmed any bells.

As such, the incident, which occurred in the middle of an alarming period for global security, highlighted an inadequate participation of the maritime in the fight against global terrorism.

It was not until the September 11 th attacks -the attacks ‘that changed the world’- that the maritime community was shocked enough to understand that the international security landscape leaves it no immune to possible attacks.

In this regard, the International Ship and Port Security code (ISPS) came into force on 1st July 2004, under SOLAS chapter XI-2, forming the basis of a comprehensive mandatory security regime for international shipping.

Under the ISPS Code, SOLAS contracting governments, port authorities and shipping companies are required to designate appropriate security officers and personnel, on each ship, port facility and shipping company.

Supporters of the ISPS-code could say that the code has been successful since there have been no serious maritime terrorist attacks since its implementation.

5 terrorist attacks against merchant ships since 2001

• 2002 – there was the attack on the LIMBURG – in which one person lost their life
• 2004 – the attack on SUPERFERRY 14 , off Philippines, killed 116 people and is the deadliest terrorist attack at sea to date
• 2005 – there was the attack on the passenger vessel DON RAMON also in Filipino waters
• 2010 – the tanker M STAR was attacked in the Straits of Hormuz.
• 2013 – the COSCO ASIA was hit by an RPG, while it was transiting the Suez Canal.

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Did you know?

• In 1996, Abu Abbas apologized for the Achille Lauro hijacking and the murder of Leon Klinghoffer and advocated peace talks between Palestinians and Israel; the apology was rejected by the US government and Klinghoffer’s family.
• Leon Klinghoffer was on a cruise with his wife and nine friends to celebrate their 36th wedding anniversary, as well as his wife’s 58th birthday, when they were caught up in this tragedy.
• After the murder of Leon Klinghoffer, the Leon and Marilyn Klinghoffer Memorial Foundation was founded, in cooperation with the Anti-Defamation League.
• Marilyn Klinghoffer, the widow of Leon Klinghoffer, died of cancer some months after the incident.
• This incident has inspired art, with the TV drama ‘The Hijacking of the Achille Lauro’ (1989) and action movie ‘Voyage of Terror: The Achille Lauro Affair’ (1990), as well as the opera ‘The Death of Klinghoffer’ (1991), which received mixed reactions.
• After having been pushed down the stairs by a terrorist, Austrian passenger Anna Hoeranter entered the first open cabin she found and hid in the bathroom. She would remain there until found by the cleaning staff four days later (after the hijackers had left). She had survived on two apples she had found.

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30 Years After Their Father's Murder, Klinghoffer Daughters Step Onto Their Own Stage

The last photo of Leon Klinghoffer, taken on the cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985. He was killed there during a hijacking. Courtesy of the American Jewish Historical Society at the Center for Jewish History hide caption

The last photo of Leon Klinghoffer, taken on the cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985. He was killed there during a hijacking.

It was 30 years ago today that a single American hostage was killed by terrorists during the hijacking of a cruise ship by pro-Palestinian terrorists in the Mediterranean Sea. Leon Klinghoffer's death was the inspiration for a controversial opera, The Death of Klinghoffer , composed by John Adams , with a libretto by Alice Goodman and directed by Peter Sellars.

Klinghoffer's daughters, Ilsa and Lisa Klinghoffer, still object to his portrayal in that work. Now they're telling their own version of the story, by donating the family's photographs and documents to an institution in New York.

A promotional button from the hijacked ship. Courtesy of the American Jewish Historical Society at the Center for Jewish History hide caption

A promotional button from the hijacked ship.

Ilsa Klinghoffer says she and her sister saved everything, including dozens of photos: from their parents' wedding, the Jersey Shore and the dinner parties they liked to throw. "They were the most glamorous couple," she recalls. "And they supported each other, in sickness and in health."

The Klinghoffer sisters saved letters of condolence from heads of state and ordinary people all over the world. Lisa Klinghoffer says it's all been piling up for decades in their New York apartments. "In closets, shopping bags, in dressers," she says. "We're starting to think, 'Well, what's going to happen to these?'"

