HIJACKED JET LANDS IN ISRAEL

A flight attendant hijacked an Iranian jetliner with more than 170 people aboard after it took off from Tehran, then forced it to land at an Israeli air force base. Sam Allis, in Jerusalem, reports that the hijacker first sought political asylum in the U.S., then asked for asylum in Israel. He surrendered about an hour after the plane landed at Ovda Airforce Base in Israel's southern Negev Desert. (Jordan and Saudi Arabia both refused the hijacker's requests to land in those countries.) Allis says the man was also turned down at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv because Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin feared the hijacking might be a cover for a suicide attack. No passengers were hurt.