HIJACK – AT 9:56 A.M. ET:  Details are just developing in what could be another act of terror.  From London's Telegraph: 

Passengers have been allowed to leave a plane that was hijacked on an internal flight in Libya and forced to land in Malta with 118 people on board.

Two hijackers on board the state-owned Afriqiyah Airways plane have hand grenades and have threatened to blow up the aircraft, according to Malta state television. Their demands are not clear.

Around two-and-a-half hours after hijacked Flight 8U209 landed at Valletta, passengers began leaving the Airbus A320.

The Maltese prime minister said at 1.30pm GMT that 109 of the 111 passengers had been allowed to leave the aircraft. There are also seven crew members on board.

Maltese government sources said that at least one hijacker on board had told crew that he had a grenade. He said he was "pro-Gaddafi" and would release all passengers – but not the crew – if his as-yet-undisclosed demands were accepted, local media reported.

The deputy mayor for Lija in Malta, Madga Magri Naudi, confirmed that the hijackers had not yet made demands.

"The request has not been made," she told the BBC. "This is a problem: we do not know what their requests are at the moment."

The aircraft, carrying 111 passengers – 82 men, 28 women and an infant – and seven crew members, was on an internal flight from Sebha, in south-west Libya, to Tripoli when it appeared to be hijacked on Friday morning.

The pilot tried to land in Libya, but the hijackers refused his request, he told Tripoli airport control before communications were lost, according to a security official.

COMMENT:  What strikes me is that this is another terror-style act occurring during the holiday period.  It follows the attack in Berlin, and we now learn that Australian authorities broke up a plot in their country that was to be hatched this week.  Security forces are on high alert all over the world.

December 23, 2016