WASHINGTON, Oct 1 (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that the co-pilot who tried to crash a passenger jet on its way to Israel had undergone Islamist radicalization.
“We know that he underwent Islamist radical indoctrination,” Netanyahu said in an interview with Fox News.
No motive has been determined for Wednesday’s harrowing near-disaster on Wednesday’s flydubai flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv, when passengers were able to subdue the attacker and a reserve crew aboard landed the plane in Saudi Arabia.
Netanyahu told “Fox & Friends” he would be able to say within a matter of days whether the flydubai co-pilot had connections to Iran.
“I think it’s too early to say whether he had any connections with Iran or with any anyone else,” he said.
Netanyahu said it was clear that the co-pilot was suicidal.
“If you couple that with the what I just told you about the Islamist tendencies, that radicalization that are found in his background, I think that’s – that’ll give us the a pretty good clue,” he said. “But again, I don’t make final conclusions yet. But that’s the indications we have now.”
(Reporting by Katharine Jackson and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Philippa Fletcher)
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