(30 Dec 1999) Pashtu/Natsound

Taliban soldiers with rocket launchers encircled the hijacked Indian Airlines plane on Thursday while Indian negotiators reportedly haggled with the hijackers over the release of some Kashmiri militants.

The Taliban say they are not planning an attack against the hijackers, who have held the Airbus A300 on the tarmac at the airport in the southern Afghan town of Kandahar since Saturday.

The Taliban surrounded the parked jet with dozens of soldiers and a truck with a rocket launcher mounted on the rear on Thursday.

Another truck carrying a U-S made anti-aircraft Stinger missile was deployed near the
aircraft.

The Taliban say the deployment of troops around the parked aircraft is not part of any plan to attack the hijackers, who are holding 160 people hostage on board the Airbus A300.

Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, the Taliban's foreign minister, said the plane had been surrounded for security reasons.

SOUNDBITE: (Pashtu)
"We have only changed the security people there is nothing else."
Q: What is the need of bringing this change?
A:" Because people get bored so we have to change"
SUPER CAPTION: Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, the Taliban's foreign minister

Diplomats at the airport in Kandahar said the Indian negotiators, who resumed talks with the hijackers via radio from the control tower on Thursday morning, have indicated the Indian Government may be willing to release some Kashmiri militants.

But so far the hijackers have refused to budge on their demand for the release of 35 Kashmiri fighters and a Pakistani-born Kashmiri activist, the diplomats and Taliban officials said.

All are being held in Indian jails.

At one point negotiations were halted while hijackers allowed a sick passenger to leave the aircraft temporarily to get hospital treatment.

The passenger was back on the aircraft within ninety minutes.

The identity of the passenger is not known.

A U-N delegation along with food supplies for the hostages also arrived at Kandahar airport on Thursday .

The first big breakthrough since the jet was hijacked on Friday came on Wednesday when the Taliban persuaded the hijackers to drop their demands for a (dollars) 200 (m) million ransom and the body of a Kashmiri militant.

The Taliban, who initially refused to get involved in the negotiations and asked the United Nations and India to handle the task, agreed to intercede on Wednesday at the request of the Indian negotiators.

Taliban officials convinced the hijackers that demanding a ransom and exhuming a body are against Islamic teachings, Muttawakil said.

The standoff is related to ongoing unrest in Kashmir, a Himalayan region divided between India and Pakistan.

Muslim militants have been waging an insurgency in Indian-held Kashmir, demanding either independence for the Muslim-majority region or union with Pakistan.

Along with the 35 militants, the hijackers seek the release of a Muslim cleric, Masood Azhar, arrested in 1994 by India as a reported leader of the Kashmiri fighters.

Indian officials have said there are five hijackers.

Armed with grenades, pistols and knives, they seized Flight 814 some 40 minutes after it took off from Kathmandu, Nepal, on a scheduled flight to New Delhi on Friday.

The hijacked plane made stops in India, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates before landing in Afghanistan on Saturday.

The hijackers have killed at least one passenger.

Passengers who have been released said the hijackers stabbed passenger Rippan Katyal after he disobeyed orders not to look at them.





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