Encyclopedia of Terrorism, Third Edition

By Cindy Combs and Martin Slann

The ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and the bombings overseas have shown that—despite the "War on Terror"—terrorism is still very much a part of daily life for many individuals. Encyclopedia of Terrorism, Third Edition provides students, researchers, journalists, and policymakers with a complete survey of what seems to be an intractable problem. More than 330 entries organized in an easily accessible, A-to-Z format offer comprehensive treatments of the events, people, organizations, and places that have played a major role in international terrorism. Each entry is placed within its appropriate historical context to help readers understand the wide-ranging motivations behind terrorist actions.

New and updated entries include:

• Islamic State
• mass shootings
• narco-terrorism
• Paris attacks
• Pulse nightclub terrorist attack
• right-wing terrorism
• San Bernardino attacks
• school site analysis
• siege of the U.S. Capitol
• Special Projects Team-Special Air Service (SAS)
• state-sponsored terrorism
• white supremacist groups

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Facts On File
• Release date: Aug 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781438199078

Book preview

title

Encyclopedia of Terrorism, Third Edition

Copyright © 2021 by Infobase

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For more information, contact:

Facts On File

An imprint of Infobase

132 West 31st Street

New York NY 10001

ISBN 978-1-4381-9907-8

You can find Facts On File on the World Wide Web

at http://www.infobase.com

Contents

Entries

15 May Organization

The 9/11 Commission Report

abortion clinic attacks

Abu Nidal

Abu Nidal Organization (ANO)

Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG)

Achille Lauro, hijacking of

Action Direct (AD)

Air France hijacking at Entebbe

airport security

al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade

al-Asad, Hafiz

al-Badr Mujahideen

al-Gama'at al-Islamiyya (GAI)

al-Ittihaad al-Islami (AIAI)

al-Qaeda

al-Zarqawi, Abu Musab

Alex Boncayao Brigade (ABB)

Allied Democratic Forces (Uganda)

American Front

Amin, Idi

Amir, Yigal

amplification of terrorism in the media

anarchists

ancient terrorism

Andrés Castro United Front

Animal Liberation Front (ALF)

Ansar al-Islam

anthrax attacks

anthrax (weapon)

Anti-Imperialist Territorial Nuclei

April 19 Movement

Arafat, Yasir

Arizona Patriots

Armed Islamic Group

armed militias in the United States

Armed Revolutionary Nuclei (ARN)

armed right-wing groups in the United States

Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA)

Army for the Liberation of Rwanda (ALIR)

Army of God

Aryan Nations

Aryan Republican Army

Asbat al-Ansar

assassination of Franz Ferdinand

Assassins

Aum Shinrikyo

auto-genocide

Babbar Khalsa International

Baghdadi, Abu Bakr al-

Bakunin, Mikhail Aleksandrovich

Begin, Menachem

Beria, Lavrenty

Beslan school hostage crisis

bin Laden, Osama

biological agents

Black Hand

Black September

Bombay (Mumbai), India train bombings

bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

bombing of the King David Hotel

bonuses for terrorist success/injury

Branch Davidians raid

Canada and the Front du Libération du Québec (FLQ)

Carlos the Jackal

categories of terrorists

censorship of media concerning terrorist incidents

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

characteristics of successful terrorists

chemical weapons

Christian Identity Movement (CIM)

Christian militia movements in the United States

Christian Patriotism

complicity between media and terrorists

Convention on Offenses and Certain Other Acts Committed on Board Aircraft

conventional terrorist weapons

Covenant, Sword, and Arm of the Lord (CSA)

cultural terrorism

cyberterrorism

cyclical nature of terrorism

Dayak

Dayr Yassin massacre

Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP)

demography

Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

Devrimci Sol

diplomatic personnel and heads of state as targets of terrorism

dynastic assassination

Earth Liberation Front (ELF)

Eastern Shan State Army (ESSA)

Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ)

Elizabethan Sea Dogs

environmental groups, terrorism and

Eritrean Islamic Jihad Movement

ethnic cleansing

European Convention on Extradition

Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA)

Exercise ELIGIBLE RECEIVER

The Extraditables

extremist attacks in Egypt

Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front

Fatah

fedayeen

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

female genital mutilation (FGM)

Fighting Communist Cells

financing of terrorism

First of October Antifascist Resistance Group

Free Aceh Movement

Free Papua Movement

Front du Libération du Québec (FLQ)

Front for the Liberation of the Cabinda Enclave (FLEC)

Gandhi, Rajiv

general threat indicators

generational differences among terrorists

Geneva Conventions

genocide

genocide in Bosnia

globalization and extremists

goals of government concerning the media in a terrorist event

goals of terrorists concerning the media

goals of the media in a terrorist event

Goldstein, Baruch

Gray Wolves

Great Eastern Islamic Raiders Front

Grenzschutzgruppe 9 (GSG-9)

Grey Wolves

GSG-9 hostage rescue in Mogadishu

guerrilla warfare

Haganah

Hamas

Harakat al-Shuhada'a al-Islamiyah

Harakat ul-Jihad-i-Islami Bangladesh (HUJI-B)

Harakat ul-Mujahidin (HUM)

hardening of targets

Hasan Ibn Sabbah

Hawari Group

Hisba

Hizb-I Islami Gulbuddin (HIG)

Hizb ul-Mujahidin (HM)

Hizballah

Holocaust denial

humiliation and terrorism

Hussein, Saddam

ideological mercenaries

images held by terrorists

immigrants and terrorism

impact on terrorist group dynamics

innocent person as a target under rules of war

Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO)

internal terrorism

International Criminal Court and crimes of terrorism

international law and skyjacking

international terrorist congress

Interpol

intifadas

Iranian hostage rescue mission

Irgun Zeva'i Leumi

Irish Republican Army (IRA)

Islamic Army of Aden (IAA)

Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU)

Islamic State (ISIL/Daesh)

Israeli Security Barrier

Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM)

Jamaat al-Fuqra (JF)

Jamiat ul-Mujahedin (JUM)

Japanese Red Army (JRA)

Jewish Defense League (JDL)

jihad

Julius Caesar, assassination of

Kaczynski, Ted

Kahane Chai

Khaled, Leila

Khmer Rouge

Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah

Kim Jong Il

the Kommissar

Ku Klux Klan (KKK)

Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)

Kurds

Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LT)

legal initiatives against terrorism in Italy

Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG)

Pan Am Flight 103 bombing

Lod Airport attack

London terror attacks

Lord's Resistance Army (LRA)

Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF)

Madrid train bombings

Manson, Charles

Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front

mass shootings

massacre in Sabra and Shatilla

media right of access to terrorist events in the United States

Memorandum of Understanding of Hijacking of Aircraft and Vessels and Other Offenses

Middle Eastern news outlets

millennial movements

Montana Freemen

Morazanist Patriotic Front

Mossad

Mujahideen-e-Khalq Organization (MEK) or (MKO)

