Al Qaeda operatives hijacked an Indian airliner in 1998 to secure the release of Pakistani militant Maulana Masood Azhar, Abu Jandal, a former guard of Osama Bin Laden disclosed in a one and a half hour documentary aired by Al-Jazeera Television on Saturday. The world's most wanted man's bodyguard recalled that Bin Laden welcomed Azhar after his release from an Indian jail preceding the hijacking of a plane that landed in of Kandahar and threw a lavish party in Azhar's honour.Abu Jandal also said that Bin Laden's original plan to target the USS Cole in international waters failed to work in 1998 and instead, Al-Qaeda hit the warship while it was in Yemenite waters by mistake, something, he pointed out, was against the policy of Al Qaeda, ie to undertake acts which could be embarrassing for Muslim countries. He also narrated the exact details of Northern Alliance Leader Ahmed Shah Masood's assassination a day before 9/11 on the Taliban's request.
Abu Jandal said that on the day the Indian Airlines plane was hijacked, he was told to ready his Stinger missiles, and emergency was declared at the Kandahar Airport in 30 minutes. "I was told that other planes will also follow this one and there is a chance that the situation could deteriorate," he said. After two or three days, Bin Laden invited Azhar to a lavish party, thrown in his honour, where I was introduced to him,” he said. “I was astonished to discover that Azhar and Bin Laden already knew each other,” he said.