Iraqi Airlines

In a calculated move that will delay the release of some foreign hostages, Iraq on Friday raised the ante for freeing more than 200 women and children held for weeks at strategic military installations, insisting that only Iraq's state-owned airline can fly them home. The Iraqi government "requested" the governments of Britain and France to allow Iraqi Airlines landing rights for the flights.

Americans may grumble about gas prices and long lines at the airport as they head out on summer vacation, but consider the holiday plans of Layla Mizhir and her 24-year-old son, Mohammed. Over the weekend, the Mizhirs and another family arranged to pay $400 for the long, dangerous taxi ride across Iraq's western desert to Jordan, on bleak roads frequented by insurgents and highway robbers.

A trickle of relieved Westerners fleeing Iraq reached Jordan on Wednesday carrying tales of uncertainty about the status of foreigners left behind. About 25 travelers, most of them British citizens, arrived in Amman after a long and dusty 10-hour drive from Baghdad. None could confirm reports that Iraq had turned back a convoy of foreigners trying to leave overland during the day.

An Iraqi Boeing 707 airliner arrived in Geneva on Wednesday and picked up $2 million-worth of medical supplies, the Swiss Foreign Ministry said. The shipment was inspected by U.N. officials to make sure it complies with a U.N. embargo on Iraq by containing only medical supplies. The consignment was part of a $15-million-order placed by Iraq before its invasion of Kuwait on Aug. 2.

Americans may grumble about gas prices and long lines at the airport as they head out on summer vacation, but consider the holiday plans of Layla Mizhir and her 24-year-old son, Mohammed. Over the weekend, the Mizhirs and another family arranged to pay $400 for the long, dangerous taxi ride across Iraq's western desert to Jordan, on bleak roads frequented by insurgents and highway robbers.

An Iraqi Boeing 707 airliner arrived in Geneva on Wednesday and picked up $2 million-worth of medical supplies, the Swiss Foreign Ministry said. The shipment was inspected by U.N. officials to make sure it complies with a U.N. embargo on Iraq by containing only medical supplies. The consignment was part of a $15-million-order placed by Iraq before its invasion of Kuwait on Aug. 2.

A booby-trap bomb killed Iraqi Airlines' Cyprus manager Friday, moments after another bomb hit the airline's office in a fashionable shopping district of Nicosia. Cyprus radio said an unidentified person phoned the manager at his home to tell him of the explosion, which caused considerable damage to the building housing the airline office and to nearby structures. The manager, Walid Ibrahim, 45, rushed out to his car and was killed by an explosion as he opened the door.

Praying for the men they left behind, 171 American women and children flew to safety from Kuwait on Friday, bringing surreal tales of brutality and courage, of fear, love and absurdity in the ruins of the Iraqi-occupied oil sheikdom. A U.S.-chartered Iraqi Airways Boeing 707 called at Baghdad en route to Amman to inaugurate an air bridge that is expected to operate daily in repatriating the estimated 1,400 American women and children trapped in Kuwait since the Aug. 2 Iraqi invasion.

After a sweltering 13-hour journey, two convoys of buses arrived in Baghdad late Tuesday with hundreds of Western women and children from occupied Kuwait. At the same time, three Iraqi Airways charter flights, financed by the U.S., British and West German governments, flew hundreds of additional refugees--Iraqi-Americans, Germans, Irish and other Europeans--from Baghdad to Jordan.

One Wednesday last month, Uday Hussein showed up at the royal palace in Jordan, declaring his wish to deliver special greetings from his father, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, on the Prophet Mohammed's birthday. He also wondered aloud if he might have a word with his two sisters and their husbands, who had slipped across the border into Jordan and sought asylum just the day before. One of the husbands happened to be Lt. Gen.

Praying for the men they left behind, 171 American women and children flew to safety from Kuwait on Friday, bringing surreal tales of brutality and courage, of fear, love and absurdity in the ruins of the Iraqi-occupied oil sheikdom. A U.S.-chartered Iraqi Airways Boeing 707 called at Baghdad en route to Amman to inaugurate an air bridge that is expected to operate daily in repatriating the estimated 1,400 American women and children trapped in Kuwait since the Aug. 2 Iraqi invasion.

After a sweltering 13-hour journey, two convoys of buses arrived in Baghdad late Tuesday with hundreds of Western women and children from occupied Kuwait. At the same time, three Iraqi Airways charter flights, financed by the U.S., British and West German governments, flew hundreds of additional refugees--Iraqi-Americans, Germans, Irish and other Europeans--from Baghdad to Jordan.

In a calculated move that will delay the release of some foreign hostages, Iraq on Friday raised the ante for freeing more than 200 women and children held for weeks at strategic military installations, insisting that only Iraq's state-owned airline can fly them home. The Iraqi government "requested" the governments of Britain and France to allow Iraqi Airlines landing rights for the flights.

A trickle of relieved Westerners fleeing Iraq reached Jordan on Wednesday carrying tales of uncertainty about the status of foreigners left behind. About 25 travelers, most of them British citizens, arrived in Amman after a long and dusty 10-hour drive from Baghdad. None could confirm reports that Iraq had turned back a convoy of foreigners trying to leave overland during the day.

A booby-trap bomb killed Iraqi Airlines' Cyprus manager Friday, moments after another bomb hit the airline's office in a fashionable shopping district of Nicosia. Cyprus radio said an unidentified person phoned the manager at his home to tell him of the explosion, which caused considerable damage to the building housing the airline office and to nearby structures. The manager, Walid Ibrahim, 45, rushed out to his car and was killed by an explosion as he opened the door.

Peter S. Greenberg appears to have left out many scheduled flights in his article, "Flights That Are No Secret" (Sept. 25), because he didn't state that there are other possibilities besides those he listed. He suggests for a "serious change of pace" take Royal Air Maroc between New York City and Montreal. Admittedly curious, but how about absurd? I believe absurd flights are: Geneva/Frankfurt on Iran Air; Kuwait/Amman on Libyan Airlines; Georgetown, Guyana/Barbados on Cubana, Cuban airlines; Copenhagen/Berlin on Syriair, Syrian Airlines; Paris/Rome on Angola Airlines, and Warsaw/Istanbul on Iraqi Airlines.

French and British planes chartered to fly Westerners out of Baghdad were grounded as Iraq announced new rules, saying "guests" who want to leave can go only on Iraqi airlines or across the desert to Jordan or Turkey. The news prompted plans for a convoy of buses by the British, French and Australians. As President Bush prepared to travel to Helsinki this weekend to meet with Soviet President Mikhail S.