Munich massacre of Israeli athletes

narco-terrorism

narco-terrorism and Colombia

National Liberation Army

neo-Nazis

New People's Army (NPA)

NORAID

novation

nuclear terrorism

Nuremberg Trials

Oklahoma City bombing

Omega 7

Operation Chavín de Huántar

Operation Dark Winter

Operation Enduring Freedom

Operation Infinite Reach

Operation Nimrod

operational security

Orange Volunteers (OV)

Oslo Accords

Ottawa Ministerial Declaration on Countering Terrorism

Palestine

Palestine Liberation Front (PLF)

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)

Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)

Paris terrorist attacks

pathological terrorists

People against Gangsterism and Drugs (PAGAD)

personal security

phases of a terrorist incident

physical security

piracy as a form of terrorism

plastic weapons

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine–General Command (PFLP-GC)

Posse Comitatus

Pulse nightclub terrorist attack

Qaddafi, Muammar al-

Qibla

Qutb, Sayyid

Rabin, Yitzhak

Rajneesh, Bhagwan Sri

random terror

rape as a tactic of warfare

Red Army Faction (RAF)

Red Brigades

Red Hand Defenders (RHD)

regional overview of terrorism

Reign of Terror

religion as a factor in group dynamics

Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

Revolutionary Organization 17 November

Revolutionary People's Struggle

Revolutionary United Front (RUF)

ricin

right of self-determination

right-wing extremism in Germany

right-wing terrorism

Ruby Ridge

Rudolph, Eric

rule of proportionality

Rushdie, Salman

Russo-Chechen relations

Sadat, Anwar

Salafist Group for Call and Combat

San Bernardino terrorist attacks

Sayaret Mat'kal

school site analysis

SEAL Team Six

September 11 terrorist attacks

Shaldag

Sharon, Ariel

Shigenobu, Fusako

Shining Path

siege of the U.S. Capitol

Sikh terrorism

Sinn Féin

Six-Day War

skyjacking

Special Operations units of the United States government

Special Projects Team–Special Air Service (SAS)

specific threat indicators

state-sponsored terrorism

state-supported terrorism by Libya

state terrorism

state terrorism in Argentina

state terrorism in Chile

state terrorism in Nazi Germany

Stern Gang

Stockholm syndrome

suicide terrorists

surrogate terrorism

Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA)

tactical terror

taggants for explosives

Tamil Tigers

target search teams

targeted killings

terrorism

terrorism in Cuba

terrorism in Darfur

terrorism in Haiti

terrorism in Iran

terrorism in Iraq

terrorism in Israel

terrorism in Lebanon

terrorism in Northern Ireland

terrorist attack in Tokyo subway

terrorist group networking

terrorist violence and spillover events

threat assessment

threats and hoaxes as terrorist tactics

training camps for terrorists

trends in terrorist demography

TREVI

Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement

Tupamaros

The Turner Diaries

TWA flight 847

tyrannicide

Ulster Defense Association (UDA)

United Kingdom anti-terror legislation

United Nations response to terrorism

United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia

United States, recent patterns of terrorism in

USA PATRIOT Act

USS Cole, bombing of

Venice Statement on Taking of Hostages

Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations

violence in Indonesia

white supremacist groups

Wilmington Coup and Massacre of 1898

World Trade Center bombing

Yassin, Sheikh Ahmed

Yousef, Ramzi

Zionism

Entries

15 May Organization

Emerging in 1979 from the remnants of Wadi Haddad's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine—Special Operations Group (PFLP-SOG), this organization was led by Muhammad al-Umari, known throughout the Palestinian world as Abu Ibrahim, or the bomb man. This group was never a part of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and reportedly disbanded in the mid-1980s when several key members joined Hawari's Special Operations Group of fatah.

15 May Organization claimed credit for several bombings during the early 1980s, however, including hotel bombings in London, El Al's Rome and Istanbul offices, and Israeli embassies in Athens and Vienna. They also launched an attempted bombing of a Pan Am airliner in Rio de Janeiro and a successful bombing on board a Pan Am flight from Tokyo to Honolulu. This last attack killed a Japanese teenager, and its perpetrator, Mohammed Rashid, was convicted and imprisoned in Greece.

During the early 1980s, the group probably received logistical and financial support from Iraq until around 1984 and had its headquarters, reportedly, in Baghdad. Abu Ibrahim was believed to be in Iraq at the time of the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Further Information

National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT). May 15 Organization for the Liberation of Palestine. Available online. URL: http://www.tkb.org/Group.jsp?groupID=155. Accessed February 15, 2006.

Entry Author: Combs, Cindy C. and Martin Slann.

The 9/11 Commission Report

In the wake of the attack on america on September 11, 2001, a commission in the United States was appointed to investigate and report on the events and the prelude to these events. In 2004, the 9/11 Commission Report was presented to the president of the United States, the U.S. Congress, and the American people. Ten commissioners—five Republicans and five Democrats chosen by elected national leaders—came together to present this report without dissent. Their conclusion: The nation was unprepared.

More than 2,600 people died at the World Trade Center, 125 died at the Pentagon, and 256 died on the four planes. The death toll surpassed that at Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

This immeasurable pain was inflicted by 19 young Arabs acting at the behest of Islamic extremists headquartered in Afghanistan. Some had been in the United States for more than a year, mixing with the rest of the population. Though four had training as pilots, most were not well educated. Most spoke English poorly, some hardly at all. In groups of four or five, carrying with them only small knives, box cutters, and cans of Mace or pepper spray, they had hijacked the four planes and turned them into deadly guided missiles.

The commission concluded that the 9/11 attacks were a shock but that they should not have come as a surprise. Instead, they found that Islamic extremists had given plenty of warning that they meant to kill Americans indiscriminately and in large numbers. Although Osama bin Laden himself did not emerge as a signal threat until the late 1990s, the threat of Islamic terrorism grew over the decade.

According to the report, in February 1993, a group led by Ramzi Yousef tried to bring down the World Trade Center with a truck bomb. The terrorists killed six and wounded a thousand. Plans by Omar Abdel Rahman and others to blow up the Holland and Lincoln tunnels and other New York City landmarks were frustrated when the plotters were arrested. In October 1993, Somali tribesmen shot down U.S. helicopters, killing 18 and wounding 73 in an incident that came to be known as Black Hawk down. Years later, it was learned that those Somali tribesmen had received help from al-qaeda.

In early 1995, police in Manila uncovered a plot by Ramzi Yousef to blow up a dozen U.S. airliners while they were flying over the Pacific. In November 1995, a car bomb exploded outside the office of the U.S. program manager for the Saudi National Guard in Riyadh, killing five Americans and two others. In June 1996, a truck bomb demolished the Khobar Towers apartment complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 U.S. servicemen and wounding hundreds. The attack was carried out primarily by Saudi Hizballah, an organization that had received help from the government of iran.

