THE DOOMED FLIGHT BA 149

Have you ever heard the doomed flight BA 149?

I bet you have never heard of it.

Well it was a flight from Heathrow bound to Kuala Lumpur, refuelling in Kuwait City on the night of Saddam's invasion of Kuwait.

This is a chilling story of the victims of a covert MI6 mission that used British Airways flight 149 on the night of the start of the first Gulf War on August 1st 1990. It was a mission that then went badly wrong, delivering 367 civilian passengers into the hands of Saddam’s Republican Guard. In a traumatic and long-lasting ordeal, they were taken hostage and dispersed to allied targets in Kuwait and Iraq as part of Saddam’s human shield. An attendant was raped by Iraqi soldiers. BBC had reported it as an ill-executed covert MI6 mission at the start of the first Gulf War, The Secret of British Airways Flight 149, has been broadcast on BBC2

BA 149 was secretly used at the 11th hour by an MI6 operation to get a covert unit of former Special Forces men and Intelligence Officers into Kuwait for the purpose of gathering intelligence ahead of Saddam’s looming invasion of Kuwait.

No-one would ever have known of the mission had the plane completed its re-fuelling and departed. But there was a major miscalculation. Saddam’s tanks had crossed into Kuwait earlier than predicted on the morning of August 2nd and met little opposition. As they sped towards Kuwait City BA 149 was still three hours away from landing. But while other flights were diverted from Kuwait City International Airport, BA 149 was not. It was a race against time - a gamble with the fate of 367 passengers and 18 crew at stake - a gamble that MI6 seemingly were prepared to take to get their secret unit into Kuwait.

Me and the Malaysian Passengers

Malaysia was not an enemy to Iraq and due to that fact all Malaysian passengers were handed to the Malaysian Embassy in Kuwait and they were then transported to the Malaysian Embassy in Baghdad. To cope with the big number of refugees, the Malaysian Embassy in Baghdad requested all Malaysians in Baghdad to house some of Malaysian passengers of Flight BA 149. As for me, some of the female passengers stayed in my house before arrangement made to send them out of Iraq.

As a bachelor that time and I was pampered by the ladies during that short period. Twenty of them stayed in my house ranging from 4 years old girl to 65 years old grandma. My house were cleaned, the marble floors were so shiny, no dust, the curtains cleaned and I had hot and good food everyday when I returned home from work. It was heaven. They even wore my clothes because they were handed 'sehelai sepinggang' to me. A chinese girl student wore my 'kain pelikat' everyday.

After one week all my 'dayangs' had to leave. The Malaysian Embassy had arranged busses to trasport all stranded Malaysians to Amman, Jordan and a chartered flight flew them home to KL. They cried before they leave. They gave me presents which I kept in good condition. A paper weight from a student is still on my work desk today. The grandma asked me to visit her in the UK.

When they left I felt so lonely. My house back to its usual mess and no more hot food waiting for me when I returned home from work.

God, I missed them.

A PRICELESS GIFT

My definition of priceless is something that money cannot buy. Eventhough I have the money but if there is no price on the thing I wanted to buy, I still couldn't buy it. And so I have this gift, such a priceless which I keep very close to me.

I lived in Iraq quite sometime ago, during the time when Saddam Hussain was alive. I can say that from a few Arab countries that I had visited, Iraq is the most special of all. Iraqis look rough, just like any other Arabs, but they are the nicest Arabs to me. I travelled to Jordan, Kuwait, Egypt and Morocco (although Egypt and Morocco are in the North Africa, but they are also of Arabs stock) and Iraq and its people are always close to my heart.

Iraq is a land of plenty. No only she hold the second oil reserve in the world, but the land there is so fertile with Tigris and Euphrates river run accross her. For me Iraq should be one of the richest country in the world. But alas, like being cursed for hundred of years, life in Iraq remained difficult as though being damned by the curse of the black gold she owned.

History had shown how the ancient Iraqis had repelled the Roman Empire. I won't be a surprise if they can still repel the Americans and the British in the present time.

While I was there I befriended this old man whom I called Baba Aziz. He was the head of the community where he lived, at the outskirt of Baghdad. I was going out socially with his daughter, well as a friend, but not as a special, although in the beginning I had this idea to have her special. The Iraqis like to bring their friends home and I was introduced to her family, to her father. He introduced himself as Aziz and I called him Baba Aziz since.

