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Disrupting a Kidnapping

June 23, 2019 | Expert Insights

For the second counter-terrorism illustration and the fifth of this series on ‘Daring to Disrupt as a value for corporates’, I would like to recall the raid on Entebbe Airport, in Uganda. 

Operation THUNDERBOLT

On 27 June 1976, the Air France Air Bus A-300 flight from Tel Aviv to Paris was hijacked by four Palestinian terrorists. The aircraft with 248 passengers onboard was redirected to Entebbe International Airport near Kampala, Uganda. The hijackers received support from the Ugandan dictator President Idi Amin and the Ugandan Army. The hostages were removed from the aircraft and relocated to a disused airport building. The hijackers then made their demand for the release of 40 Palestine prisoners, serving sentences in Israeli jails and 13 other Palestinian prisoners serving sentences, in other countries.

After negotiations, the hijackers agreed to release all non-Jewish hostages. However, even while the negotiations were underway, the Israel Defence Force (IDF) carried out planning, preparations and launched Op THUNDERBOLT. Four Israeli Airforce transport planes carried approximately 100 commandos, 4000 km to Uganda, for the rescue mission. 

In the 90-minute operation, the IDF stormed the airport killing all the hijackers and several Ugandan soldiers. 102 of the remaining 106 hostages were rescued. One IDF soldier was killed and four were injured. The soldier who died was Yonatan Netanyahu, the elder brother of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, who recently won a record fifth term in office.

Lessons 

What are the lessons of daring to disrupt that we can learn from this illustration? Surprisingly, some are the same lessons we learned from the Egyptians, when they fought the IDF on the Bar-Lev Line, three years earlier. 

Firstly, the importance of innovative thinking was reinforced, when the IDF launched a historically unprecedented raid, on a target 4,000 Km away. Compare this, with Capt. Zaki Youssef’sinnovative use of water jets to hose down the embankment, on the Suez Canal and the innovative use of frog-men and quick-setting cement to block the jets of the oil-spillage system. 

Secondly and thirdly, the IDF resorted to meticulous planning and maintaining strategic-surprise, both of which were exploited by the Egyptians, while breaching the Bar-Lev Line. However, I think there should be a fourth important lesson, as well – be humble and learn from your enemies.