Turkish forces kill hijacker of high-speed ferry
Source: Agencies |
November 13, 2011, Sunday
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TURKISH commandos killed a lone hijacker, identified as a Kurdish militant armed with a bomb, in a pre-dawn operation yesterday to rescue more than 20 passengers and crew held hostage for 12 hours on a high-speed ferry near Istanbul.
Hostages aboard the "Kartepe" ferry later described how the hijacker was shot dead minutes after the commandos slipped aboard.
"There was no chance left we'd capture him alive. The long phone calls to persuade him (to surrender) failed," Interior Minister Idris Sahin told NTV, adding that 450 grams of plastic explosive were found on the body.
None of the 18 passengers or six crew were hurt, but some were taken to a hospital for checks after their ordeal.
The Interior Minister identified the dead hijacker as Mensur Guzel, saying he was a member of "the terrorist organization" -- a reference to the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Guzel, according to the minister, was born in 1984 in Diyarbakir, the southeastern city at the heart of the Kurdish separatist insurgency, but had been living in the western province of Kocaeli, where the ferry set sail from.
Three people connected with the dead man had been detained, Sahin said.
Officials had described the man as carrying a device with cables and a switch. Before the minister confirmed explosives were found, the provincial governor of Kocaeli had said it was a fake bomb.
Since Friday evening, coast guard vessels with commandos aboard had tracked the "sea bus" in the Sea of Marmara before it ran low on fuel and dropped anchor.
Shortly before 5am a flurry of activity was evident on the ferry's main deck. Hazy television pictures showed figures moving in the aisle between rows of empty seats. A few people were apparently wearing life jackets.
Orders were given for marine commandos to storm the ferry at 5:35am as it lay anchored a few kilometers off shore, some 50 kilometers west of Istanbul, according to Istanbul Governor Huseyin Avni Mutlu.
Tea and biscuits
There was no official word on how the commandos boarded the ferry, but news channels interviewed hostages as they left a police station in the town of Silivri where they had given their accounts of the hijacking.
"The terrorist had told the crew to gather us upstairs, we never saw him. He sent us tea and biscuits," Kadir Altunoglu, a man in his thirties, told Samanyolu news channel.
"We heard five or six gunshots before dawn. We had opened the rear exit door of the ferry to let the commandos in."
Another passenger, Ceyhun Tezer, 28, told the NTV channel: "It lasted no more than 10 minutes after we saw them (the commandos)."
He said passengers were alarmed the ferry was taking too long for the short run between the towns of Izmit and Karamursel and was off course, but only realized it had been hijacked when they saw news reports on the television in the passenger lounge.
Hostages aboard the "Kartepe" ferry later described how the hijacker was shot dead minutes after the commandos slipped aboard.
"There was no chance left we'd capture him alive. The long phone calls to persuade him (to surrender) failed," Interior Minister Idris Sahin told NTV, adding that 450 grams of plastic explosive were found on the body.
None of the 18 passengers or six crew were hurt, but some were taken to a hospital for checks after their ordeal.
The Interior Minister identified the dead hijacker as Mensur Guzel, saying he was a member of "the terrorist organization" -- a reference to the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Guzel, according to the minister, was born in 1984 in Diyarbakir, the southeastern city at the heart of the Kurdish separatist insurgency, but had been living in the western province of Kocaeli, where the ferry set sail from.
Three people connected with the dead man had been detained, Sahin said.
Officials had described the man as carrying a device with cables and a switch. Before the minister confirmed explosives were found, the provincial governor of Kocaeli had said it was a fake bomb.
Since Friday evening, coast guard vessels with commandos aboard had tracked the "sea bus" in the Sea of Marmara before it ran low on fuel and dropped anchor.
Shortly before 5am a flurry of activity was evident on the ferry's main deck. Hazy television pictures showed figures moving in the aisle between rows of empty seats. A few people were apparently wearing life jackets.
Orders were given for marine commandos to storm the ferry at 5:35am as it lay anchored a few kilometers off shore, some 50 kilometers west of Istanbul, according to Istanbul Governor Huseyin Avni Mutlu.
Tea and biscuits
There was no official word on how the commandos boarded the ferry, but news channels interviewed hostages as they left a police station in the town of Silivri where they had given their accounts of the hijacking.
"The terrorist had told the crew to gather us upstairs, we never saw him. He sent us tea and biscuits," Kadir Altunoglu, a man in his thirties, told Samanyolu news channel.
"We heard five or six gunshots before dawn. We had opened the rear exit door of the ferry to let the commandos in."
Another passenger, Ceyhun Tezer, 28, told the NTV channel: "It lasted no more than 10 minutes after we saw them (the commandos)."
He said passengers were alarmed the ferry was taking too long for the short run between the towns of Izmit and Karamursel and was off course, but only realized it had been hijacked when they saw news reports on the television in the passenger lounge.
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