Page 234 - Encyclopedia Of Terrorism

L-Kushner.qxd 29-10-02 2:08 PM Page 212

212———La Guardia Airport Bombing

Davis, Brian Leigh. Qaddafi, Terrorism, and the Origins of Fraunces Tavern bombing in January 1975, which had
the U.S. Attack on Libya. New York: Praeger, 1990. claimed four lives.
Kim, Lucian. “Berlin Disco Terror Trial Nears End.” Chris- Many believed that the Puerto Rican independence
tian Science Monitor, November 2, 2001, 6. group that claimed responsibility for the Fraunces
Tavern bombing, the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion
Nacional (FALN), was also responsible for the La
LA GUARDIA AIRPORT BOMBING Guardia bomb. However, neither the FALN nor any
other prominent terrorist group came forward to claim
responsibility for the bombing. In fact, the Palestine
On December 29, 1975, a bomb exploded at Liberation Organization, which was mentioned early
New York City’s La Guardia Airport, killing 11 and on in Associated Press and UPI news reports, emphat-
injuring more than 75. The crime, considered to be ically denied involvement and denounced the attack. In
one of the most lethal bombings of its time as well as May 1976, a Cuban American charged with six other
one of the first major terrorist attacks on an airport, bombings in Miami, Florida, was sought in connection
remains unsolved more than 25 years later. with the case, but was not charged. Today, Croatian
The bomb detonated at 6:30 P.M. on a busy, posthol- nationalists are believed to have been the perpetrators,
iday Monday night, shattering the 30-foot-tall plate though no one has ever been brought to justice.
glass windows of the lower-level baggage claim area
See also FALN; GRAND CENTRAL STATION BOMBING; TWA
shared by TWA and Delta. The explosion blew a 10-by-
FLIGHT 355 HIJACKING
15-foot hole through the eight-inch-thick reinforced
concrete ceiling and also damaged the ceiling on the
floor above. The terminal’s luggage carousels and huge Further Reading
metal doors lay mangled. Kihss, Peter. “La Guardia Blast Yields No Leads in
The blast touched off a two-alarm fire and trig- Investigation.” New York Times, December 31, 1975, 1.
gered the airport sprinkler system. Firefighters, McFadden, Robert D. “14 Killed, 70 Hurt at La Guardia by
who battled rush-hour traffic, suppressed the fire Bomb in Baggage-Claim Area; Airport Is Closed Until
within an hour. The damage (estimated at $750,000) Tonight.” New York Times, December 30, 1975, 1.
included burned walls and injuries from shards of
glass that had rained over an area longer than a foot-
ball field; in addition, pieces of a nearby bank of LADEN, OSAMA BIN. See BIN LADEN,
12 metal storage lockers flew, like shrapnel, over OSAMA.
hundreds of feet.
The bombing had come without warning; how-
ever, at approximately 7:30 P.M., an anonymous caller
claimed that another bomb was in the American LASHKAR-E-TAYYIBA
Airlines baggage claim area, adding to the chaos. This
claim, like the many others that plagued airports and
bus terminals nationwide in the days following, proved Lashkar-e-Tayyiba is a notoriously violent militant
to be false. Muslim group operating in the states of Jammu and
By New Year’s Eve, investigators had recon- Kashmir on the Pakistan-India border. Jammu and
structed most of the explosion. The bomb had been Kashmir are claimed by both India, a largely Hindu
placed in one of the twelve 24-hour parcel lockers country, and Pakistan, a largely Muslim country; the
located between two luggage carousels, and had not dispute has given rise to many armed groups within
come in on an inbound flight. The reconstructed bank Jammu and Kashmir.
of lockers, painstakingly pieced together from bits of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (“Army of the Pure”) is rabidly
metal found in the debris, revealed facts about the pro-Pakistan and is one of the largest groups operat-
bomb, but little about who placed it. Initial guesses ing in Jammu and Kashmir. The group opposes any
had put the power of the explosion at 15 sticks of concessions to India, with its leaders expressing the
dynamite. Later estimates rose to 25 sticks—approxi- desire to drive Hindus out of much of India once they
mately 12.5 pounds of explosives. This was one-and- have been eliminated from Jammu and Kashmir. The
a-half times the amount of explosives used in the group has taken part in several massacres targeting