So the Klinghoffer sisters donated their collection to the American Jewish Historical Society at the Center for Jewish History in New York. On the 30th anniversary of the hijacking, the sisters are also making a rare public appearance at an event hosted by the institution. Executive Director Rachel Lithgow says everybody else has gotten to tell their story — except them.

"They have never really gotten up on a stage and described their own personal story in a public way before," Lithgow says.

The Klinghoffer sisters were adults when the Achille Lauro was hijacked in October 1985. Their father was shot and then pushed overboard in his wheelchair. The story was big news. It was retold in several made-for-TV movies and again in the opera The Death of Klinghoffer .

The Klinghoffer sisters say they were initially excited about the opera. They went to see it on opening night at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1991. And they hated it. Lisa Klinghoffer says the opera's creators reduced their parents to a stereotype of rich American Jews.

This week in Jewish history | Palestinian terrorists hijack Italian cruise ship

Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro (c) D. R. Walker

On 7 October 1985, four Palestinian terrorists  hijacked  the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro as it was sailing from Alexandria, Egypt, to Ashdod, Israel. They murdered Leon Klinghoffer, an elderly, wheelchair-bound American Jew, and took some 320 crewmembers and 80 passengers hostage. 

The heavily armed terrorists from the Popular Front for the Palestine Liberation (PLF), a minor group of the Palestinian Liberation Organization,  demanded  that Israel release imprisoned PLF members and sought access to a Syrian port. If their demands were not met, they threatened to blow up the ship and kill American and British passengers on board. At the request of the U.S. and Italian governments, Syria denied their demand for access to their port. The terrorists proceeded to shoot the 69-year-old Klinghoffer in the head and force the ship’s barber and a waiter to throw his body and wheelchair overboard. 

While the PLO would later deny that the hijackers murdered Klinghoffer, suggesting  instead that his wife, Marilyn, had murdered him for insurance money, over a decade later, it reached a financial settlement with his family.

On 9 October, the cruise ship traveled to Port Said, Egypt, where in exchange for a pledge of safe passage to an undisclosed destination, the terrorists freed the hostages. The terrorists proceeded to board an EgyptAir Boeing 737 airliner, along with PLF leader Muhammad Zaidan.

U.S. President Ronald Reagan ordered American fighter jets to blockade the plane and forced it to land at a NATO air base in Sigonella, Sicily. A standoff between the United States and the Italian army ended with the Italian authorities taking Abbas and the other terrorists into custody. The standoff between the two NATO allies would become known as “the Sigonella Crisis.” 

While the hijackers were arrested soon after, Abbas and the other Palestinians were released by Italian authorities, prompting strong criticism from the United States, which sought to investigate their possible involvement in the hijacking prior to their release.

While the remaining terrorists were convicted, only one received a sentence of 30 years; the others received lighter prison terms. Italy convicted Abbas in absentia, but did not seek extradition until 2003. Abbas was captured by American Special Forces in Baghdad that year and died in American custody in 2004. 

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Leader of '85 Achille Lauro Attack Dies at Prison in Iraq

By David Johnston

• March 10, 2004

Abu Abbas, the Palestinian mastermind of a deadly 1985 cruise ship hijacking in which an American passenger in a wheelchair was shot and thrown into the sea, has died at a prison in Iraq, a Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday.

Mr. Abbas, who was 55, died on Monday apparently as a result of natural causes, said Bryan Whitman, the Pentagon spokesman. Mr. Whitman said that the exact cause of death had not yet been determined and that an autopsy would be performed.

Once regarded as a remorseless terrorist leader of the Palestine Liberation Front, a Palestinian splinter group, Mr. Abbas led the hijackers who seized the cruise ship Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean.

On Oct. 7, 1985, the hijackers shot Leon Klinghoffer, a 69-year-old American, and pushed him, in his wheelchair, into the sea in front of his wife.

In recent years, Mr. Abbas had lived in Iraq under the protection of Saddam Hussein's government and his group maintained an office in Baghdad. But Mr. Abbas, whose real name was Muhammad Abbas, went into hiding last year when the Iraqi government collapsed.

