Afghan Hijacking Puts Taliban on the Spot

Talk about "what goes around comes around," and in short order, too. Only weeks after Afghanistan's Taliban rulers played a questionable role in resolving the Indian Airlines hijacking, they find themselves facing the same crisis. A Boeing 727 belonging to Afghanistan's tiny domestic carrier Ariana with more than 150 passengers and an undisclosed number of hijackers remained on the runway at London's Stansted airport for a second day, Tuesday, as British authorities continued to negotiate with the terrorists who have released eight hostages over the past day. The hijackers have demanded the release of a key Afghan opposition leader from a Taliban prison, and the ruling militia — and hosts of Osama bin Laden — appeared oblivious to irony as they denounced terrorism and steadfastly refused to negotiate. Taliban civil aviation minister Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor even called Monday for British forces to storm the plane. But in the Christmastime Indian Airlines hijacking, the Taliban had insisted that the Indian authorities negotiate with the terrorists, and forbade India from storming the aircraft — to the point of surrounding it with their own troops to prevent waiting Indian commandos from making a raid.

"The British may be reluctant to storm the plane with so many women and children on board," says TIME correspondent William Dowell. "They're more likely to simply use boredom as a weapon, waiting out the crisis and letting the hijackers tire and then later offering them a way out." Judging by their demand, the hijackers appear to be affiliated with the anti-Taliban opposition, which comprises diverse ethnic minorities and forces loyal to the previous government overthrown by the Taliban in 1996. They would, no doubt, have been inspired by the recent success of the Kashmiri separatists who managed through hijacking the Indian Airlines plane to secure the release of their imprisoned leader — a success that was to some degree abetted by the Taliban.