I was amazed by his fluency in English, nothing compared to my broken language. A very polish and respected gentleman. He was 63 years old that time. We spend hours talking everytime we met. I didn't have to talk much because there was so much to hear from him, the great civilization of Babylon, the cradle of mankind and many more things about Iraq. All I had to do just lent my ears. I learnt that old folks will love you if you just be a good listener. Thats what I did best. There was so much experience to share from him.

Whenever I go to see him, I will bring a carton of Malboro cigarettes, although I am not smoking. His daughter had warned me not to bring cigarettes to him, but she could not say much as her father was so happy to have my company and nobody will stop him from smoking while I was around. He told me that he just want to smoke as there is not much left for him in his life anyway.

One thing about Baba Aziz, he always hold a tasbih (prayer bits)and this one particular tasbih has never left his hand. It looked like being made from a rough glass.

On one of visit, he held my right hand and put this tasbih into my hand. He asked me to keep it. He told me that this particular tasbih is very special to him and it was made from the windscreen of the Iranian fighter jet that was shot down during the Iran-Iraq war. A piece of the fighter windscreen was given to him by the Iraqi government as an honour because his eldest son, a commander in Iraqi military was captured by the Iranians and he had not heard about him ever since. He sent the piece of the windscreen to the tasbih maker and since then that tasbih has never left his hand.

I told him that I cannot accept that gift as it meant so much to him. He may want to keep it close to him all the time. He insisted and that he had already accepted me as his son and he want me to have it. I was so touched and so honoured to inherit that gift. I finally accepted it.

The new war broke out as a result of Saddam's invasion on Kuwait and I had to leave Iraq. I was in a real rush and I couldn't say goodbye to Baba Aziz. Iraqi telecommunication system was heavily bombarded and I couldn't call Baba Aziz at all after I left Iraq. I had totally lost contact with him.

I do not know his condition now. Is he is still alive in Iraq's present condition. He must have suffered a lot. I pray for him and his family to always be in god's protection.

And I still miss his company so much. I have been keeping the tasbih close to me all the time. A priceless gift that I always treasure.

1 AUGUST 1990

1st August 1990, a date not to forget.

Gonzalez and I were travelling from Kuwait City to Baghdad. The total distance was 800km and we were travelling by 4x4 Mitsubishi Pajero. It was scorching hot at 45˚C, but luckily the car's Japanese made air-conditioned worked very well to that kind of heat. There was a 2km no man's land between Kuwait and Iraq borders, which mean if anything happened to the car after crossing Kuwait border, we wouldn't be getting help from either Kuwaiti or Iraqi authorities before reaching Iraqi border post.

After crossing both borders, we drove on the Iraqi Primary Highway to Baghdad. It was a five lanes very wide highway with an extra emergency lane. A total of six lanes going and six lanes coming back. I had never seen this kind of highway before. Our two lanes North-South Highway would look just like a country road to them. The distance between one filling station to another was 300km and we had petrol stored in jerry can in case we ran out of it. Saddam Hussein had used his oil revenue to build a super Iraqi Primary Highways connecting Baghdad to the borders of Kuwait, Turkey, Saudi and Jordan. I had been in the US and I can guarantee that even the best highways in the US couldn't match these highways. According to intelligent reports, Saddam Hussein would use the highways as a landing airstrip for his military aircrafts during the war.

While on our way we saw a lot of military trucks on the opposite side heading to Kuwait border. It was quite normal to see convoys of military trucks in Iraq. But the number this time were higher than normal. This time they also had the mobile hospitals in the convoys.

We reached Baghdad at almost 8.00pm. I was so tired and slumped myself in bed like a log. Woke up next day just to hear the news that Iraq had invaded Kuwait at the early dawn of 2nd August 1990. A different version of the Iraqi TV had announced that Kuwait had return to Iraq and they were celebrating. Had Gonzalez and I delayed our departure to another day, we might had been caught in the invasion.

As for the military convoys that we had witnessed, to the layman like me there was nothing to be alarmed for these quite normal military movements in Iraq. But for the military experts, they probably would detect something amiss when the mobile hospitals were involved that time.

For me, I was just there, in one part of the history.