Until 1997, the U.S. intelligence community viewed bin Laden as a financier of terrorism, not as a terrorist leader. In February 1998, bin Laden and four others issued a self-styled fatwa, publicly declaring that it was God's decree that every Muslim should try his or her utmost to kill any American, military or civilian, anywhere in the world, because of American occupation of Islam's holy places and aggression against Muslims.

In August 1998, bin-Laden's group, al-Qaeda, carried out near-simultaneous truck-bomb attacks on the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The attacks killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, and wounded thousands more.

In December 1999, Jordanian police foiled a plot to bomb hotels and other sites frequented by American tourists, and a U.S. Customs agent arrested Ahmed Ressam at the U.S.-Canadian border as he was smuggling in explosives intended for an attack on Los Angeles International Airport. In October 2000, an al-Qaeda team in Aden, Yemen, used a motorboat filled with explosives to blow a hole in the side of a destroyer, the USS Cole, killing 17 American sailors and almost sinking the vessel.

The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were far more elaborate, precise, and destructive than any of these earlier assaults. But by September 2001, the executive branch of the U.S. government, the Congress, the news media, and the American public had received clear warning that Islamic terrorists meant to kill Americans in high numbers.

Osama bin Laden built over the course of a decade a dynamic and lethal organization. He built an infrastructure and organization in Afghanistan that could attract, train, and use recruits against ever more ambitious targets. He rallied new zealots and new money with each demonstration of al-Qaeda's capability. He had forged a close alliance with the Taliban, a regime providing sanctuary for al-Qaeda.

By September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda possessed, according to the 9/11 Commission Report:

Leaders able to evaluate, approve, and supervise the planning and direction of a major operation;

A personnel system that could recruit candidates, indoctrinate them, vet them, and give them the necessary training;

Communications sufficient to enable planning and direction of operatives and those who would be helping them;

An intelligence effort to gather required information and form assessments of enemy strengths and weaknesses;

The ability to move people great distances; and

The ability to raise and move the money necessary to finance an attack.

During 2000, U.S. president Bill Clinton and his advisers renewed diplomatic efforts to get bin Laden expelled from Afghanistan. They also renewed secret efforts with some of the Taliban's opponents—the Northern Alliance—to get enough intelligence to attack bin Laden directly. Diplomatic efforts centered on the new military government in Pakistan, and they did not succeed. The efforts with the Northern Alliance revived an inconclusive and secret debate about whether the United States should take sides in Afghanistan's civil war and support the Taliban's enemies. The CIA also produced a plan to improve intelligence collection on al-Qaeda, including the use of a small, unmanned airplane with a video camera, known as the Predator.

After the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole, evidence accumulated that it had been launched by al-Qaeda operatives, but without confirmation that bin Laden had given the order. The Taliban had earlier been warned that it would be held responsible for another bin Laden attack on the United States. The CIA described its findings as a preliminary judgment; President Clinton and his chief advisers told the U.S. public they were waiting for a conclusion before deciding whether to take military action. The military alternatives remained unappealing to them.

The transition to the new Bush administration in late 2000 and early 2001 took place with the Cole issue still pending. President George W. Bush and his chief advisers accepted that al-Qaeda was responsible for the attack on the Cole but did not like the options available for a response. As a result, the commission concluded, bin Laden's inference may well have been that attacks, at least at the level of the Cole, were risk-free.

The 9/11 Commission Report noted that the Bush administration began developing a new strategy with the stated goal of eliminating the al-Qaeda threat within three to five years. During the spring and summer of 2001, U.S. intelligence agencies received a stream of warnings that al-Qaeda planned, as one report put it, something very, very, very big. Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet told the commission, The system was blinking red.

Although bin Laden was determined to strike in the United States, as President Clinton was told and President Bush was reminded in a presidential daily brief article given to him in August 2001, the specific threat information pointed overseas. Numerous precautions were taken overseas. Domestic agencies were not effectively mobilized. The threat did not receive national media attention comparable to the millennium alert.

While the United States continued disruption efforts around the world, its emerging strategy to eliminate the al-Qaeda threat was to include an enlarged covert action program in Afghanistan, as well as diplomatic strategies for Afghanistan and Pakistan. The process culminated during the summer of 2001 in a draft presidential directive and arguments about the Predator aircraft, which was soon to be deployed with a missile of its own, so that it might be used to attempt to kill bin Laden or his chief lieutenants. At a September 4 meeting, President Bush's chief advisers approved the draft directive of the strategy and endorsed the concept of arming the Predator. This directive on the al-Qaeda strategy was awaiting President Bush's signature on September 11, 2001.

According to the 9/11 Commission Report, September 11, 2001, began with the 19 hijackers getting through a security checkpoint system that they had evidently analyzed and knew how to defeat. They took over the four flights, taking advantage of air crews and cockpits that were not prepared for the contingency of a suicide hijacking. The defense of U.S. airspace depended on close interaction between two federal agencies: the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD). Existing protocols on 9/11 were, according to the report, unsuited in every respect for an attack in which hijacked planes were used as weapons.

The military was unprepared for the transformation of commercial aircraft into weapons of mass destruction. A shoot-down authorization was not communicated to the NORAD air-defense sector until 28 minutes after United 93 had crashed in Pennsylvania. Planes were scrambled, but ineffectively, as they did not know where to go or what targets they were to intercept. When the shoot-down order was finally given, it was not communicated to the pilots. In short, while leaders in Washington believed that the fighters circling above them had been instructed to take out hostile aircraft, the only orders actually conveyed to the pilots were to ID type and tail.

Like the national defense, the emergency response on 9/11 was necessarily improvised. In New York City, the Fire Department of New York, the New York Police Department, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the building employees, and the occupants of the buildings did their best to cope with the effects of almost unimaginable events—unfolding furiously over 102 minutes. Casualties were nearly 100% at and above the impact zones and were very high among first responders who stayed in danger as they tried to save lives. Despite weaknesses in preparations for disaster, failure to achieve a unified incident command, and inadequate communications among responding agencies, all but approximately 100 of the thousands of civilians who worked below the impact zone escaped, often with help from the emergency responders.

At the Pentagon, while there were also problems of command and control, the emergency response was generally effective. The Incident Command System, a formalized management structure for emergency response in place in the National Capital Region, overcame the inherent complications of a response across local, state, and federal jurisdictions.

