Four of the five attackers aboard Pan Am Flight 73 who hijacked the plane during an airport stopover in Karachi, which resulted in the deaths of 20 passengers and crew-FBI website

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has released age-processed photos of four alleged suspects in the 1986 Pan Am Flight 73 hijacking in Karachi, in which 20 people died.

?The FBI is hoping to generate new leads with the release of new age-progressed images of four alleged hijackers involved in a 1986 attack in Pakistan that killed two Americans,? a statement by the agency said.

Five attackers aboard Pan Am Flight 73 hijacked the plane during an airport stopover in Karachi, which resulted in the deaths of 20 passengers and crew. 

The four suspects?Wadoud Muhammad Hafiz al-Turki, Jamal Saeed Abdul Rahim, Muhammad Abdullah Khalil Hussain ar-Rahayyal, and Muhammad Ahmed al-Munawar?are believed to have been members of the Abu Nidal Organization, which was designated a terrorist organisation by the US Department of State. 

Each of the men is on the FBI?s Most Wanted Terrorists List. The case is being investigated by the FBI?s Washington Field Office, the statement added.

According to the FBI, Wadoud Muhammad Hafiz al-Turki was born in Baghdad, while Jamal Saeed Abdul Rahim and Muhammad Abdullah Khalil Hussain ar-Rahayyal were born in Lebanon. Muhammad Ahmed al-Munawar was born in Kuwait.

?It?s always been an active case of ours,? said the lead FBI agent on the case. He said images of the suspects obtained by the FBI in the year 2000 were age-progressed by the FBI Laboratory. ?We?re hoping that with the age-progression photos next to the original photos maybe that will jar some memories or maybe someone has seen these guys walking around.?

The aircraft, with 360 passengers onboard, had just arrived from Sahar International Airport in Mumbai, and was preparing to depart Jinnah International Airport in Karachi for Frankfurt Airport in Frankfurt am Main, West Germany, ultimately continuing on to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, United States.

A June 2001 grand jury charged that the militants were planning to use the hijacked plane to pick up Palestinian prisoners in both Cyprus and Israel.

The 17-hour long hijacking came to an end when the hijackers opened fire on the passengers at 9:30pm, prompting action from the SSG commando unit, headed by Brigadier Tariq Mehmood, and the Shaheen Company of the SSG's 1st Commando Battalion carried out the operation.

Passengers aboard the plane included nationals of Algeria, Canada, France, India , Pakistan and United States.

All four hijackers were convicted in Pakistan and sentenced to death in 1988, before having their sentences reduced to life imprisonment. They were released in 2008 and deported to Palestinian territories.

Authorities subsequently released the leader of the hijackers, Zayd Hassan Abd al-Latif Masud al-Safarini, in 2001, who was shortly arrested by the US in Bangkok on his way to Jordan. He was convicted in 2004 and sentenced to 160 years in prison.