After the foiled crash of a FlyDubai plane, supporters of the terrorist network Al-Qaeda have called for further attacks on passenger planes, according to media reports. The US newspaper “New York Post” reports on an article in the Arabic-language publication “al-Bayan” in which the attacks of September 11, 2001 are explicitly cited as a model. According to the report, the text was also illustrated with an image reminiscent of the attacks on the World Trade Center. As evidence, the paper published a screenshot of the message.
The background is the incident on Flydubai flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv. According to the Attorney General's Office of the United Arab Emirates, the 29-year-old Omani co-pilot allegedly attacked the captain with an emergency ax during the flight and attempted to take control of the plane. Passengers and crew members were able to overpower the man. The Boeing 737 with more than 180 people on board was eventually diverted to Tabuk in Saudi Arabia and landed there safely.
It is still unclear whether the 29-year-old co-pilot was a lone perpetrator. Most recently it became known that he had been banned from flying by his old employer in Oman after he shared extremist content on social media and was considered a security risk. It is not yet known how he managed to obtain a flight permit from his new employer.
The behavior of the crew after the fight for the cockpit also raises questions. Several passengers reported in the Washington Post that crew members asked the men who had overpowered the alleged attacker to untie the co-pilot, who was already tied up. “They asked us to untie the terrorist – we had no idea why,” passenger Tzvika Manes told the newspaper. “They said we should release the terrorist - we immediately became suspicious,” Manes is also quoted by the New York Post.
The passenger Daniel Schlichter also described a similar incident. The men said they refused the request. Schlichter said a passenger grabbed the attacker and dragged him out of the cockpit. While he and others were wrestling with the co-pilot, a man rushed over the crowd of people into the pilot's cockpit. “He basically jumped over the men who were holding the terrorist, grabbed the wheel and started taking control,” Schlichter said. "He really acted like a hero. He took control of the plane."
Then the other pilot came along. “They closed the door because they didn’t want anyone else in the cockpit,” Schlichter said. However, neither he nor the other passengers knew who the two men were, nor did they have any idea what they were doing in the cockpit. At least they gave the impression that they knew exactly what they had to do.
According to the passengers, the co-pilot was already handcuffed on the cabin floor at this point. A dispute then broke out between parts of the crew and the men who were guarding the suspect. The passengers report that they eventually took over guarding the suspect and sent crew members away from the area in front of the cockpit.
According to the Washington Post, Flydubai did not want to comment on the passengers' accounts. The airline referred to the ongoing investigation and said it was fully supporting the relevant authorities.
The United Arab Emirates' Attorney General's Office said on Saturday that investigations so far had shown that the co-pilot had attempted to commit a "terrorist act." His motive, possible connections to extremist groups and digital traces are still being investigated. Israeli media reported, citing investigators, that there were indications of Islamist radicalization of the suspect. The 29-year-old is said to be cooperating with the authorities.
The activity on his social media accounts, which is said to have been published several hours after the foiled attack attempt, is fueling speculation that the suspected co-pilot was not a lone perpetrator. One of the posts featured images from a cockpit and a photo of the former al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. It is still unclear who published the content. According to CNN, it is also checked whether the articles had already been scheduled for automatic publication. The accounts were later deleted.
According to the New York Post, terrorism expert Evan Kohlmann sees further indications of possible ideological connections to Al-Qaeda. Among other things, the articles referred to the Jordanian assassin Humam al-Balawi, who killed seven CIA employees in an attack on a CIA base in Afghanistan in 2009. However, there is currently no direct evidence of connections to the terrorist organization. The investigation is ongoing.