He was captured in Baghdad by American Special Operations forces last April and transferred to a prison outside the Iraqi capital, where he died as American authorities debated his legal status and whether he could be prosecuted in the United States or should be sent elsewhere for trial.

At the time of his capture, Bush administration officials said his presence in Iraq was proof of the support of the ousted Hussein government's ties to global terrorism. They described his arrest as a major victory in the campaign against terror.

American officials had considered a possible case against him in the United States even though most anti-terrorism laws with extraterritorial provisions were enacted after the hijacking.

They also expressed hope that Mr. Abbas could be turned over to the Italian government.

He faced a life sentence in Italy after he was convicted in absentia in 1986 in connection with the killing of Mr. Klinghoffer. But Italian authorities made no effort to seek his extradition.

Under interrogation in Iraq after his arrest, Mr. Abbas denied direct involvement in the killing of Mr. Klinghoffer, according to unidentified officials who were interviewed on the subject at the time. He said he was not aboard the Achille Lauro during the hijacking, but in Jordan.

The officials said, however, that Mr. Abbas had admitted planning the ship's seizure and appeared legally culpable as a conspirator.

The hijacking stirred tensions between the United States and Italy. Following the hijacking, Mr. Abbas and his confederates fled the ship and boarded an Egyptian plane that was intercepted by an American military aircraft which forced the plane down at an American base in Italy.

He was turned over to Italian authorities, but was soon released. Under pressure from the United States, the Italian government moved against Mr. Abbas and convicted him in the hijacking, but by then he was gone.

The Justice Department filed criminal charges against him, but then withdrew them, saying other countries that had evidence were refusing to cooperate.

During the late 1980's and early 1990's, Mr. Abbas lived in Tunisia, then Algeria and Libya and, since 1994, in Baghdad. He and his wife, Reem, have five sons.

His organization mounted a series of attacks against Israeli targets, including one in 1990 in which 17 terrorists on hang gliders were sent to land on Israeli beaches. The attackers were intercepted by Israeli forces, who killed four of them.

Mr. Abbas was born in Israel, near Haifa, in 1948. He said his family fled to a refugee camp when he was an infant and it was in that camp where he joined the Palestine Liberation Organization, in 1964, becoming one of its youngest members.

Mr. Abbas was said to renounce terrorism after the Oslo accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. He was granted amnesty under an Oslo-related deal in 1996 and left Baghdad, where had been living, to return to his home in the Gaza Strip.

In 2000, apparently prompted by the Palestinian uprising, he returned to Baghdad.

In an interview with The New York Times in 2002, Mr. Abbas took pains to put distance between himself and the Muslim hijackers who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

He denounced Osama bin Laden, saying that the Palestinian cause was separate from the broad holy war against the United States embraced by Al Qaeda, the terrorist network let by Mr. bin Laden.

Explaining what he saw as the essential difference between his group and Al Qaeda, he said that in the Achille Lauro operation and later attacks, his group was serving what he described as a limited, historical goal -- the liberation of Palestinians and the recovery of their ''occupied'' lands. Mr. bin Laden, in his view, was engaged in a borderless, limitless holy war on America and Israel, and Americans and Jews.

Asked if he was sorry about Mr. Klinghoffer's death, Mr. Abbas seemed to equate his killing with American and Israeli military actions that have caused civilian deaths.

''Of course, it wasn't my fault,'' he said during the interview. ''I didn't shoot the man. But he was a civilian, and I ask myself, 'What was his fault?' It is no different whoever the civilian who is killed may be -- whether you drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima or Nagasaki or you kill some innocent person who is walking down a road.''

• <i>The Death of Klinghoffer</i> and What Actually Happened on the <i>Achille Lauro</i>

The Death of Klinghoffer and What Actually Happened on the Achille Lauro

F or New York City’s Metropolitan Opera, this week has been one in which the relationship between art and history got a little bit more complicated, as Monday’s opening night of the John Adams opera The Death of Klinghoffer provoked protests . Those opposed to the production, who included former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani, believe that the opera glorifies terrorism in the way it presents the story of those who caused the titular death; those who support it say that the opera, though about the 1985 murder of Leon Klinghoffer, does not celebrate the people who killed him. At its heart, the controversy is about the difficult distinctions between expression and endorsement–and perhaps even the very purpose of art.

