International Egyptian Cabinet gives commandos heroes’ welcome

Press, 22 February 1978, Page 8

International Egyptian Cabinet gives commandos heroes’ welcome

NZPA-Reuter Cairo The entire Egyptian Cabinet has turned out to give a heroes’ welcome to the survivors of the ill-fated commando squad involved in the fierce week-end battle with the Cypriot National Guard at Larnaca Airport.

Cairo television said that: the 57 commandos, 14 of them wounded, were in “extremely high spirits” when they returned from Cyprus aboard a special Egyptian transport plane. Also on board the plane were the bodies of the 15 commandos killed in the gunbattle on Sunday. The Larnaca shooting began when the Egyptians tried to stage a dramatic rescue of hostages held aboard an aircraft by two men who had killed one of President Anwar Sadat’s closest friends, the editor of the Cairo newspaper, “Al Ahram”, in Nicosia. Earlier Egypt said on Monday that it would pull its diplomats out of Cyprus and ask Cypriot diplomats to leave Cairo.

Cyprus has refused to turn the two terrorists over to Egypt and has demanded the recall of Cairo’s military attache.

The Egyptian Information Minister (Mr Abdel Moneim Sawy) said that Egypt would review all aspects of Egyp-tian-Cypriot relations because of the unfriendly stand by the Cyprus Government, but added that Cairo’s action was neither a freeze nor a break in relations. The Middle East News

Agency said Egypt will also recall members of its technical and trade councils in Cyprus. The plane returning to Cairo also carried the Egyptian Deputy Foreign Minister two hours and a half had met a grim-faced President Spyros Kyprianou of Cyprus. Mr Ghali offered his hand at the start,of the session but Mr Kyprianou refused to take it.

The Cypriot Defence Minister (Mr Christodoulos Veniamin) put the Egyptian casualty toll at 15 dead and two missing, 16 injured, and 41 captured. The Egyptian government said its decision to send the commando force to Cyprus was aimed at preserving Egypt’s “honour and prestige in face of a mean plan” carried out by Arabs opposed to peace with Israel. Eyewitnesses said that in the midst of the confusion caused by the gun battle, the two gunmen who began the week-end of terror surrendered with 15 hostages, including four aircrew, they had seized. The terrorists had commandeered a Cyprus Airlines DCB and forced it to fly to the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti — and back — in a fruitless search for political asylum.

The two men accused of murdering Mr Sibai appeared briefly in a Nicosia court on Monday and were remanded in custody for eight days. They were identified as Samir Mohammed Katar, aged 28, a Jordanian, and Zayed Hussein Ahmed al-Ali, aged 26, a Kuwaiti. The Cypriot Government issued a statement on behalf of the terrorists, who claimed to‘ be Palestinians, saying they belonged to no organisation. The Palestine Liberation Organisation, which has deplored Saturday’s assassination, charged in Beirut, that the two acted for the intelligence service of Iraq, a hard-line Arab State opposed to Mr Sadat's peace dialogue with Israel. A pro-Libyan newspaper in Beirut said they had confessed they were ordered to kill Mr S’ibai by an 1 Iraqbased Palestinian renegade guerrilla, Abu Nidal. (Nidal has been accused of masterminding the murder of the P.L.O.’s Londr - chief, Said Hammammi, late last year.) George Batal, a Lebanese who had been seized briefly as a hostage on Saturday, said the gunmen told them: “Everyone who went to Israel with Sadat will die, including Sadat.”