The commission identified specific points of vulnerability in the plot and opportunities to disrupt it. Operational failures—opportunities that were not or could not be exploited by the organizations and systems of that time—included

Not watchlisting future hijackers Hazmi and Mihdhar, not trailing them after they traveled to Bangkok, and not informing the FBI about one future hijacker's U.S. visa or his companion's travel to the United States;

Not sharing information linking individuals in the Cole attack to Mihdhar;

Not taking adequate steps in time to find Mihdhar or Hazmi in the United States;

Not linking the arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui, described as interested in flight training for the purpose of using an airplane in a terrorist act, to the heightened indications of attack;

Not discovering false statements on visa applications;

Not recognizing passports manipulated in a fraudulent manner;

Not expanding no-fly lists to include names from terrorist watchlists;

Not searching airline passengers identified by the computer-based CAPPS screening system; and

Not hardening aircraft cockpit doors or taking other measures to prepare for the possibility of suicide hijackings.

Across the government, the commission found that there were failures of imagination, policy, capabilities, and management. Each failure, according to the report, cost the United States in its ability to anticipate and respond to the attacks on 9/11. They included:

Failure of imagination—The commission concluded that leaders in the United States did not understand the gravity of the threat. The terrorist danger from bin Laden and al-Qaeda was not a major topic for policy debate among the public, the media, or in the Congress. Indeed, it barely came up during the 2000 presidential campaign. Al-Qaeda's new brand of terrorism presented challenges to U.S. governmental institutions that they were not well designed to meet. There was uncertainty among the leaders as to whether this was just a new and especially venomous version of the ordinary terrorist threat the United States had lived with for decades, or it was indeed radically new, posing a threat beyond any yet experienced. As late as September 4, 2001, Richard Clarke, the White House staffer long responsible for counterterrorism policy coordination, asserted that the government had not yet made up its mind how to answer the question: Is al-Qaeda a big deal?

Failure of policy—Terrorism was not the overriding national security concern for the U.S. government under either the Clinton or the pre-9/11 Bush administration. The policy challenges were linked to the failure of imagination. Officials in both the Clinton and Bush administrations regarded a full U.S. invasion of Afghanistan as practically inconceivable before 9/11.

Failure of capabilities—Before 9/11, the United States tried to solve the al-Qaeda problem with the capabilities it had used in the last stages of the cold war and its immediate aftermath. These capabilities were insufficient. Little was done to expand or reform them. The CIA had minimal capacity to conduct paramilitary operations with its own personnel, and it did not seek a large-scale expansion of these capabilities before 9/11. The CIA also needed to improve its capability to collect intelligence from human agents. At no point before 9/11 was the Department of Defense fully engaged in the mission of countering al-Qaeda, even though this was perhaps the most dangerous foreign enemy threatening the United States. America's homeland defenders faced outward. NORAD itself was barely able to retain any alert bases. Its planning scenarios occasionally considered the danger of hijacked aircraft being guided to American targets, but only aircraft that were coming from overseas.

The most serious weaknesses in agency capabilities were in the domestic arena. The FBI did not have the capability to link the collective knowledge of agents in the field to national priorities. Other domestic agencies deferred to the FBI.

FAA capabilities were weak. Any serious examination of the possibility of a suicide hijacking could have suggested changes to fix glaring vulnerabilities—expanding no-fly lists, searching passengers identified by the CAPPS screening system, deploying federal air marshals domestically, hardening cockpit doors, alerting air crews to a different kind of hijacking possibility than they had been trained to expect. Yet the FAA did not adjust either its own training or training with NORAD to take account of threats other than those experienced in the past.

Failure of management—The missed opportunities to thwart the 9/11 plot were also symptoms of a broader inability to adapt the way government manages problems to the new challenges of the 21st century. Action officers should have been able to draw on all available knowledge about al-Qaeda in the government. Management should have ensured that information was shared and duties were clearly assigned across agencies, and across the foreign-domestic divide.

The 9/11 Commission Report also identified several specific problems, including but not limited to unsuccessful diplomacy, a lack of military options, problems with the intelligence community, problems with the FBI, permeable borders and immigration controls, permeable aviation security, financing, an improvised homeland security (with serious communication problems), emergency response (which lacked equipment and coordination), and a Congress unable to act swiftly. The commission concluded that although since 9/11 the United States and its allies have killed or captured a majority of al-Qaeda's leadership; toppled the Taliban, which gave al-Qaeda sanctuary in Afghanistan; and severely damaged the organization, terrorist attacks continue. The problem, according to the report, is that al-Qaeda represents an ideological movement, not a finite group of people: It initiates and inspires, even if it no longer directs. In this way it has transformed itself into a decentralized force. Osama bin Laden may be limited in his ability to organize major attacks from his hideouts. Yet killing or capturing him, while extremely important, would not end terror. His message of inspiration to a new generation of terrorists would continue.

Thus, although because of offensive actions against al-Qaeda since 9/11, and defensive actions to improve homeland security, the commission concluded that the United States is safer today, it also noted that the United States is not safe. Instead, the report contained several recommendations that the Commissioners believed could make America safer and more secure. These recommendations are divided into two basic parts: what to do and how to do it.

The global strategy includes three dimensions: (1) attack terrorists and their organizations, (2) prevent the continued growth of Islamic terrorism, and (3) protect against and prepare for terrorist attacks. This would include efforts to root out sanctuaries; strengthen long-term U.S. and international commitments to the future of Pakistan and Afghanistan; and confront problems with Saudi Arabia in the open and build a relationship beyond oil, a relationship that both sides can defend to their citizens and includes a shared commitment to reform. It would also require measures to communicate and defend American ideals in the Islamic world, while offering an agenda of opportunity that includes support for public education and economic openness, developing a comprehensive coalition strategy against Islamic terrorism, using a flexible contact group of leading coalition governments and fashioning a common coalition approach on issues such as the treatment of captured terrorists and devoting a maximum effort to the parallel task of countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

In order to achieve the third dimension, protecting against and preparing for terrorist attacks, the 9/11 Commission Report includes several detailed suggestions, including

Targeting terrorist travel, an intelligence and security strategy that the 9/11 story showed could be at least as powerful as the effort devoted to terror finance;

Addressing problems of screening people with biometric identifiers across agencies and governments, including U.S. border and transportation systems, by designing a comprehensive screening system that addresses common problems and sets common standards. As standards spread, this necessary and ambitious effort could dramatically strengthen the world's ability to intercept individuals who could pose catastrophic threats;

Quickly completing a biometric entry-exit screening system, one that also speeds qualified travelers;

Setting standards for the issuance of birth certificates and sources of identification, such as drivers' licenses;

Developing strategies for neglected parts of the transportation security system. Since 9/11, about 90% of the nation's $5 billion annual investment in transportation security has gone to aviation;

In aviation, preventing arguments about a new computerized profiling system from delaying vital improvements in the no-fly and automatic selectee lists. Also, giving priority to the improvement of checkpoint screening;

Determining, with leadership from the president, guidelines for gathering and sharing information in the new security systems that are needed, guidelines that integrate safeguards for privacy and other essential liberties;

Underscoring that as government power necessarily expands in certain ways, the burden of retaining such powers remains on the executive to demonstrate the value of such powers and ensure adequate supervision of how they are used, including a new board to oversee the implementation of the guidelines needed for gathering and sharing information in these new security systems;

Basing federal funding for emergency preparedness solely on risks and vulnerabilities, putting New York City and Washington, D.C., at the top of the current list. Such assistance should not remain a program for general revenue sharing or pork-barrel spending; and

Making homeland security funding contingent on the adoption of an incident command system to strengthen teamwork in a crisis, including a regional approach. Allocate more radio spectrum and improve connectivity for public safety communications and encourage widespread adoption of newly developed standards for private-sector emergency preparedness—since the private sector controls 85% of the nation's critical infrastructure.

