- A pro-Al Qaeda weekly called al-Bayan has praised the flydubai FZ1073 cockpit attack and urged copycat strikes on American and Israeli aircraft, according to the New York Post.
- Co-pilot Hammam al-Hammami, an Omani national, allegedly attacked Indian captain Smit Machchhar on September 30. Passengers and two off-duty pilots saved the aircraft.
- The UAE prosecutor general calls it an attempted terrorist attack. No motive has been established.
- Telegram channels circulated the al-Bayan article before it was taken down.
Al Qaeda supporters are now using the flydubai cockpit attack as propaganda. The latest edition of al-Bayan, a weekly publication that pro-Al Qaeda supporters launched in July, praises the September 30 incident and tells readers to repeat it, the New York Post reported. The text ties the episode to the September 11 attacks and says the group's war against America and Israel continues.
Telegram channels linked to the network pushed the article on Friday and Saturday. It was removed soon after.
The writer argues that America and the "Zionists" have far more enemies than they once did. One passage suggests that even a man with no faith could strike them and end up helping Islam. Another predicts that the "empire of evil America" will one day fall.
Attribution is not uniform across coverage. Most outlets describe al-Bayan as the work of Al Qaeda supporters. Some Indian reports go further and tie the piece to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. That link has not been independently confirmed.
Flight FZ1073 left Dubai at 0305 GMT with more than 170 mostly Israeli passengers on a Boeing 737 MAX. Around 0521 GMT, Reuters reported, the aircraft turned and dropped twice toward the ground. In the steepest dive it shed more than 16,000 feet in just over 30 seconds.
The crew sent an emergency code, then a code that signals unlawful interference. An Israeli official said the transponder was off for nearly half an hour. The jet changed course over Jordan and diverted to Tabuk in Saudi Arabia.
Inside the cockpit, UAE authorities say, co-pilot al-Hammami attacked Captain Machchhar with the emergency axe stored on board. Early reports had said knife. Machchhar, wounded, managed to open the cockpit door during the descent.
At least four passengers rushed in. They subdued the co-pilot and tied him up with earphone cables. A passenger helped steady the aircraft, and two off-duty flydubai pilots who were travelling as passengers took over and landed it. A doctor on board treated the captain.
Al-Hammami is a 29-year-old Omani with a professional aviation background, according to the reports. The spelling of his first name varies between outlets, with Hammam, Hamam and Humam all in circulation.
Terrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann told the Post that the detail standing out to him was a reference to Humam al-Balawi in material posted through accounts attributed to al-Hammami after the incident. Al-Balawi was the Jordanian double agent who killed CIA officers in Afghanistan in 2009. Some reports say the posts appeared while al-Hammami was already in custody, which is one more thing investigators will need to sort out.
One report, carried by Menafn, claims he was earlier removed by Oman Air over radical views. That claim is unverified.
The UAE prosecutor general has classified the incident as an attempted terrorist attack. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz called it a jihadist attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the co-pilot had gone through Islamist radical indoctrination and was suicidal, though he gave no supporting detail.
Israeli officials believe al-Hammami acted alone. Israel's ambassador to the UAE has said no motive is established.
The UAE leads the investigation. Saudi authorities ran preliminary inquiries with UAE security teams, and Netanyahu says Israel may take part.
Israel's transport minister, Miri Regev, asked for flydubai flights to Israel to be suspended and for a check on whether the UAE had breached the arrangement between the two countries. The episode came only days after Netanyahu's rare visit to the UAE.
Netanyahu has also invited Captain Machchhar and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Israel, calling the pilot a true hero.
The extra pilots on board were a lucky break. Flight FZ1073 carried four pilots when two were needed, and that surplus is the reason a qualified crew was available to land the plane.
A propaganda magazine praising an attack proves nothing about who planned it. Groups like Al Qaeda routinely claim or celebrate events they had no hand in, and nothing public so far shows a link between al-Hammami and any organisation. The al-Bayan article is a reaction, not evidence of command.
It does matter as a threat signal. Calls for lone-actor attacks on aircraft are exactly what airline security teams and intelligence agencies track, and Indian outlets report that tighter monitoring is being planned at home. Details of those measures have not been made public.
The UAE investigation has yet to publish findings on motive, on the axe, or on the social media posts. Those answers will decide how much of the current narrative survives.
