ADEN, Yemen — A man claiming to be a supporter of Saddam Hussein hijacked a Yemeni plane carrying the U.S. ambassador and 90 others Tuesday and diverted it to nearby Djibouti, authorities said. The man was overpowered by crew members, and everybody aboard was reportedly safe.
Ambassador Barbara Bodine and the other passengers safely left the plane using its inflatable emergency exit chute after the hijacker was subdued, said acting U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Donna Visocan, contacted in the Yemeni capital of San'a.
Visocan said the embassy had no immediate information on the fate of the hijacker, his motives or demands. But she said officials heard he had been unaware the passengers included U.S. diplomats.
Abdulmejid Tarek of the immigration police at Djibouti airport said the hijacker was taken to a local hospital, apparently with injuries inflicted by his own gun. Tarek had no details.
Visocan said Bodine, who was accompanied by other embassy staff, later flew back to San'a on a plane sent by the Yemeni government to retrieve passengers. Bodine had been flying to the city of Taiz for meetings with Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has been in the area inspecting government projects.
It was not clear whether Bodine's meeting with Saleh would be rescheduled. But Gen. Tommy Franks, the Florida-based commander of the U.S. Central Command, was already in Taiz to meet with Saleh, Visocan said. The meeting apparently was called to address the terrorist attack on the USS Cole as it sat in a Yemeni harbor and other security matters.
Yemeni airport officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the hijacker used the aircraft's radio to speak to them about 15 minutes into the half-hour flight, saying he would blow up the Boeing 727 if it were not diverted to Djibouti, a Horn of Africa country just across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen.
The officials said the man spoke with an Iraqi accent and that they believed he was armed with a grenade and a pistol. The hijacker also told airport officials he was a supporter of Iraq and the Iraqi president.
The Yemeni Interior Ministry said the hijacker was an Iraqi who wanted to go to Iraq.
Airport officials said the Yemenia flight carried 91, including seven crew members and an unspecified number of foreign diplomats.
The Saudi Arabian carrier Saudia has a 49 percent stake in Yemenia, the state carrier formed in 1996 with the merger of Yemenia Airlines of the former North Yemen and Al-Yemda of once-Marxist South Yemen. The unified Yemeni government owns 51 percent of the airline.
In 1994, a young Yemeni man holding a hand grenade stormed the cockpit of an Al-Yemda jetliner on a domestic flight and demanded to be flown to Saudi Arabia. The man was overpowered and the plane landed safely in San'a.
A Libyan diplomat and a Yemeni tried to hijack an Egyptian airliner en route from San'a to Tunisia in December 1998, demanding that the plane be flown to Libya in a violation of U.N. sanctions then. The plane, however, landed in Tunisia.
Airport security officials said they were investigating the latest hijacking, questioning all staff on duty when the plane took off.
Yemen is know for its lawlessness. Many Yemenis carry guns, and kidnappings and other challenges by tribesmen to central authority are common.
Bodine, who served as No. 2 at the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait during the Gulf War, has had a high profile since terrorists attacked the USS Cole warship as it refueled in Yemen's southern port of Aden. After the Oct. 12 bombing that killed 17 U.S. sailors, Bodine oversaw logistics for U.S. investigators who streamed into the dusty harbor town and has returned several times to meet with investigators.
Bodine also worked on the negotiating team that eventually found a way for the Americans to participate actively in the probe despite Yemeni sovereignty concerns.
A decade ago, the 52-year-old St. Louis native was one of the last foreign diplomats to remain in Kuwait after Saddam ordered them out.