But it’s also bound to raise a much more easily answered question, at least among younger observers of the debate: who was Leon Klinghoffer and what happened to him? Some hecklers reportedly yelled during the performance that his murder should never be forgotten, and there’s no sign that the opera’s supporters would disagree with that statement.

TIME covered the murder in the Oct. 21, 1985, issue, as a key element in a cover story about terrorism. As the magazine reported, the Achille Lauro was an Italian cruise liner taking about 750 passengers around the Mediterranean; those on board included 11 friends from New York and New Jersey, brought together by Marilyn Klinghoffer, who celebrated her 59th birthday during the trip. Leon Klinghoffer, Marilyn’s husband, was confined to a wheelchair after having had two strokes.

The ship also carried four other passengers, terrorists from the Palestine Liberation Front who supposedly planned to attack when the ship reached the city of Ashdod in Israel. But according to an Italian report at the time, after a waiter saw them with their guns they decided to launch their attack early, hijacking the ship and ordering the captain to steer the ship toward Syria. If their demands — for the release of 50 prisoners being held in Israel — were not met, they would begin to kill their hostages.

Leon Klinghoffer, tragically, was first. Here’s how TIME reported what happened :

At exactly what point these sadistic threats became reality is not known. But in a now familiar ritual of terrorism, the hijackers had decided to underscore their seriousness by taking a sacrifice. First they separated Leon Klinghoffer from his wife. “No,” said one gunman to the wheelchair-bound passenger. “You stay. She goes.” Marilyn Klinghoffer never saw her husband again. For the next 24 hours she and her friends were consumed by anxiety. When the hijacking was finally over, they looked all through the ship for him, though they expected the worst. Some passengers had noted that the trousers and shoes of one of the hijackers had been covered with blood. And besides, as one recalled, “We had heard gunshots and a splash.” Giovanni Migliuolo, the Italian Ambassador to Egypt, later chillingly reconstructed the event: “The hijackers pushed [Klinghoffer] in his chair and dragged him to the side of the ship, where, in cold blood, they fired a shot to the forehead. Then they dumped the body into the sea, together with the wheelchair.”

After it became clear that no nation would allow the hijacked ship to dock and the PLF negotiated for the hijackers to leave the ship, the Klinghoffers’ children were told that all of the passengers were safe. Hours passed before the State Department informed them that their father had not been found. About two days passed before the U.S. Ambassador to Egypt announced that Leon Klinghoffer had been murdered.

Marilyn Klinghoffer — who reportedly told President Reagan that she spat in the terrorists’ faces when asked to identify them in a line-up, to which he responded “You did? God bless you.” — died of cancer the following year. The opera The Death of Klinghoffer premiered a few years later, in 1991, in Belgium. Though it was controversial then as well, TIME’s critic Michael Walsh wrote that fears over the subject matter should not keep it from the ranks of operatic greatness. “Just as the lyrical and deeply humanistic [ Nixon in China , an opera by the same creative team] confounded many who had expected a leftist demonization of the old unindicted co-conspirator,” he wrote, “so has this sweet, sorrowful Klinghoffer upended everyone’s expectations.”

Read the full story of the hijacking of the Achille Lauro , here in TIME’s archives: The Voyage of the Achille Lauro

Read TIME’s review of the premiere performance of The Death of Klinghoffer , here in the archives: Art and Terror in the Same Boat

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Write to Lily Rothman at [email protected]

The Achille Lauro Hijacking

Lessons in the politics and prejudice of terrorism.

October 2005

978-1-57488-780-8

978-1-61234-275-7

About the Book

Table of contents, also of interest.

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Passenger Aboard Cruise Liner Reveals What Happens in a 'Pirate Drill'

A video recording of an announcement on the Queen Mary 2 ocean liner explaining the protocol in the event of a pirate attack as the ship sails through the Suez Canal has gone viral, garnering over 4 million views.

