Hijackers still hold 17 aboard plane in Tehran

Seventeen hostages, including a UN official, Monday passed a third day on their hijacked aircraft as negotiations brought no sign of a breakthrough with the four gunmen holding them at Tehran's Mehrabad Airport.

The gunmen, who seized the Boeing 727 over Western Europe on Saturday, threatened to blow up the plane unless France vows to discontinue military aid to Lebanon, Chad, and Iraq, the National Iranian News Agency said.

In Geneva, a UN spokesman said Martin Lees, a New York-based director of the UN Financing System for Science and Technology Development, was among the hostages, who included an American couple.