■ TURKEY
Hijacker trained by al-Qaeda
One of two men who hijacked a plane heading for Istanbul from northern Cyprus was trained in camps run by al-Qaeda militants and planned to flee to Afghanistan, Turkish media reports said yesterday. The hijackers surrendered and released their hostages after forcing the Atlas Jet plane to land in southern Turkey on Saturday with the threat of a "bomb" which turned out to be modelling clay with wires attached. Officials said the pair had demanded to be taken to Tehran.
■ IRAN
Chant claim controversy
A politician has provoked controversy by suggesting that the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the country's Islamic revolution, wanted to drop its signature chant, "Death to America." The claim is made by former president Hashemi Rafsanjani in the newly-published latest volume of his memoirs, entitled Towards Destiny. Rafsanjani discloses that a decision was made during Iran's 1980 to 1988 war with Iraq, when he was speaker of the Iranian parliament and one of Khomeini's closest confidants. Recollecting a parliamentary session on July 4, 1984, he writes: "Mr Imam-Mousavi [a member of Parliament] came and proposed dropping the slogan `Death to America' and `Death to the Soviet Union.' I said we have decided in principle. The Imam [Khomeini] has agreed but we are waiting for a chance." The slogan was adopted during the 1979 to 1981 takeover of the US embassy in Tehran.
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