The report calls for unity of effort in five areas, beginning with unity of effort on the challenge of counterterrorism itself:

Unifying strategic intelligence and operational planning against Islamic terrorists across the foreign-domestic divide with a National Counterterrorism Center;

Unifying the intelligence community with a new National Intelligence Director;

Unifying the many participants in the counterterrorism effort and their knowledge in a network-based information-sharing system that transcends traditional governmental boundaries;

Unifying and strengthening congressional oversight to improve quality and accountability; and

Strengthening the FBI and homeland defenders.

Some, but not all, of the 9/11 Commission Report's recommendations have been implemented since its publication.

Further Information

The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 2004.

Entry Author: Combs, Cindy C. and Martin Slann.

abortion clinic attacks

While nonviolent forms of protest are the preferred methods for most who oppose abortion, violence and threats of violence have been an increasing part of the antiabortion movement since the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion. During the last two decades of the 20th century, antiabortion terrorists have been responsible for six murders and 15 attempted murders. They have also carried out around 200 bombings and arsons, 72 attempted arsons, 750 death and bomb threats, and hundreds of acts of vandalism, intimidation, stalking, and burglary.

The first arson attack against an clinic where abortions took place occurred in 1977, four years after the U.S. Supreme Court decision on the landmark case of Roe v. Wade. The attack was aimed at a Long Island, New York, clinic owned by abortion rights advocate Bill Baird. During the next six years, the pace of attacks picked up, with a total of 29 bombings and arsons by 1983. In fact, the attacks were increasingly made against individuals, not just buildings. In 1982, a man claiming to represent the army of god (AOG) kidnapped, and eventually released, an abortion doctor and his wife. Don Benny Anderson was convicted of the kidnapping and of three clinic bombings in Florida and Virginia.

The year 1984, dubbed the Year of Fear and Pain by militant activists of Joseph Scheidler's Pro-Life Action Network (PLAN), was marred with 25 clinic arsons and bombings, resulting in millions of dollars in damage. At least seven of these attacks were planned and carried out by a group headed by Rev. Michael Bray, of Bowie, Maryland, an activist who engaged in nonviolent protests by day but waged covert terrorism by night against abortion.

Although most of the people involved in clinic protests were not involved in and did not support violence, these protests remained the common ground of expression for antiabortion sentiment. Those willing to use violence to stop abortions, such as Michael Bray or Paul Hill in Florida and John Salvi in Boston, used the occasion of peaceful protest to blend in and to gather intelligence and recruits for violent attacks on clinics. In fact, in this Year of Fear and Pain, Bray indicated on a note left at the site of a Norfolk, Virginia, bombing that a group of violent antiabortionists was forming, calling itself, the Army of God (AOG). U.S. Supreme Court justice Harry Blackmun, who wrote the Roe v. Wade decision, received a threatening letter from a group using that name, and that same year, a caller claiming responsibility for several bombings said he was from the Army of God. Letters signed by Army of God took credit for the bombing of an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama; the 1997 bombings of a clinic and a lesbian bar in the Atlanta area; and the attempted assassinations of abortion physicians in Canada.

The primary document reaching the public from the Army of God, other than the occasional letter claiming responsibility for a bombing, has been its training manual, an underground handbook on how to commit clinic violence. This manual describes itself as a manual for those who have come to understand that the battle against abortion is a battle not against flesh and blood, but against the devil and all of the evil he can muster among flesh and blood to fight at his side. It calls the United States a nation ruled by a godless civil authority that is dominated by humanism, moral nihilism and new age perversion of the high standards upon which a Godly society must be founded, if it is to endure.

This manual not only offers detailed instructions on how to build ammonium nitrate bombs and homemade C-4 plastic explosive, but it also advocates maiming abortion doctors by cutting off their hands. While it could be argued that the Army of God of the 1980s was reasonably careful not to harm people, attacking clinics only when empty or leaving messages with threats, the AOG's widely circulated manual suggests that those who now claim to be part of the Army of God, whoever they may be, are willing to kill and maim.

High-profile murder in the early 1990s marked a turning point in the antiabortion violence, transforming the movement and catching the attention of the nation as never before. In fact, Michael Bray, one of the earlier leaders of the less violent 1980s AOG, was by the early 1990s advocating the murder of abortion doctors and calling for a theocratic revolution with the aim of instituting biblical law. During this time, Rachelle Shelley Shannon, who had already launched butyric acid and arson attacks on clinics in the western United States, attempted to murder Dr. George Tiller, in Wichita, Kansas, wounding him badly.

A new faction, Rescue America, emerged during this time, highlighted by the murder of Dr. David Gunn by activist Michael Griffin in 1993. Paul Hill, an early leader with Bray from Florida, came to the nation's attention through his efforts to promote the notion that the murder of Dr. Gunn, as well as that of other abortion providers, should be considered justifiable homicide under U.S. law. Joseph Scheidler presided over a summit meeting of militant pro-life (antiabortion) leaders in Chicago after Dr. Gunn's murder, from which emerged the hard-line American Coalition of Life Activists (ACLA), most of whose leaders signed the justifiable homicide statement generated by Hill.

In 1994, Hill murdered a doctor and his escort outside a Pensacola, Florida, clinic. He drew moral support of ACLA leaders like Andrew Burnett, who appeared in a photograph holding a sign saying Free Paul Hill! JAIL Abortionists. By that year, the number of arsons and bombings grew to 180, a trend partly attributable to the evolution of the revolutionary theology of those originally associated with Operation Rescue and its links to christian identity activists.

During this period, the line between antiabortion activists and Patriot and militia groups was beginning to blur. The 1996 bombing of Planned Parenthood offices in Spokane, Washington, for instance, was carried out by Identity-motivated white supremacists—so-called Phineas Priests—from Idaho. Moreover, the nature of those willing to kill changed. The first wave of those who attacked doctors and others saw themselves as public martyrs; the second, informed by a revolutionary hatred of the government that is shared by many Patriot groups, is composed of assassins with no desire to go public or be sentenced to prison.

