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February 23

US troops have raised the Stars and Stripes but the battle is not over

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US troops have raised the Stars and Stripes over Iwo Jima four days after landing on the Japanese-held volcanic island.

The 28th Regiment of the 5th Marine Division took Mount Suribachi at 1030 local time.

The extinct volcano offers a strategicvantage pointfor the ongoing battle for control of the island.

Lying in the north-west Pacific Ocean 650 miles (1,045 kms) from Tokyo, Iwo Jima would serve as a useful base for long-range fighters to cover B-29 Superfortresses in a bombing campaign against the Japan's capital.

Although the Stars and Stripes are flying over the island the battle is far from over and the Japanese are reported to be defending every inch of the island using elaborate underground defences.

The battle for Iwo Jima has been described as the toughest fight in US Marine history by the commander of the Marines in the Pacific, Lt-General M "Howling Mad" Smith.

On 19 February, after four days of naval and air bombardment had pounded the beaches and weakened Japanese defences, the 4th and 5th Marine Divisions landed on the south side of the island under the overall command of Vice-Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner.

After a day of little resistance, the enemy fought back in earnest.

Hidden in fortified caves and pillboxes linked by a series of tunnels they relentlessly attacked the Americans with artillery fire, grenades and other explosives as well as from the air.

The last 24 hours have seen the fiercest fighting yet with every step of the way up the mountain defended by the Japanese.

But by 1035 local time the Marines had reached the summit of Mt Suribachi.

Reporting from the US base in Guam, Admiral Chester W Nimitz said so far the battle had cost 5,372 casualties, including 644 dead, and that US carrier-based aircraft flying over the Bonin Islands north of Iwo Jima had destroyed three enemy planes.

Reuters news agency also reports Marines have finally reached the Japanese fighter-plane base in the centre of the island, which lies just 700 yards (640m) from the bomber airfield taken by the Americans two days ago.

The hijackers planted bombs on the plane

All the 172 passengers were freed yesterday after painstaking negotiations with Yemenis and West German officials.

The five Palestinians had demanded an undisclosed sum of money and the release of three Jordanians under arrest in West Germany after a shooting took place in Cologne on 6 February.

Women and children were released first from the New Delhi-Athens Boeing 747 and flown to Frankfurt.

It was followed this afternoon by a Lufthansa Boeing 707 carrying all the male passengers.

The men had had to wait in the second Boeing for three hours parked near the hijacked plane while talks with the guerrillas continued.

As the Palestinians were led away, 14 crew members emerged tonight from the aircraft looking tense after their two-day ordeal but still smart in their black and gold uniforms.

Explosives experts then boarded the plane to defuse charges planted on the aircraft.

Among the hijacked passengers was 19-year-old Joseph Kennedy, son of the Senator Robert Kennedy who was assassinated by a Palestinian, Sirhan Sirhan, in 1968.

On his release he told journalists he did not think he was the target behind the hijacking.

"I do not think the plane was hijacked because of me. I was not certain I was going to be aboard," he said.

According to one stewardess, Karin Bode, released earlier because of health problems, they had at first ordered the plane to land at a desert airstrip near Amman in Jordan.

But the pilot had talked them out of this saying the plane was too large to land there and flew the plane to its intended destination - Aden in the Yemen.

Dawson's Field airstrip has been used before to land hijacked aircraft.

vantage point : 有利位置；優勢地位