President Trump suggested Thursday that Iran was behind the failed hijacking of an Israel-bound flydubai flight, warning the Islamic Republic would be struck “very hard” if it was proven to be behind the foiled terror attack.
“I would say the answer, based on what I’m hearing, is yes, but we’re working on it right now,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House for a pre-midterm campaign swing through Texas and Oklahoma in response to questions about a potential Iran link to the near-catastrophe.
The president did not elaborate about why he suspects Iranian involvement, but did say the unidentified Omani co-pilot who stabbed the flight’s captain — causing the plane to plummet before others on board stopped the attack and landed the airliner in Saudi Arabia — “could’ve been” an agent of Tehran’s notorious Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Asked if the US would retaliate against Tehran if it was behind the attack, Trump said, “Oh they’ll be hit, very hard, don’t worry.”
“You just ask them,” he added. “They know what happened. They’ll be hit very hard.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said it is “too early to say” whether Iran was involved in the attack.
“First, we know that he underwent Islamist radical indoctrination,” Netanyahu told “Fox & Friends” Thursday morning, adding that the co-pilot demanded the passengers and flight crew “kill me” after they subdued him.
“It’s clear he was suicidal. That’s not a question,” Netanyahu added. “It was clear he was going to down that plane. It’s not clear, but it looks very likely that he was going to down the plane and with all the passengers in there. And if you couple that with what I just told you about, the Islamist tendencies that radicalization that were found in his background, I think that’s — that’ll give us the pretty good clue.
“But again, I don’t make final conclusions yet, but that’s the indications we have now.”
Passengers on the plane — which was carrying 182 people, mostly Israelis, from the United Arab Emirates to Tel Aviv — have described how the bloodied Indian captain managed to open the cockpit door to let them in before they grappled with the copilot and stabilized a descent so sharp that the plane’s rudder was torn away.
“We felt helpless, suspended in midair, and I didn’t know who to turn to. But it was all instinct to survive,” Asaf Rajuan, who was among those who intervened, said in a statement shared by Israel’s presidency.
A regional official briefed on the investigation said the suspect was under arrest and confirmed that Saudi authorities were working with countries, including Israel, to try to determine a motive. He said the UAE, the United States and Oman also were involved.
Saudi Arabia said the copilot had been handed over to the UAE.
“All possible scenarios, from terrorism to mental disorders, are being looked into. Nothing is ruled out for now,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss an ongoing probe.
Netanyahu told Fox that the suspect apparently got through a loophole in Israeli aviation rules that normally bar pilots from flying to Israel if they are from countries that do not have diplomatic relations with Israel, which Oman does not.
Video shot inside the plane by Dr. Shota Musayev, a dentist who treated the captain, shows the copilot on his knees, with his hands tied behind his back.
Capt. Smit Machchhar, widely praised as one of the heroes of the flight, was recovering in the Emirati capital of Abu Dhabi, the Indian government said Thursday.
It was not clear what the copilot used as a weapon.
Israeli intelligence and security officials were in Saudi Arabia to help investigate the copilot, according to another regional official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Israel has requested that the copilot be sent to Israel for the investigation, though it was unclear if that request would be granted, the official said.
Saudi Arabia does not have formal diplomatic ties with Israel, but the countries have long cooperated on security and intelligence matters through alternative channels.
The UAE government said its own investigation team had begun looking into the attack and “whether it was linked to any terrorist purpose,” noting that Emirati authorities have jurisdiction because the plane is registered there and UAE law applies to crimes committed on board.
Netanyahu earlier said he also spoke with the UAE’s president, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who agreed that Israel would join the interrogation of the suspect.
On Wednesday, Trump told reporters at the White House that he and Netanyahu discussed the incident “at length” by phone. He said it seemed as though the copilot “was perhaps a terrorist or perhaps a whack job.”
Oman’s government has not commented.
Netanyahu had warned in recent days of heightened security threats, though he told CNN that Israel had received no specific warning.
The country is a week away from the third anniversary of the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which has triggered the war in Gaza, and weeks away from an election.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry said most of the people aboard the flight were from Israel, along with others from India and the UAE.
The US State Department said four passengers had American citizenship.
Someone in the cockpit sent out two four-digit codes to discreetly signal distress while the plane flew erratically near the Jordanian border with Saudi Arabia, according to Flightradar24.com.
The first code was “7700,” the universal “squawk” signal for an emergency, then “7500,” which indicates unlawful interference, including a possible hijacking.
The codes are used by pilots when it’s impossible or dangerous for them to speak over the radio.
FlyDubai said Wednesday that the jet was secured by on-duty crew members “who diverted and landed the aircraft safely.”
A regional official said the crew members were pilots in training. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
In the chaos that began about two and a half hours after takeoff, the Boeing 737 Max 8 descended from 33,000 feet to 17,000 feet in about a minute, before making an erratic circle close to the Jordanian border and landing in Tabuk, according to Flightradar24.
With Post wires
