Raid on Entebbe: The War on Terrorism

On June 27, 1976, Air France flight 139, originating from Tel Aviv, Israel and bound for Paris, by way of Athens, was hijacked soon after takeoff from the airport in Greece. The hijackers, 2 Palestinians from the Popular Front For The Liberation of Palestine and 2 Germans from the Baader- Meinhof gang, were armed with guns and grenades. They forced the crew to divert to Libya where the plane was refueled. They then flew on to the Entebbe airport in Uganda where the hijackers were assisted by soldiers of Ugandan President Idi Amin and were given additional weapons.

The hostages were herded into an old terminal at the airport where additional terrorists joined the group. They soon separated the non-Jewish and Israeli captives from the rest. The non-Jewish group was later released but the pilot and crew refused to leave unless everyone was let go. That left 105 people still being held.

The hijackers conveyed their demands that 40 Palestinian terrorists, being held by Israel, and another 13 being detained in Kenya, France, Switzerland, and West Germany were to be released or they would begin killing hostages on July 1. This deadline was subsequently extended to July 4. The extension afforded time for Israel to contemplate a clandestine plan to rescue the hostages using military personnel.

On July 3 the Israeli Cabinet approved a rescue mission and commando forces were quickly set into motion. The Israeli units landed at Entebbe at 11 PM local time, July 3, under cover of darkness. They encountered armed resistance from Ugandan sentries but fought their way to the terminal. In the fighting that ensued all of the hijackers, about 20 Ugandan soldiers, and 3 hostages were killed. A fourth hostage, a female, was taken to a hospital in Uganda where she was later killed on orders of Idi Amin. The operation took only a total of 53 minutes and over 100 hostages were rescued and flown out of Uganda by Israeli planes.

The Ugandan government later complained to the United Nations Security Council that their sovereign soil had been violated by the Israelis. The council did not pass a resolution on the complaint, neither condemning Israel nor Uganda. The United Nations dropped the ball on this one when they had the opportunity to voice a position against Uganda or any country carrying out or harboring terrorism.

The success of this operation weakened Idi Amin's status in his country and he was deposed in 1979.

Perhaps it was ironic that this stand against terrorists took place on July 4, 1976, the 200^th anniversary of U. S. independence, and might actually be marked as the starting point for the war on terrorism.

Sources:

Wikipedia.org

Palestinefacts.org

Specwarnet.net