Page 254 - Encyclopedia Of Terrorism

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flattening the country’s fourth largest town of Hama carried out two deadly attacks. On April 18, militants
in 1982, leaving, by some estimates, 38,000 militants bombed the American embassy in Beirut. On October
dead. 23, Islamic militants executed a suicide attack on a U.S.
Militant Islam continues to spread throughout the Marine barracks that killed 241. That attack was sanc-
Muslim world. Governments in the Philippines, tioned by an Iranian-backed guerrilla movement called
Indonesia, Malaysia, and Nigeria are now forced to Hezbollah (Party of God).
cope with conflict between Islamic militants and A rash of violence, inspired by militant Islam, soon
Christians over the implementation of shari’a. India followed. First, the American embassy in Beirut was
continues to battle militant Muslim groups over the bombed again in September 1984. In December 1984,
disputed territory of Kashmir. on a hijacked plane in Tehran, militants tortured and
While the threat of militant Islam has reached the murdered two Americans. Meanwhile, between March
shores of nearly every Muslim country, the area that 1984 and January 1985, more than a dozen Americans
has likely witnessed the most rapid proliferation of in Beirut were abducted by suspected militants. Finally,
militant Islam in recent decades is the Palestinian ter- in June 1985, militants hijacked yet another flight with
ritories and Israel. The Muslim Brotherhood estab- more than 100 Americans aboard, killing one of them.
lished branches in the West Bank in 1946, but it was Militant Islam resurfaced on December 21, 1988,
not until the early months of the Palestinian intifada, when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie,
or uprising, against Israel (1987–1991) that militant Scotland, killing all 259 people on board, as well as 11
Islam truly began to threaten stability in that area. residents hit by the fuselage on the ground. The flight
Within months of the uprising’s outbreak came the was en route to New York from Frankfurt, Germany.
inception of Hamas, or Harakat al-Muqawama al- The movement found further impetus in 1989 from
Islamiyya (Islamic Liberation Movement). In 1988, the furor over Salman Rushdie and his controversial
the group published a covenant calling for a synthesis book, The Satanic Verses, which ridiculed the Prophet
of militant Islam and Palestinian nationalism. The and his revelations. In response, Iran’s Ayatollah
group declared that jihad against Israel was “a duty Ruhollah Khomeini sentenced Rushdie to death for
binding to all Muslims.” blasphemy.
When the intifada ended, Hamas became the “I would like to inform all intrepid Muslims in the
primary opponent to the Palestinian-Israeli peace world that the author of the book Satanic Verses ...
process. The group has since claimed responsibility and those publishers who were aware of its contents,
for dozens of shootings, stabbings, and suicide attacks are sentenced to death,” Khomeini said. “I call on all
against Israeli civilians and military personnel. The zealous Muslims to execute them quickly, where
Palestinian Islamic Jihad also emerged as an opponent they find them, so that no one will dare to insult the
to the peace process, with a similar mode of attacking Islamic sanctities.” Khomeini’s fatwa, or decree,
Israeli targets. sparked a wave of militant Islamic violence around
the world. Book agents were stabbed, newspapers
were firebombed, and demonstrations regularly
ANTI-WESTERN TERRORISM
resulted in bloodshed.
For its part, the West first came up against militant The Rushdie affair subsided, but the violence
Islam in 1979, shortly after Khomeini’s Islamic continued. In February 1993, a large bomb exploded
Republic was established. Islamic militants overtook in New York’s World Trade Center, killing six and
the U.S. embassy in Tehran, holding 53 Americans wounding 1,000. Inspired by Sheikh Omar Abdel
hostage for 444 days. When that crisis was over, it Rahman, the “Blind Sheikh of New York,” the plot was
was learned that Iran had successfully “exported” pinned to Gama’a al-Islamiyya, a radical Egyptian
its brand of militant Islam to other parts of the group tied to Al Qaeda. Rahman, to the surprise of
Islamic world. The revolution was first exported to many Americans, had been preaching terrorism for
Lebanon, a country torn by internecine conflict since years in the United States. “We must be terrorists,” he
the mid-1970s. said several months prior, “and we must terrorize the
When American troops arrived in Lebanon in 1983 enemies of Islam and frighten them and disturb them
for a peacekeeping mission, the forces of militant Islam and shake the earth under their feet.”