The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the lead agency that investigates terrorist acts in the United States. The FBI divides terrorist acts into three categories:
• Terrorist incident is considered “a violent act or an act dangerous to human life in the violation of the criminal laws of the United States to intimidate or coerce a government, civilian population in order to further political or political objectives.”
• Suspected terrorist incident is a“potential act of terrorism for which responsibility cannot be attributed to a known group or suspected group. Assessment of the circumstances surrounding the act determines its inclusion in this category."
• A terrorist prevention is "a documented instance in which a violent act by a known or suspected terrorist group or individual with the means and a proven propensity for violence is successfully interdicted through investigative activity."
A total of 457 terrorist incidents have taken place in the United States from 1980 to 1999. There were 272 terrorist incidents, 55 of them were suspected to be such incidents, and the remaining 130 were prevented terrorist acts according to the FBI. 70% of the attacks involved bombings, and assassinations and arson were the second most used method of attack.
The FBI did not start tracking terrorist attacks until the mid 1970s. Most of the attacks that were committed in the 1970s and 1980s were by left-wing and anti war groups such as the Weather Underground, Black Liberation Army, Symbionese Liberation Army, and Armed Forces of Puerto Rican Liberation. Right wing extremist organizations began to make attacks in the late 1980’s, the most visible was the Ku Klux Klan. One event that will forever be remembered is the 1995 bombing of Oklohoma City federal building by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Some of these acts that were committed by such people is a symbolic act to show one’s political and social objective. As we can see there have been numerous attacks domestically within the United States that can be considered to be terrorist acts. Throughout the history of the United States there has been attacks by citizens who have felt oppressed, felt the need to act upon their political and social agenda as a means to renounce government.
Not only has terrorist attacks occurred in the United States, but also across the globe. Please draw your attention to the timeline of terrorist attacks nationwide according to the FBI:
TIMELINE OF TERRORISM WORLDWIDE
1961- May 1: The first U.S. aircraft was hijacked. Puerto Rican born Antuilo Ramierez Ortiz forced at gunpoint a National Airlines plane to fly to Havana, Cuba where he was given asylum.
1972- July 21: "Bloody Friday" occurred. An Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb attack killed 11 people and injured 130 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Ten days later, three IRA placed three car bombs in the village of Claudy. The exploding cars left six dead.
1972- September 5: Eight Palestinian "Black September" terrorists seized 11 Israeli athletes in the Olympic Village in Munich, West Germany. In a bungled rescue by West German authorities, nine of the hostages and five terrorists were killed.
1973- January 5: All passengers and carry-on luggage were required by law to be screened. X-ray machines and metal detectors began to be installed in airports.
1974- February 5: Patty Hearst was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army.
1975- January 27-29: Puerto Rican nationalists bombed a Wall Street bar killing four and injuring 60. Two days later a bomb exploded in bathroom at the U.S. State Department. The Weather Underground, a dissident group, claimed responsibility.
1976- June 27: The People's Front for the Liberation of Palestine seized an Air France airliner and its 258 passengers. They forced the plane to land in Uganda. On July 3, Israeli commandos rescued the passengers.
1979- November 20: Iranian radicals seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took 66 American diplomats hostage. Thirteen were eventually released. The remaining 53 were held until their release in January 20, 1981.
1980- May: The first FBI joint terrorism task force was established in New York City.
1981- October 6: Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was assassinated.
1982- January: The FBI's hostage rescue team was established.
1983- February 13: The first recorded attack of right-wing anti-government group, the Sheriff's Possee Comitatus, took place.
1983- April 18: The U.S. embassy in Lebanon was bombed with 63 dead.
1983- October 23: A 12,000-pound truck bomb destroyed military compounds in Beirut, Lebanon; 242 Americans and 58 French troops were killed. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
1984- October 31: Prime Minister Gandhi of India was assassinated by members of her security force.
1985- June 14: TWA flight 847 flying from Rome to Athens was hijacked by Two Lebanese Hizballah terrorists. The eight crew members and 145 passengers were held for 17 days. A Navy diver was killed.
1985- October 7: Four PLO terrorists seized the Italian cruise liner Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean Sea.
1986- April 5: A Berlin disco was bombed. Two soldiers were killed and 79 servicemen injured.
1988- December 21: Pan American Airlines Flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland; 259 were killed.
1989- October 13: The terrorist threat warning system was established.
1993- February 26: The World Trade Center was damaged when a car bomb planted by Islamic terrorists exploded in a parking garage. More than 1,000 people injured.
1995- March 20: Shinri-kyu cult members released Sarin nerve gas in an attack on subway stations in Japan.
1995- April 19: Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols detonated a truck bomb that destroyed the Federal Building in Oklahoma City; 166 were killed and 642 injured.
1996- June 25: A fuel truck carrying a bomb exploded outside the U.S. military's Khobar Towers housing facility in Dhahran, killing 19 and injuring 515.
1996- July 27: The Centennial Olympic Park was bombed: 2 killed, 112 injured.
1998- August 7: Bombs exploded nearly simultaneously at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
1998- October 16: National Domestic Preparedness Office was established.
1999- December 14: Ahmed Ressam was arrested trying to enter the U.S. from Canada with explosives for a Millennium bombing of LAX airport.
2000- October 12: a small raft loaded with explosives rammed the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen. 17 sailors were killed and 39 injured.
2001- September 11: The Attack on America. Two hijacked airliners crashed into the World Trade Center. Another crashed into the Pentagon. A fourth plane, targeted for the Capital, crashed in southern Pennsylvania. More than 3,000 people were killed.
After looking at the timeline it makes us question the idea of terrorism as a whole. Terrorist attacks seem to occur globally, and not just in Westernized countries such as the United States. Would it be fair to say that maybe the September 11th attack wasn’t solely targeting the United States but rather was a symbolic act to introduce the world to a well developed organization that wants to impose its ideologies globally?
Videos
BBC News:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/age_of_terror/7345967.stm
Websites:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/recent/sept_11/changing_faces_04.shtml
