How Isis and al-Qaeda brought terror to Europe … a trail of evidence across France, Belgium and Spain … and why Europe remains so vulnerable. Frontline: Terror in Europe, PBS 2016
In 2012 the war in Syria dramatically changed the European security landscape. It spawned a new jihadist movement – Isis – which set out to be even more brutal than al-Qaeda. In 2014 the group formally split from al-Qaeda and declared a Caliphate, or Islamic state. ibid.
Hundreds more fighters were returning to Europe without specific terrorist missions and hundreds of Europeans had been radicalised at home without visiting Syria. Any one of them could have posed a threat. ibid.
The systemic problems remain and Europe is as vulnerable as ever. ibid.
Under cover of darkness ten men climb out of inflatable rafts on to docks in this residential neighbourhood of Mumbai in India. They carry plastic bags and backpacks. When local fishermen ask who the men are they are told to mind their own business. And the group heads into town. Nearly an hour later security cameras capture two of the men as they open fire on commuters at a busy railway station. Another team of men storms the Leopold café. They spray the crowded restaurant with bullets, killing ten people instantly. At the same time the terrorists detonate bombs in two taxis killing five more. It’s the start of a highly organised three-day terrorist siege on India’s largest centre. The terrorists also hit a Jewish community centre and two luxury hotels frequented by western tourists. The Inside 9/11: What Happened Next?
The Indian city of Mumbai is in chaos following a series of terrorist attacks. ITV News
Everybody now realised clearly that Indonesia was subject to terrorism and terrorist attacks and so there was a much greater degree of unity in the government in addressing the issue. Alexander Downer, October 2002
The more you approach infinity, the deeper you penetrate terror. Gustave Flaubert
Alvin Toffler has written about scientists in their laboratories trying to devise certain types of pathogens that would be ethnic-specific so that they could just eliminate certain ethnic groups and races; and others are designing some sort of engineering, some sort of insects that can destroy specific crops. Others are engaging even in an eco-type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves.
So there are plenty of ingenious minds out there that are finding ways in which they can wreak terror upon other nations.
It’s real, and that’s the reason why we have to intensify our efforts, and that’s why this is so important. William S Cohen, Secretary of State for Defense April 1997
My name is Rob Leach and I’m a filmmaker. Four years ago I made a documentary about my stepbrother Rich. We grew up together in a seaside town in Dorset. Two white boys from a middle-class family. But in 2009 he converted to an extreme brand of Islam. I found him living in a strange new world ... Four years on he’s now in prison, a convicted terrorist. My Brother the Terrorist, BBC 2014
US terrorism watch list tops 1 million. Washington (Reuters) – A US watch list of terrorism suspects has passed 1 million records, corresponding to about 400,000 people, and a leading civil rights group said on Monday the number was far too high to be effective. Reuters news release
The 21st century has been defined by terrorism. And maybe one single event in particular: 9/11. Terror Attacks that Shocked Britain
The birth of modern terrorism ... The events took place in Munich in the summer of 1972. At around five o’clock in the morning a group of Palestinian terrorists called Black September entered the Olympic village armed with AK47s. Taking hostage members of the Israeli Olympic team they demanded the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. ibid.
At 7.30 p.m. on 5th May 1980 a military operation began in the affluent streets of South Kensington as the SAS stormed the Iranian Embassy in full view of television cameras. ibid.
Pan Am Flight 103 mysteriously blew up in mid-air over the small Scottish town of Lockerbie. ibid.
1984: Margaret Thatcher was prime minister and the Tory Party had gathered in the Grand Hotel in Brighton for their annual conference ... At 2.54 a.m. a bomb went off in a suite close to Thatcher’s own. ibid.
Arndale Shopping Centre ... The Omagh bombing 1998 ... The Bali bombing ... Beslan school hostages ... Madrid railway bombings ... July 7th London bombings ... Mumbai terrorist attacks. ibid.
A suitcase from Malta has made its way through Frankfurt and is being loaded on to a jumbo jet bound for New York. At two minutes past seven the plane explodes killing everyone on board and eleven people on the ground as it causes carnage in the Scottish town of Lockerbie. Lockerbie: Terror at 31,000 Feet, Channel 5 2014
Primed and ready to go, the bomb in the suitcase was placed on Flight KM180 from Malta’s international airport. ibid.
