June 14, 1985
TWA Flight 847 was hijacked en route from Athens to Rome and forced to land in Beirut, Lebanon, where the hijackers held the plane for 17 days. They demanded the release of the Kuwait 17 as well as the release of 700 fellow Shiite Muslim prisoners held in Israeli prisons and in prisons in southern Lebanon run by the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army.
When these demands weren't met, hostage Robert Dean Stethem, a U.S. Navy diver, was shot and his body dumped on the airport tarmac. U.S. sources implicated Hezbollah.
In what was widely perceived as an implicit, never explicit, quid pro quo, the hostages started being released by the hijackers, followed some days after by Israel starting to free some of its hundreds of Shiite prisoners. At the time, U.S. officials denied there was a deal and said Israel had already committed to releasing the prisoners.
Imad Mughniyah, a senior officer with Hezbollah, was secretly indicted for the TWA hijacking in 1987, along with three others. One of those indicted, Mohammed Ali Hamadei, was arrested in Frankfurt, Germany. In 1989 he was convicted in a German court and sentenced to life in prison. [Editor's Note: Imad Mugniyah remained at large and on the FBI's Most Wanted List for 19 years, until he was killed in a car bombing in Damascus, Syria on Feb. 12, 2008.
Reagan the most feared Republican in history began dealing with terrorists granting weapons for hostages.
The rest is history. Oliver North still appears on FOX News to insure his shadow is never cast on the Neocons of the world.
Oliver North (click here) is a former United States Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel who served as a National Security Council staff member during the Iran–Contra affair, a political scandal involving the clandestine sale of weapons to Iran, which was to encourage the release of U.S. hostages then held in Lebanon. North formulated the second part of the plan which was to divert proceeds from the arms sales to support the Contra rebel groups in Nicaragua (which had been specifically prohibited under the Boland Amendment). Ten days after the story first broke in a Lebanese newspaper, President Reagan appeared on national television from the Oval Office on November 13, 1986, stating that his purpose was “to send a signal that the United States was prepared to replace the animosity between [the U.S. and Iran] with a new relationship….The most significant step which Iran could take, we indicated, would be to use its influence in Lebanon to secure the release of all hostages held there.”
TWA Flight 847 was hijacked en route from Athens to Rome and forced to land in Beirut, Lebanon, where the hijackers held the plane for 17 days. They demanded the release of the Kuwait 17 as well as the release of 700 fellow Shiite Muslim prisoners held in Israeli prisons and in prisons in southern Lebanon run by the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army.
When these demands weren't met, hostage Robert Dean Stethem, a U.S. Navy diver, was shot and his body dumped on the airport tarmac. U.S. sources implicated Hezbollah.
In what was widely perceived as an implicit, never explicit, quid pro quo, the hostages started being released by the hijackers, followed some days after by Israel starting to free some of its hundreds of Shiite prisoners. At the time, U.S. officials denied there was a deal and said Israel had already committed to releasing the prisoners.
Imad Mughniyah, a senior officer with Hezbollah, was secretly indicted for the TWA hijacking in 1987, along with three others. One of those indicted, Mohammed Ali Hamadei, was arrested in Frankfurt, Germany. In 1989 he was convicted in a German court and sentenced to life in prison. [Editor's Note: Imad Mugniyah remained at large and on the FBI's Most Wanted List for 19 years, until he was killed in a car bombing in Damascus, Syria on Feb. 12, 2008.
Reagan the most feared Republican in history began dealing with terrorists granting weapons for hostages.
The rest is history. Oliver North still appears on FOX News to insure his shadow is never cast on the Neocons of the world.
Oliver North (click here) is a former United States Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel who served as a National Security Council staff member during the Iran–Contra affair, a political scandal involving the clandestine sale of weapons to Iran, which was to encourage the release of U.S. hostages then held in Lebanon. North formulated the second part of the plan which was to divert proceeds from the arms sales to support the Contra rebel groups in Nicaragua (which had been specifically prohibited under the Boland Amendment). Ten days after the story first broke in a Lebanese newspaper, President Reagan appeared on national television from the Oval Office on November 13, 1986, stating that his purpose was “to send a signal that the United States was prepared to replace the animosity between [the U.S. and Iran] with a new relationship….The most significant step which Iran could take, we indicated, would be to use its influence in Lebanon to secure the release of all hostages held there.”
