An orange fireball lights up the night sky over Paris. Blown apart by 20 . sticks of dynamite, a 42-ton Airbus A300 carrying 177 people and 15 tons of highly inflammable jet fuel disintegrates and rains burning debris over the capital. Within minutes, parts of the city are in flames -- the devastating conclusion to a suicidal act of terror by four young Algerians.
A chilling scenario -- and one that was averted only because commandos of the French gendarmerie stormed the Air France jetliner last week on the tarmac of Marseilles' Marignane Airport, killing the four hijackers in a brisk firefight and freeing the plane's 173 passengers and crew. Miraculously, none of the rescuers or hostages perished during the assault. Thirteen passengers, three crew members and nine policemen were wounded, only one seriously, in one of the most successful antiterrorist operations in aviation history.
But the repercussions of the episode, which had begun 54 hours earlier at Algiers' Houari-Boumediene Airport, did not end with that 17-minute firefight. Several hours after the rescue, the Armed Islamic Group (G.I.A.), the militant movement that claimed responsibility for the hijacking, avenged its "martyrs" by murdering four Roman Catholic priests -- three French and one Belgian -- in the Algerian city of Tizi-Ouzou. The deaths brought to 76 the number of foreigners killed in Algeria, including 26 French nationals, since the G.I.A. began its antiforeign assassination spree in September 1993.
The hostage drama began on Christmas Eve as Air France Flight 8969 prepared for a scheduled 11:15 a.m. departure for Paris. Most of the 227 passengers had settled into their seats in an almost festive mood, as they looked forward to joining family and friends for the holidays. The boarding of four armed men in blue uniforms with Air Algerie identification badges caused no alarm. Explaining they were security agents, the men proceeded to check the passengers' passports. Then they suddenly closed and locked the doors. "I knew it was a hostage taking when they shouted, 'Allah is great!' " recalled a 40-year-old Algerian-born mechanic now living in France. "I thought of my children back in France, and I became afraid. Three men entered the cockpit, the fourth covered us with his Kalashnikov. No one budged. Then the waiting started."
For two of the travelers, the wait was over all too soon. One traveler, an Algerian policeman identified during the passport check, was ordered by the hijackers to the front of the plane. Passengers heard him plead, "Don't kill . me, I have a wife and child!" The terrorists shot him in the head and dumped him outside onto a baggage cart, where he lay in agony for some time. The second victim was Bui Giang To, 48, a commercial attache at the Vietnamese embassy in Algiers. "They asked the Vietnamese man sitting in the rear to come forward," recounted one of the passengers. "Poor guy -- we saw him come back to get his leather jacket. Then we heard the shot."