Hijack Victims: We Are Continuously Surrounded

Arthur and Deborah Toga of St. Louis had boarded TWA Flight 847 in Athens a week earlier, at the end of a three-week vacation in Europe, because another flight had been canceled. He is an assistant professor of neurology, she a psychiatric nurse who is seven months pregnant. After she was released by the hijackers in Algiers, she flew to the U.S. to await news of her husband at the home of his parents in Lexington, Mass. In chaotic Beirut last week, Arthur Toga, 32, tried to describe his feelings. "I fear for her, not knowing about my well-being, so I think about that a great deal," he said. "I think about the fact that I don't know how long we're going to be here. I feel very helpless because wheels that are turning behind my back to facilitate our release are totally beyond my . . . I can do nothing about it."

The group of 40 Americans to which Toga suddenly belonged was both ordinary and exemplary. All were men who ranged in age from early 20s to mid-60s. Aside from the three crew members, the group included an architect, a travel agent, a retired truck driver, a real estate developer and two priests. One man owned a sports-car dealership, another a business called Window Covers to Go. Three were returning from their honeymoons; others were going home to family reunions or graduations. If the passengers from Flight 847 had anything in common, it was probably a gnawing feeling shared by all: How did this ever happen to me?

In the course of the week, their predicament had changed dramatically. In the beginning, they were caught in a classic political hijacking, at the mercy of two desperate and determined men armed with grenades and a 9-mm pistol. By the third day, however, after more than 100 of the plane's original occupants had been released as the Boeing 727 zigzagged back and forth between Beirut and Algiers, they had become political hostages to a cause that few had previously known much, if anything, about.

Exactly what had happened to effect this transformation was not fully known. The original two hijackers were tough-minded men who at times had dealt savagely -- and in one case murderously -- with their charges. But the ten to twelve gunmen who came aboard during the plane's second stopover in Beirut were of a different stripe: they were militiamen of the mainstream Amal organization, far friendlier than the original terrorists, and they seemed to influence the very character of the hijacking. When Flight 847 landed at Beirut on Sunday for the third time in as many days, the remaining passengers were taken to unknown locations, probably in the poor Shi'ite neighborhoods around the airport. The three crewmen were kept on the plane, under heavy guard.

All week long, there was special concern for a group of passengers, ranging in number between six and ten, who had been removed from the plane during its second Beirut stopover. There were reports that they were in the hands of the fanatical, pro-Iranian Hizballah (Party of God) organization, and had been moved from Beirut to Baalbek in the Syrian-dominated Bekaa Valley. This region has been a base for Islamic extremist groups over the past three years, and is thought to be the area where some of the seven American, one British and four French kidnap victims are currently being held.