News In Brief

Second Iranian airliner hijacked to Iraq in 2 weeks

A hijacked Iranian airliner with 71 people on board landed in Iraq Sunday, officials said. The hijackers, a Iranian family of four plus one man, were granted asylum by Iraq.

The Iran Air Boeing 727 was seized in Iran with 123 people on board. Fifty-two of them escaped at Cairo airport when one of the plane's doors was opened to allow an injured person to be taken off.

The hijackers were said to be supporters of former Iranian Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar, an opponent of the country's Islamic revolution. (In Paris, a Bakhtiar spokesman condemned air priacy.)

The plane was the second Iranian commercial airliner hijacked to Iraq in less than two weeks.