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A friend in the Armed Forces sent me this list of terrorist incidents, allegedly taken from government anti-terrorism training. With a few of my own additions:
| Historical Example | Year | Location(s) | Individual/Group | Attack |
| Fort Hood Shooting | 2009 | Fort Hood, TX | Nidal Malik Hasan | Automatic Weapons Fire |
| 2009 | Off the Coast of Somalia | Somali Pirates | Ship Boarding / Hostage Taking | |
| Christmas Day Bomber | 2009 | Detroit, MI | Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab | PETN Explosives |
| 2008 | Mumbai, India | Lashkar-e-Taiha | Assault Weapons / IEDs | |
| 2008 | Kabul, Afghanistan | Taliban | Vehicle-Borne IED, Suicide Vest, Automatic Weapons Fire, Grenades | |
| 2008 | Islamabad, Pakistan | Harkatul Jehadul (Suspected) | Vehicle-Borne/Backpack IED (Suicide Bombing) | |
| 2007 | Fort Dix, NJ | Muslim Extremist Terrorist Cell | Automatic Weapons Fire | |
| 2005 | London, England | Muslim Extremists | Backpack IED | |
| 2004 | Balad, Iraq | Multiple Insurgent Groups | Hostage Holding | |
| 2004 | Madrid, Spain | Muslim Extremists | Backpack IED | |
| 2003 | Camp Pennsylvania Kuwait | Hasan Karim Akbar | Grenades, Weapons Fire | |
| 2002 | Virginia, Maryland, Washington, D.C. | John Allen Muhammad, Lee Boyd Malvo | High-Powered Rifle/Sniper | |
| 2002 | Bali, Indonesia | Jemaah Islamiyah | Vehicle-Borne/Backpack IED (Suicide Bombing) | |
| 2002 | Mombasa, Kenya | Al-Ittihad al Islamiya With Al-Qaeda Support | Vehicle-Borne IED, Surface-To-Air Missiles | |
| Los Angeles Airport Shooting | 2002 | LAX, CA | Hesham Mohamed Hadayet | Small Arms Fire |
| 2001 | Singapore | Al-Qaeda, Jemaah Islamiyah, Moro Islamic Liberation Front | Explosives Comprised of Ammonia Nitrate | |
| 2001 | New York, NY | Unknown | Biological Weapon | |
| Shoe Bomber | 2001 | Paris, France | Richard Reid | C-4 Explosives |
| 2001 | Shanksville, PA | Al-Qaeda | Skyjacking of passenger jet liner | |
| 2000 | Aden Harbor, Yemen | Al-Qaeda | Vessel-Borne IED (Suicide Bombing) | |
| 1998 | Nairobi, Kenya | Al-Qaeda | Vehicle-Borne IED (Suicide Bombing) | |
| 1997 | Luxor, Egypt | Al-Gamd'a al-Isamiyya & | Automatic Weapons Fire | |
| 1996 | Lima, Peru | Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) | Hostage Holding | |
| 1996 | Dahran, Saudi Arabia | Dahran, Saudi Arabia | Vehicle-Borne IED | |
| 1995 | Tokyo, Japan | Aum Shinrikyo | Chemical Weapon | |
| 1995 | Oklahoma City, OK | Timothy McVeigh | Vehicle-Borne IED | |
| World Trade Center Bombing | 1993 | New York City, NY | Ramzi Yousef, et al. | urea nitrate-hydrogen explosion |
| CIA HQ Shooting | 1993 | Langley, VA | Mir Aimal Kasi | Automatic Weapons Fire |
| 1988 | Athens, Greece | November 17 (N-17) | Vehicle-Borne IED | |
| Pan Am 103 | 1988 | Lockerbie, Scotland | Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi | Explosives |
| 1986 | Berlin, Germany | Libyan and Syrian | Suitcase IED | |
| 1985 | Rhein-Main, Germany | Red Army Faction | Vehicle-Borne IED | |
| 1985 | San Salvador, El Salvador | Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front | Small Arms Fire | |
| 1985 | Athens, Greece | Lebanese Radicals | Skyjacking of | |
| Achille Lauro | 1985 | Egypt | Palestine Liberation Front | Cruise ship hijacking |
| 1984 | Beirut, Lebanon | Hezbollah (with | Kidnapping/ | |
| 1983 | Beirut, Lebanon | Islamic Jihad | Vehicle-Borne IED | |
| 1983 | Athens, Greece | November 17 (N-17) | Gunshot from | |
| 1983 | San Salvador, El Salvador | Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional | Small Arms Fire | |
| 1981 | Verona, Italy | Red Brigade | Kidnapping | |
| 1981 | Padua, Italy | Red Brigade | Hostage Holding | |
| 1973 | Stockholm, Sweden | Jan Erik Olsson | Hostage Holding |
For those of you keeping score at home, I count 29/42 perpetrated by Muslims, 9/42 by communists (the last being in 1996), and 4 miscellaneous.