In an earlier video , the cruise passenger, who manages the TikTok account Horatio Hedgehog, revealed a letter signed by the captain informing passengers about a pirate drill the following day as the ship was due to enter the famous canal.

The page appears to be documenting a round-the-world cruise from the perspective of a stuffed hedgehog called Horatio, and who the person is behind the camera isn't quite clear.

@redwing20024 #queenmary2 #horatiohedgehog #piratealley #qm2 #suezcanal ♬ original sound - Horatio Hedgehog

In the video, a woman and other passengers can be seen sitting in the hallway of the cruise ship while the video text reads: "On QM2 about to enter the Suez Canal. Trying not to panic."

The announcement says: "We will be operating at a higher level of security alertness. QM2 will be routed through an internationally recommended transit corridor and will be under the protection of an international taskforce assigned by UN mandate to protect merchant ships from a piracy threat we have also embarked a Royal Navy Liaison officer on board who will assist us during the transit and is in contact with coalition naval assistance if required."

The Queen Mary 2, also known as the QM2, is a British transatlantic ocean liner and as of 2022, she is the only ocean liner, as opposed to a cruise ship, still in service. Ocean liners undertake what's known as "line voyages," from point A to B across a large expanse of open water, while cruise ships hug the coast and sail between ports, regularly stopping.

According to website of the Curnard Line, which owns the QM2, the 2023 world cruise departed on January 11 from Southampton and will go through 18 countries, 31 ports, 18 UNESCO sites, with overnights in Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Sydney and Cape Town, including the transit through the Suez Canal.

The Cruise Passenger publication says: "There were only six reports of pirates attempting to attack cruise ships over the last 10 years – in fact there has never been a successful pirate attack on a cruise ship. However, this doesn't mean cruise ships aren't prepared for the worst."

Most of the trouble occurs in the Gulf of Aden, a deepwater gulf of the Indian Ocean between Yemen, the Arabian Sea, Djibouti and Somalia.

The "pirate drill" safety procedures include no one being allowed on the outer decks and passengers having to sit in the corridors, away from windows to reduce the risk of being shot, all the outdoor parties being moved inside, having extra military support onboard and making sure all lights are out on the ship at night.

Water cannons and sonic boom technology are also defense mechanisms.

What Did TikTok Say?

Siobhan McCullagh shared: "I've worked on a cruise ship going through the Suez Canal before! Pirates are unlikely to attack a cruise ship due to the amount of people onboard."

User Jon Jo said: "Sailing through the Suez Canal with Royal Navy protection. Standard procedure while sailing in pirate waters," while Jayme shared: "Been through there on Royal Navy ships many times. The threat is real, pirates can be brutal."

Newsweek has reached out to Horatio Hedgehog for comment.

• Ships Getting Stuck in the Suez Canal and the Fallout of Blockages
• Russia Military Says It Drove Pirates Away From Ship Off Africa Coast
• The U.S. Shouldn't Turn Back the Clock in Somalia

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You can get in touch with Leonie by emailing [email protected]

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Pirates shoot at u.s. cruise ship in failed hijack attempt.

December 2, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief 2 Comments

It’s time to add terrorism on the seas to the long list of perils the United States faces as it careens into the 21st Century — this time the ages-old plague of pirates at sea taking on a new twist: there has been an attempt to hijack an American cruise ship and shots were fired:

Pirates chased and shot at a U.S. cruise liner with more than 1,000 people on board but failed to hijack the vessel as it sailed along a corridor patrolled by international warships, a maritime official said Tuesday. The liner, carrying 656 international passengers and 399 crew members, was sailing through the Gulf of Aden on Sunday when it encountered six bandits in two speedboats, said Noel Choong who heads the International Maritime Bureau’s piracy reporting center in Malaysia. The pirates fired at the passenger liner but the larger boat was faster than the pirates’ vessels, Choong said. “It is very fortunate that the liner managed to escape,” he said, urging all ships to remain vigilant in the area. The International Maritime Bureau, which fights maritime crime, did not know how many cruise liners use these waters. The U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, based in Bahrain, said it was aware of the failed hijacking but had no further details.