Around the same time as the attack in Spokane, a novel, Rescue Platoon, that would have the same impact on the antiabortion movement that The Turner Diaries had on the militia movement, appeared on a website sponsored by David Leach. Rescue Platoon is set in the near future, focusing on the execution of Paul Hill (who at the time was awaiting execution in Florida). Hill's martyrdom in the novel ignites a war against abortion, from deep, deep down in the soul of America. In the book, (t)hese were the conditions when the 'Rescue Platoon' came out of training and entered into active service in the Army of God. The novel is built around the Army of God's campaign to blow up clinics and murder doctors, culminating in the former Confederate states and Utah outlawing abortion, Texas seceding from the Union, joined by the Rescue Platoon and other patriots.

Antiabortion activism remains a source of violence against clinics and doctors in the United States, although the number of attacks diminished in the late 1990s, as the federal hunt for Eric Rudolph riveted the nation's attention after the 1996 Olympics bombing.

Further Information

Clarkson, Frederick. Anti-Abortion Violence. Intelligence Report. Southern Poverty Law Center. Available online. URL: http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=701. Accessed Feb-ruary 16, 2006; Mason, Carol. Killing for Life: The Apocalyptic Narrative of Pro-Life Politics (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2002).

Entry Author: Combs, Cindy C. and Martin Slann.

Abu Nidal

Also known as: Sabri al-Banna

(b. 1937–d. 2002)

Palestinian dissident leader

Sabri al-Banna was one of the most notorious individuals engaged in terrorist acts during the 1970s through the early 1990s. The architect of the Rome and Vienna airport massacres of 1985, he was a mastermind of countless other atrocities as well as the leader of the Abu Nidal Organization, whose original group, Black September, was responsible for the Munich massacre of Israeli athletes in 1972.

Sabri al-Banna was born in May 1937 in Jaffa. His father, Khalil, was one of the wealthiest men in Palestine, with homes in Marseilles, France; Iskenderun; Turkey; and Syria. Khalil also owned several houses in Palestine itself. All of the al-Banna lands in Palestine was confiscated by the newly formed Israeli government in 1948. Sabri's father was dead by this time, and he and his family were forced to flee, first to their house near Majdal, then to the al-Birj refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. In early 1949, they moved again to Nablus, on the West Bank of the Jordan River, under the sovereignty at the time of the state of Jordan.

From a position of incredible wealth, Sabri saw, at age 12, his family reduced to life in the teeming refugee camps. Formerly taught at private schools and by tutors in his early years, he now entered school provided by the government of Jordan, graduating from the city high school in 1955. Although he entered Cairo University in Egypt, he returned to Nablus two years later without having completed his degree.

Through his brother, Zakzriya, he obtained a job as an electrician's assistant with a construction company in Saudi Arabia. While there, he became involved in the illegal Ba'ath Party (which later stood him in good stead with the Iraqi regime). His involvement was noted by his employers and the Saudi regime. He was fired, and later imprisoned, tortured, and expelled from the country.

Sabri returned to Nablus a few months before the Israeli tanks rolled in during the 1967 Six-Day War. Although he had been a passive member of Fatah for years, he became an active member after this traumatic experience. Again a refugee, he moved to Amman, where he chose the nom de guerre Abu Nidal (which can be translated to mean father of the struggle).

Of his career since that time, no single account exists, although many stories of his exploits abound. He certainly broke with the Palestine Liberation Organization leadership of Yasir Arafat after the end of the intifadah, contending that its policy of accommodation and moderation was selling out the Palestinians. He established ties with several former communist nations as well as with some Arab states, between which he traveled with impunity.

In addition to the Rome and Vienna airport attacks, he directed assaults on a group of British invalids in an Athens hotel, on the Israeli ambassador to London, and on his own nephew's family. In August 1998, there were reports that Abu Nidal was seriously ill with leukemia and undergoing clandestine treatment in an Egyptian hospital after he was expelled from Libya. The Egyptian authorities denied this, and there was no official confirmation of his whereabouts at that time. Among those who actively sought his arrest were the PLO and the Palestine Authority since Nidal was responsible for the murder of several prominent Palestinian figures, such as 'Issam Sirtawi, Salah Khalaf Abu 'Iyad, and Hail 'Abd al-Hamid, between 1983 and 1991. His connection with the serious injury of the Israeli ambassador in the United Kingdom, Shlomo Afgov, in June 1980, led Israel to invade southern Lebanon in order to oust his and other Palestinian organizations from their bases there.

On January 19, 1999, the London-based Arab daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat reported some conflicting rumors about Abu Nidal, his location, his illness, and his relations with several Arab states. About a month later, in Damascus, a member of the FRC read a message from Abu Nidal at the convention of the Palestinian groups opposed to Arafat. In March, the same newspaper noted above quoted the eminent British Middle East expert Patrick Seale, stating that Nidal was well and living in Cairo. Again, this report was denied by the Egyptian authorities. Sabri al-Banna died on August 6, 2002. On August 19, 2002, the Palestinian newspaper Al Ayyam reported that Abu Nidal was suffering from a serious illness and apparently committed suicide in his Baghdad apartment. Nidal was 65 at the time of his death, about which some dispute still remains.

Further Information

Seale, Patrick. Abu Nidal: A Gun for Hire (New York: Random House, 1992).

Entry Author: Combs, Cindy C. and Martin Slann.

Abu Nidal Organization (ANO)

International organization carrying out terrorist acts, led by Sabri al-Banna, the ANO split from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1974. It is comprised of various functional committees, including political, military, and financial. It has a membership of a few hundred, as well as a limited overseas support structure, including safe haven, training, logistic assistance, and financial aid from Iran, Libya, and Syria (until 1987), including close support for selected operations.

ANO has carried out terrorist attacks in 20 countries, killing or injuring nearly 900 persons. Targets have included the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Israel, moderate Palestinians, the PLO, and various Arab countries. Major attacks include the Munich massacre of Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games in 1972, the Rome and Vienna airport attacks in December 1985, the Neve Shalom synagogue in Istanbul and the Pan Am flight 73 hijacking in Karachi in September 1986, and the City of Poros day-excursion ship attack in Greece in July 1988. It was suspected of assassinating PLO deputy chief Abu Iyad and PLO security chief Abu Hul in Tunis in January 1991. The ANO assassinated a Jordanian diplomat in Lebanon in January 1994 and has been linked to the killing of the PLO representative there. It has not attacked Western targets since the late 1990s.

Al-Banna relocated to Iraq in December 1998, where the group maintains a presence. It has an operational presence in Lebanon in the Bekaa Valley and several Palestinian refugee camps in coastal areas of Lebanon. The ANO also has a limited presence in Sudan, although financial problems and internal disorganization have reduced the group's activities and capabilities. Government authorities shut down the ANO's operations in Libya and Egypt in 1999.

