Djibouti plane attack

Press, 19 October 1977, Page 8

Djibouti plane attack

NZPA-Reuter Djibouti Two gunmen wielding submachine guns have halted an Air Djibouti airliner before take-off and shot dead the French pilot and a Cabinet Minister’s mother, according to the police. A number of passengers were wounded in the attack on Sunday in the tiny, new republic on the Horn of Africa.

The police report makes no mention of the fate of the gunmen, and it was assumed that they had escaped. The police say the attack

was at Tadjourah, a dusty township in the north of the desert republic, which was known as the Territory of Afars and Issas before it won independence from France in June.

The police say two men carrying sub-machine guns held up the domestic De Havilland Twin Otter airliner a., it was beginning to taxi away from the Tadjourah Airport. One of the attackers climbed aboard, shot the pilot with a burst of fire, and ordered the 10 passengers headed for Djibouti to step down.

On the ground, the police report, the gunmen shot dead the mother of the Justice Minister (Mr Ismail Ali Youssouf) one of the members of the 16-man Cabinet ruling the Djibouti Republic.

Officials said the attackers apparently were pro-Ethio-pian Afar tribesmen. Members of that faction were incensed recently by the seizure of a stock of Sovietmade Kalashnikov sub-mach-ine guns being shipped via Djibouti territory to their racial kinsmen in Ethiopia. Mr Youssef belongs to a pro-Somali Afar faction.