Across the town there was devastation. ibid.
Blackmail Won Lockerbie Release. The Sunday Times headline February 2011
Consigned to a scrap-yard in Lincolnshire the remains of a jumbo jet. She was called Maid of the Seas – 747 clipper of the proud Pan Am Fleet. This is her story. It was 21st December 1988. Travellers were hurrying home for Christmas. Pan Am flight 103 was leaving London bound for New York and on to Detroit. Many of her passengers had joined the plane from a connected flight which had just come in from Frankfurt. At 7 o’clock the 747 was approaching the Scottish borders. Nearly six miles below in the town of Lockerbie families were settling down for Christmas. At three minutes past seven Air Traffic Control lost contact with Pan Am flight 103. The Conspiracy Files – Lockerbie, BBC 2008
The motive? Just five months before Lockerbie, the USS Vincent was on patrol in the Gulf. Cameras on board captured the drama unfold as the American warship infringed Iranian waters and then shot down what they presumed as a hostile Iranian fighter. Only it wasn’t. It was an Iranian civilian plane on a scheduled flight. Two hundred and ninety passengers and crew were killed. Radio Tehran broadcast threats that the skies would rain blood in revenge. Ahmed Jibril had close links to Iran, and just two months before the attack on Pan Am, West German police arrested members of his faction in Frankfurt. And ... they found more highly incriminating evidence – bombs hidden in cassette radios designed to blow up at altitude. There was plenty of circumstantial evidence that the cell was planning to attack aircraft. But no proof linking them to Lockerbie. ibid.
Juval Aviv runs a corporate investigation agency and claims to be a former MOSAD agent. After the crash Pan Am hired him because they wanted to find out exactly what had gone wrong – vital information in the inevitable legal battle for compensation that would ensue in the American courts. Aviv reported back with the most controversial of the Lockerbie conspiracy theories – that CIA agents had allowed the bomb to be planted on board the jumbo jet. This is his theory: rogue elements in the CIA were running a top-secret operation to allow Middle East terrorists to smuggle drugs into America via Frankfurt Airport. In return the CIA hoped to receive help in securing the release of American terrorists held in Beirut. And Aviv claims none other than Ahmed Jibril infiltrated the plot. ibid.
On the day of the crash one piece of luggage was transferred on the Pan Am feeding flight from an Air Malta flight – a check revealed no passenger had been transferred with it. The bag had travelled unaccompanied. And there was another link to Malta. These fragments of clothing recovered from the crash site. The police concluded the scorching meant they had been in a suitcase with the bomb. One of the fragments had Made in Malta on the label. But why would Malta be linked to the Lockerbie attack? Libya is a short hop from the Mediterranean island. Colonel Gaddafi’s regime restrained by sanctions used it as a back door to the West. Gaddafi had long supported terrorism in Europe and the Middle East. Two years before Lockerbie President Reagan had ordered a bombing raid on Libya in reprisal for a terrorist attack which killed two American servicemen. Gaddafi escaped unhurt. But among those killed was his four-year-old adopted daughter. Like the Iranians he too had a motive to hit back at America just before President Reagan left office. The investigators built a case against two Libyans with links to Malta. Abdelbaset al-Megrahi had been head of airline security for Libyan Arab airlines. ibid.
It was found among debris about twenty-two miles downwind of the crash site. A fragment embedded in a piece of burnt cloth. It was the breakthrough. The investigators said it came from an electronic circuit-board. ibid.
The [Toshiba] manual appeared to have changed from being an almost complete and legible piece of paper ... The strange disintegration of the Toshiba manual wasn’t the only discrepancy to do with the evidence at the trial. When the court turned to the timer fragment it became clear something unusual had happened here too ... The label had been changed. The word cloth had been overwritten with the word debris. ibid.
In one of the containers was the device in a suitcase, and when it went off, the initial shock from the blast blew a hole about the size of a window, maybe a bit more ... In that process it put enough stress into this part of the skin to work upon the cracks ... and blow outwards this huge hole you see here. Peter Claiden, Air Accidents Investigation Branch
Shortly before lunchtime and the phone rang so I picked it up. And there was a very guttural Arab-sounding-speaking man speaking broken English on the phone, saying he knew of a plot to bomb an American airliner ... a horrible coincidence. Ken Luzzi, Special Agency US Embassy Helsinki