On Friday, January 14, 2000, the Austrian police announced the arrest of a female activist of the Abu Nidal group, Fatah-Revolutionary Council (FRC). The activist, Halima Nimer, was arrested while attempting to withdraw the sum of about $7.5 million from a bank in downtown Vienna. Several newspapers claimed that Nimer was responsible for the finances of the group, but no further details were revealed. The Abu Nidal group was not active in the latter part of the 1990s. This was due in part to the loss of support of Iraq and later Libya, as well as the death of its leader, sabri al-banna, a.k.a. Abu Nidal. One of the last known operations was the murder of a Jordanian diplomat in Beirut in January 1994. In October of the previous year, the Lebanese authorities arrested Mahmud Khalid 'Aynatur, a.k.a. Abu 'Ali Majid, who was head of special operations for the group. He was accused of orchestrating the kidnapping of the Belgian passengers on a yacht near Lebanon in 1987 and sentenced to imprisonment.

Further Information

Naval Postgraduate School. Terrorist Group Profiles, Abu Nidal Organization (ANO). Available online: URL: http://library.nps.navy.mil/home/tgp/abu.htm. Accessed February 15, 2006.

Entry Author: Combs, Cindy C. and Martin Slann.

Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG)

The ASG is the smallest and perhaps the most radical of the Islamic separatist groups operating in the southern Philippines. Some ASG members have studied or worked in the Middle East and have thus developed ties to mujahideen while fighting and training in Afghanistan. Under the leadership of Abdurajik Abubakar Janjalani, the group split from the Moro National Liberation Front in 1991. Janjalani was killed in a clash with the Philippine police on December 18, 1998, and the ASG is still trying to fill the leadership void left by his death. Press reports indicate that his younger brother, Khadafi Janjalani, is the head of the ASG's operations in the Basilan Province.

Bombs, assassinations, kidnappings, and extortion payments to promote an independent Islamic state in western Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago (areas in the southern Philippines heavily populated by Muslims) are among the acts carried out by this group in the 1990s. The ASG's first large-scale action occurred when it raided the town of Ipil in Mindanao in April 1995. In May 2001, Abu Sayyaf forces attacked a tourist resort in Malaysia and kidnapped 21 foreigners, and in May of that year, they kidnapped 20 people from a resort in Palawan. The latter group included three American citizens, one of which, Guillermo Sobero, was beheaded by the terrorists. In June 2002, the Philippine military staged a rescue operation, during which American missionary Gracia Burnham was rescued, but her husband Martin Burnham was killed in the firefight that ensued in the encounter. In July 2002, the U.S. attorney general handed down indictments against five leaders of the Abu Sayyaf Group for their participation in these crimes and offered a reward for their capture. In 2004, a faction of the ASG bombed a ferry in Manila Bay, killing 132 passengers. All of its activities have been carried out by a membership of about 200 to 500 active fighters.

Further Information

Naval Postgraduate School. Terrorist Group Profiles, Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG). Available online. URL: http://library.nps.navy.mil/home/tgp/asc.htm. Accessed February 15, 2006; U.S. Department of Justice. Five Leaders of Abu Sayyaf Group Indicted for Hostage-taking of Americans and Others in the Philippines. Available online. URL: http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2002/July/02_crm_419.htm. Accessed February 15, 2006.

Entry Author: Combs, Cindy C. and Martin Slann.

Achille Lauro, hijacking of

In October 1985, a group of American and European tourists were taken hostage aboard a pleasure ship, the Achille Lauro, by a small group of Palestinians. The ship, with 80 passengers and 320 crew aboard, wandered north along the coast of Lebanon as the hijackers sought a safe haven. During this time, 60-year-old Leon Klinghoffer of New York City was murdered in his wheelchair.

The Egyptian government called in a negotiator, Abu Abbas, leader of the Palestine Liberation Front, the splinter group to which the hijackers claimed to belong. He ordered them to release the ship and come into port, where they were promised safe passage out of Egypt.

At the same time, U.S. intelligence sources, who were monitoring the exchanges between Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) gained enough information to enable the United States to spring a trap. The Egypt Air plane, aboard which the hijackers were being smuggled out of Egypt, was ambushed by U.S. warplanes and forced to land in Italy, where the hijackers were taken into custody by the Italian government.

The United States and Italy fought over jurisdiction in the case, but the Italians refused to extradite. The Italian authorities then released Abbas and the Palestinians, indicating that there was insufficient evidence to hold them. Subsequently, an Italian court convicted Abbas and sentenced him in absentia to life in prison. Abbas moved to Gaza, where in 2003 he expressed regret over Klinghoffer's death, but Klinghoffer's family insisted that he serve his sentence. Abbas eventually made his way to Iraq, where he was captured by U.S. forces on April 15, 2003. He died in U.S. custody on March 10, 2004.

Further Information

Bohn, Michael K. The Achille Lauro Hijacking: Lessons in the Politics and Prejudice of Terrorism (Washington, D.C.: Brassey's, 2004); Johnston, David. Ship Highjack Plotter Abu Abbas Dead. San Diego Union Tribune (March 10, 2004). Available online. URL: http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040310/news_1n10abbas.html. Accessed February 15, 2006.

Entry Author: Combs, Cindy C. and Martin Slann.

Action Direct (AD)

Based in France, this group was active during the 1980s, networking with other groups in anti-NATO attacks in Europe. A communiqué on January 15, 1986, declared that the Red Army Faction (RAF) of West Germany and Action Direct would together attack the multinational structures of NATO. Shortly after this, assassins killed the general in charge of French arms sales and a West German defense industrialist. On August 8, 1985, two Americans were killed in a bomb blast at a U.S. air base in Frankfurt, West Germany. The RAF and AD claimed joint responsibility for this attack. This attack was followed by the bombing of a U.S. antiaircraft missile site. Authorities believed that these attacks also involved Belgium's Fighting Communist Cells (FCC) since the explosives used were stolen from a Belgian quarry. The FCC bombed NATO pipelines and defense-related companies.

The organization ceased to claim operations in the 1990s, and it is believed to be defunct.

Entry Author: Combs, Cindy C. and Martin Slann.

Air France hijacking at Entebbe

When an Air France Airbus, flight 139 en route from Tel Aviv to Paris, was hijacked after a stop at Athens airport, Israel responded by organizing a brilliant and successful military rescue operation. The plane, which landed at Entebbe airport in Uganda, carried 248 passengers and crew members. All but 106 of these hostages were released by the terrorists before the Israeli raid. Only the Israeli citizens and Jews of other nationalities were kept hostage, to increase pressure on Israel to agree to the release of 53 freedom fighters imprisoned in Israeli prisons.