But the pirates may be biting off more than they can chew. They’re irking many nations, including Iran which is considering military action due to one of its ships that was captured:

Iran says it will consider a military option against pirates, who hijacked an Iranian ship in the Gulf of Aden taking its crew hostage. Parviz Sarvari, a member of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, said Iran considers a diplomatic solution to the issue reached through international cooperation the better option. “However, the military approach is among the options that Iran’s National Security Commission is mulling over,” Sarvari cautioned. Earlier in November, Somali pirates captured the Hong Kong-flagged cargo ship Delight, which was chartered by an Iranian company, along with its 25 crewmembers in the Gulf of Aden. The ship was carrying 36,000 metric tons of wheat.

The Iranians have been critical of the American response to piracy to date — although look for the American stance to possibly change now that an American ship has been directly attacked in a hijack attempt:

The Iranian official said the United States indifference to the matter translates into showing a green light to organized crime in Somalia and its territorial waters. Sarvari warned that an apathetic approach toward piracy would challenge global economy, leading to economic recession and subjecting prices to fluctuation.

Part of the problem: piracy’s context has changed. For years it was glorified in literature and by Hollywood and up until recently had been considered strangely romantic. But in the context of the 21st Century, and its potential to be manipulated or used by terrorists, it has now morphed into nothing less than undisputed high seas terrorism — and the international community is taking note:

[This] month, the European Union takes over the NATO mission, sending four ships to replace the four currently patrolling under the NATO flag. The Europeans say they may send more ships if necessary but caution such a move would take time because of the need to prepare boats and crew trained for the North Atlantic to operate in the Indian Ocean’s equatorial waters. Currently, patrols work under a restrictive U.N. mandate that allows force only in the case of direct attacks on the 20,000 cargo ships transiting through the area annually. “They can patrol. They can deter. They can even stop attacks that are happening, but what they do not do is then board the ship that has been hijacked elsewhere to try and free it,” NATO spokesman James Appathurai said. The U.S. Navy is similarly constrained. “We have a full range of options … that allow us to stop pirates from attacking merchant vessels,” said Cmdr. Jane Campbell, a spokeswoman for the 5th Fleet in Bahrein. “But once the ship is hijacked, it’s a hostage situation and we don’t see a military solution is the right one to pursue.” Responding to the crisis, the Security Council on Thursday imposed new sanctions on pirates, arms smugglers, and perpetrators of instability in Somalia, but stopped short of allowing warships to intercept seized ships. Strategies proposed to combat the piracy scourge include attacking the bandits on land, arming merchant vessels, and rerouting ships away from the volatile region near Somalia for a massive detour around southern Africa. Experts reject such measures as unrealistic. “The only solution I see is a coordinated effort by various naval forces. The problem is that no single country wants to take the lead,” said Fred Burton, a vice president of Stratfor, a U.S.-based intelligence risk assessment agency.

Expect piracy to be in the news in 2009 — and some kind of strong reaction to it by either one or more nations, or a team of nations. And expect pirates’ efforts to get a big “get” to continue as well.

UPDATE : Be sure to read Ed Morrissey. Here’s part of what he writes:

As the AP notes, this isn’t the first time pirates have attempted this kind of operation on a cruise liner. In 2005, the Seabourn Spirit made headlines not just for outracing the pirates, but also for its notable non-lethal weapon. They aimed a long-range acoustic device — a kind of sound gun — that focuses extremely powerful sound waves on people in order to temporarily disable them. That makes for a good getaway, but doesn’t do much to discourage pirates from attacking again. The best method to discourage pirates is to sink their ships. However, we have to make sure that the ship we sink actually belongs to pirates before sending it to the bottom of the ocean.

Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.

Out-of-control 700ft cruise ship crunches into dock at Turkish port

This is the moment a 700ft cruise ship crunched into a dock at a Turkish port after desperately trying to slow down. 

The Celestyal Journey cruise ship was making a routine arrival into the port in Kusadasi, Turkey last week when it hit the concrete pier with its bow bulb.

The crew miscalculated the speed and approached the pier too quickly, resulting in the collision, Cruise Hive reported.