A few quibbles: Dozier gets counted twice. We can quibble about whether the insurgent attacks in Iraq (combined under “Thomas Hamill”) are appropriate on this list. Finally, I’m not sure what Aum Shinrikyo is doing here. If we’re going to count terrorism by foreigners against foreigners on foreign soil, the list would necessarily be a lot longer.
On the other hand, the original list neglected several: the Christmas Day Bomber, the Fort Hood shooting, the Los Angeles Airport Shooting, the Shoe Bomber, the 1993 WTC bombing, the CIA HQ shooting, the Lockerbie bombing, and the Achille Lauro hijacking. Weird.
Still, though, a pretty comprehensive look at who our enemies are.
5 comments:
The Fort Hood shooter used semi-automatic pistols. Not automatics.
The Beltway "sniper" used a .223 cal semi-automatic AR-15. Calling it high-power is a bit of a stretch.
I notice you are also leaving off school shootings. Beslan would certainly qualify as terrorist, but the others were just psychopaths. Tim McVeigh was also a psychopath, not a terrorist. But it please most people to put him in this category as the token white guy.
Also absent from the list, the Russians have had several years of Chechan terrorist stuff. (chechans are moslem).
Iranian revolution didn't make the cut?
Also, the beltway "sniper" was not really a terrorist. He started it as a cover the intended murder of his ex wife. When I got bigger, he figured out that if anything happened to his ex, he would become the prime suspect. So then he shifted his motive to profit.
But he was a moslem convert, if you count "black" Islam as Islam.
Prof Hale: Yeah, the list was kind of a hodge podge, with no obvious standard for what should go in or out. School shootings a la Columbine obviously don't count. Breslin would count if you're counting terrorism that's fully foreign, which I wasn't, but the original list had two instances. A closer call would be adding the Pentagon and Holocaust Museum shootings in the miscellaneous/"right wing" category.
The Iranian hostage crisis is another close call. Certainly it was a violation of international law and custom. On the other hand, it had several mitigating circumstances: nobody was killed (I think?); it was government sanctioned; it was on their home ground; it didn't have any obvious goal other than to humiliate the U.S. and bolster the revolutionary government.
Regarding the DC Sniper: according to Wikipedia, the ex-wife theory was presented by the prosecution, but ultimately rejected by the court. Muhammad himself claimed to be on a jihad. Sometimes we gotta take folks at their word.
Holy crap that's a long list.
Also missing is another token honkey...Joe Stack who flew his plane into the IRS building in Austin. Although that was property damage only and no deaths.
Where's the SPLC when you need 'em?
Muhammad's claim is undercut by his concurrent claim for a few million dollars deposited to an offshore account. The Jihad thing just helps him sleep at night. (though I hear he is sleeping peacefuly either way right now).
The critical piece that distinguishes terrorist from psycopath is state sponsorship. Terrorism is just a tactic. When that tactic is used by an individual, no matter what he claims his motives are, he is just a psycopath. When the tactic is used by an organization, to further the groups goals, it is a criminal activity. When that organization has state sponsorship, it is a terrorist.
America has known plenty of serial killers and none were caller terrorists. The definition is not about how the victim feels (terrorized), but about how the offender will use that tactic to further his ends. Tim McVeigh was just more successfukl than Charles Manson and the Uni-Bomber but under the hood, they were the same.
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