The military incursion mounted by Israel succeeded in freeing all of the hostages held at the airport, with the exception of three who either misunderstood or did not hear orders by the commandos to lie down as they opened fire on the terrorists. All seven of the terrorists (two of whom were German and five of whom were Palestinian members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine [PFLP]) were killed, along with a number of Ugandan soldiers, who tried to prevent the Israeli commandos from escaping with the hostages.

International opinion, for the most part, supported Israel in spite of the fact that Israel militarily invaded Uganda. Part of this approbation derives, no doubt, from a common love for a winner. But part is due to the perceived legal right of a nation to intervene for humanitarian purposes in another country. While this right of humanitarian intervention is limited, it seemed to most of the community of nations to be acceptable in this case.

Thus, Israel had the first, and arguably the most highly trained, of the strike forces. Their greatest liability may lie in the fervor with which they pursue their enemies. This zeal has caused them to cross not only national boundaries in their quest for vengeance but also to transgress international law.

Further Information

Schiff, Ze'ev, Ethan Haber, and Yeshayahu Ben-Porat. Entebbe Rescue (New York: Dell, 1977).

Entry Author: Combs, Cindy C. and Martin Slann.

airport security

Many nations have managed to institute some security measures at one of terrorism's favorite targets: airports. Travelers on commercial airlines are routinely subjected to electronic or manual luggage inspection and to electronic or physical body searches, a relatively recent phenomenon. In most European airports, and in some of the larger airports in the United States, individuals without purchased airline tickets can no longer meet arriving passengers at the arrival gates, nor can they take their friends or relatives to the departure gates.

Such physical security measures, of course, offer only a measure of protection, in some countries, against only one type of terrorism. Since such measures are not universally applied, the potential for skyjacking or bombing remains substantial, even for citizens of countries having such security systems. Moreover, physical security dependent on this technology is unable to completely screen against terrorist weapons. X-ray procedures for carry-on luggage have been proven to miss about 20% of the time on average for such weapons. With the advent of plastic weapons, and plastique, these security devices are even less effective. The plastique in the device used to cause the crash of the Pan Am 103 flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1989 was of such small quantity that the extremely expensive sensing devices being installed at major airports would probably not have detected it.

operational security and personnel security are also critically important aspects of airport security. Procedures that match luggage with on-board passengers are not universally applied, particularly on domestic flights. This allows the possibility of an individual or group placing an explosive device aboard a flight, via luggage, while boarding another flight to safety. While many airports use employee identification badges to restrict access to sensitive areas of airport security systems, thousands of these badges are reported missing each year. A few examples illustrate airport security problems not yet resolved universally:

1. A reporter with a suitcase, at a large national airport, walked past a security checkpoint on the side where arriving passengers walk out of the arrival gate. The reporter pretended to make a call at a row of pay phones near the checkpoint, then slipped by when the guards' backs were turned.

2. At another international airport, a visitor found a baggage-room security door open. He walked through with his briefcase into the baggage truck passageway, onto the tarmac where planes fuel and load, and up a jetway staircase. He then entered the terminal as if deplaning and caught another flight—without ever going through security. He could have sabotaged either the luggage or the plane, without any contact with security.

3. A reporter watched, at yet another international airport, as janitors pushed large trash cans up to the passenger checkpoints. The janitors went through the metal detectors, but they pulled the cans through on the unscreened side. Guards neither inspected the trash cans—a serious security breach—nor did they check parcels brought into the same area by food vendors.

Such lapses in operational and personnel security worry those responsible for such security and the passengers and crew whom such security is designed to protect. Balancing a need to make air travel as pleasant as possible—since this is a service industry dependent upon happy customers—and a need to maintain an increasingly intense level of security against terrorism, airlines are faced with an almost impossible task. Airports throughout the world are increasingly challenged to harden themselves as targets for possible terrorist attacks, facing terrorists who are continuously working to discover more effective ways to breach that security.

Following the hijacking of four planes in the attack on america in September 2001, the U.S. government initially responded by tightening security at airports nationwide. This included requiring that only passengers with plane tickets be allowed into the arrival and departure areas at airports, that curbside check-in be suspended at airport terminals, and that security at the passenger-screening areas be substantially improved. The airlines initiated internal security improvements, such as equipping the cockpit with doors that can be sealed by the cockpit crew to prevent a hijacking initiated by passengers, as apparently occurred on September 11.

Although curbside check-in and the use of e-tickets was resumed in many airports in the months following the incident, efforts to improve airport security continued. Congressional decisions resulted in laws making passenger and luggage security personnel federal employees, although the implementation of these rules remained problematic. Screeners were at least temporarily more likely to seize potential weapons that might be smuggled aboard aircraft, including knives and other cutting instruments since this was the type of weapon used in the September 11 attack.

Increased security efforts extended in other directions as well. Food services, both at the airports and abroad the planes, could not supply cutting utensils to the customers/passengers, which forced a change in menu at many restaurants and in the first-class menus of most airlines. Most passengers were advised to assume that there would be longer lines at check-in points and therefore to plan to be at the airports well in advance of their flight times. Security was further increased on August 11, 2006, when British authorities uncovered a terror plot that involved the detonation of explosive liquids (disguised as ordinary items such as baby formula or shampoo) on flights originating from the United Kingdom and the United States. It was also the first time the U.S. Terror Alert ever reached the red level. As a result, airports have placed tighter restrictions on the amount of liquid material that passengers can bring on a plane.

The intensity of the security at most U.S. airports remained inconsistent, in spite of efforts by the government. Airports, facing heavy financial losses as a result of the extensive shut-down of flights in the days following the incident, found the loss of clients at food courts and passenger lounge areas difficult to bear. Passengers, confronted with long lines caused by the increased security screening efforts and fearing to travel by air until reassured that such travel was safe, complained of both too many problems caused by security (lack of curbside check-in, limitations on family and friends in terms of access to arrival and departure areas, etc.) and a lack of confidence in the security of the planes. Responding in part to this ambivalence, the U.S. government found it difficult to decide who should be responsible for the training and maintenance of airport personnel, first placing portions of the U.S. military, including the National Guard, at airports to improve passenger safety, but only as a temporary measure. The decision to make airport security personnel federal employees was not immediately implemented, as the transition would be difficult and costly.

In the September 11 attack, the hijackers did not try to smuggle bombs aboard the four planes they hijacked from three different airports nor did they try to hijack the planes for ransom; instead, they used them as explosives. Thus, it is not clear that airport security, in the United States or in any other country, could be improved to the point where terrorism could not take place in this venue. The impact of spiraling costs, customer dissatisfaction, passenger perceptions of personal safety, and the ingenuity of those committing terrorist acts make each step toward improvement uncertain.

In the wake of the events of 9/11, the former Sky Marshal Program, initiated in 1968 and continued through the 1970s as a program designed to stop aerial hijackings to and from Cuba, was renewed. The Federal Aviation Administration (later replaced by