Members of the vessel's 597-person crew reportedly lowered the anchor in a bid to slow the approach, but despite their efforts the ship still crashed into the pier.

The collision caused only minimal damage to the ship and pier. No injuries were reported onboard or on the shore.

The Celestyal Journey struck a pier at Kusadasi Cruise Port on Monday last week at 12pm local time while crew were trying to dock.

Passengers were still able to enjoy their day in Kusadasi, one of the most well-preserved Greco-Roman cities in the world, as planned, according to Cruise Hive. 

The port, which has eight berths for large ships, is the most popular cruise port in Turkey. Officials say the incident has not negatively impacted operations. 

Celestyal Cruises, which operates the vessel and two other ships, did not have to alter any routes following the incident.

The Celestyal Journey entered service in 1994 and initially sailed for Holland America Line as Ryndam. Celestyal Cruises acquired the cruise ship last year.

The cruise liner has 630 cabins, including 149 that feature balconies, and offers guests access to seven exclusive restaurants, and eight bars and lounges, Haber7.com reported. 

Celestyal Journey is currently sailing seven-night cruises in the Aegean Sea region until late October 2024. 

However, unlike a typical closed-loop route, the Celestyal Journey's round-trip sailings overlap, allowing guests to embark and debark in Kusadasi, as well as various cities in Greece.

Travellers can start their voyage in Heraklion, Crete Greece; Piraeus-Athens, Greece; or Thessaloniki, Greece. 

The ship's final journey in the Aegean Sea will embark on October 19 this year. It will be followed by a 14-day repositioning cruise from Athens to Doha, Qatar. 

Once it arrives in its new homeport in Doha, the Celestyal Journey will offer seven-night roundtrip sailings to the United Arab Emirates. 

MailOnline has approached Celestyal Cruises for comment. 

Speed 2: Cruise Control Streaming: Watch & Stream Online via Starz

By Elton Fernandes

Speed 2: Cruise Control is an action thriller helmed by Jan de Bont. The plot follows Annie who goes on a vacation with her new love interest. However, the cruise she is on gets hijacked and it is up to her cop boyfriend and her to save the day.

Here’s how you can watch and stream Speed 2: Cruise Control via streaming services such as Starz.

Is Speed 2: Cruise Control available to watch via streaming?

Yes, Speed 2: Cruise Control is available to watch via streaming on Starz .

Annie and her boyfriend, Alex, go on a romantic cruise for a vacation. However, a hacker named John Geige is also on the same cruise with an evil plan. John is a former employee of the cruise who wants to take revenge.

Once the ship is in the middle of nowhere, he hacks into the ship’s systems, cutting off all communication. The ship is now out of control and heading on a dangerous course. Alex, who has secret SWAT skills, and Annie, using her past experience, have to try their best to save everyone as the crew is helpless.

The film stars Sandra Bullock as Annie. Willem Dafoe plays John Geiger, while Jason Patric portrays the character of Alex, Annie’s love interest.

Watch Speed 2: Cruise Control streaming via Starz

Speed 2: Cruise Control is available to watch on Starz.

It is a streaming platform owned by Lionsgate. It offers a variety of popular and critically acclaimed movies and TV series.

You can watch via Starz by following these steps:

• Go to Starz.com’s sign-up page .
• The standard rate for the six-month plan is $46, excluding any special offers
• The standard for the monthly plan is $9.99 per month, excluding any special offers

Starz is also available as a Prime Video Channel, meaning that subscribers to the Amazon Prime Video service can also receive discounted access to Starz. The discounts offered vary throughout the year. You can sign up here .

Speed 2: Cruise Control’s official synopsis is as follows:

“A disgruntled former employee hijacks the Seabourn Legend cruise liner. Set on a fixed course, without any means of communication and at the mercy of the hijacker, it’s up to the one cop on vacation, and his soon to be fiancé (hopefully) Annie, to regain control of it before it kills the passengers and causes an environmental disaster. Insurmountable and daunting tasks awaits them on their perilous journey throughout the ship trying to fend off the hijacker and save the passengers.”

NOTE: The streaming services listed above are subject to change. The information provided was correct at the time of writing.

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