Original source : http://herbeat.com
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1. Attempted Assassination of George H.W. Bush
The Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, ordered his troops to
invade Kuwait
over oil disputes in August 2, 1990 and decline to withdraw. US in a coalition
of 34 other countries waged a month-long aerial bombing campaign, followed by
ground attacks that forced Iraq
from Kuwait.
Though Iraq
had been cowed by the defeat, Saddam Hussein and his intelligence service
hatched a revenge plan against former US president George H.W. Bush. In
April 1993, Kuwait
had invited George Bush to show appreciations of the role played by U.S in
their liberation, an event that Saddam seized to take revenge of defeat two
years earlier. The plan was to attack Bush’s motorcade en route to Kuwait University
with sophisticated explosives and in case the bombing was thwarted, they had a back
up plan; one of them was to wear an explosive and get closer to Bush to kill
him. The plot was to be executed by more than a dozen agents. However,
suspicious Kuwait
civilians suspected them and contacted the authorities and the agents were
arrested.
Bill Clinton, freshly elected US
president was presented with intelligence revealing the plot had been hatched
by Iraq
intelligence service with some suspects confessing so. Clinton
then ordered a cruise missile strike against Iraq intelligence headquarters in
early morning destroying the building and killing at least three people. Iraq never
again made serious attacks against US outside its boarders.
2. The Millennium Plot
Al-Qaeda cells in Canada,
Jordan, and Yemen had
plotted malicious attacks planned to coincide with New Year’s Eve. Their
targets were Los Angeles International Airport,
the fully booked Radisson hotel in Amman, three
Christian holy sites in Jordan,
and a US destroyer off the
coast of Yemen. It was through a combination of luck and that the millennium
plot foiled. A border officer suspected Ahmed Ressam, member of the Canadian
cell, who tried to cross into US near Seattle
on December 14, 1999. On searching his vehicle, Ahmed escaped on foot but was
arrested and 45kg (100lbs) of chemical and timing devices confiscated from his
car. Ahmed confessed that he intended to abandon the bomb near a passenger
waiting area at LAX.
In late 1999, 16 members of an Al-Qaeda cell was arrested
after their telephone conversation was tapped by Jordan intelligence officials
and seized over 2,200kg (500lbs) of precursor chemical for explosives. Finally,
the Yemen
cell launched a boat loaded with explosives to detonate alongside US destroyer,
USS the Sullivan’s, fortunately their boat capsized at the bottom of the harbor
due to overloading.
3. The Reno IRS
Bombing
Timothy McVeigh, in a revenge mission, detonated a massive
bomb outside Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building
in Oklahoma
killing 168 people on April 19, 1995. It was revealed later that he was a
product of a violent and paranoid subculture of local militias that feared
their civil liberties would be seized by the federal government.
The militia group hatched another attack plan on federal
building and in December 18, 1995, Joseph Baillie and Ellis Hurst, anti-tax
protesters, dropped a 45 kg (100 lb) fertilizer bomb near the Internal Revenue
Service Building
in Reno, Nevada.
Fortunately the fuse they lit was a dud and did not work and was discovered by
a staff. The two were cracked down and were sentenced for life imprisonment.
4. The New York City
Landmark Plot
Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, a blind imam and the leader of a
small mosque in Brooklyn had been a prominent member of Islamic militant group
in Egypt which he fled to
the United States
in 1990. He always preached against the US
support of Israel
and the dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak and the American support of Mubarak’s
government. They started plotting terrorist attacks to force US to cutoff its
support and in 1992, Ramzi Yousef, 25-year old Pakistani with a mysterious
background joined the group. Yousef main goal was to attack US in its own soil
and so he joined with Rahman to execute his goal. This was among a series of
attacks on the scale of 9/11 very nearly occurred in late 1993.
Yousef and Rahman group managed to strike the world trade
center on February 26, 1993, shredding several stories, killing three people
and wounding over 1000 others. Yousef fled but the group got new members
including Sudanese diplomatic terrorist plot to date. The group rented a garage
where they made the bombs as others surveyed potential targets like the UN
buildings, the New York Field Office of the FBI, and the Lincoln and Holland
Tunnels. The Sudanese even planned to acquire a diplomatic license plate to aid
in the attacks. However, one of them became an informant with the FBI who fixed
a surveillance camera in the garage. On June 24, 1993, the FBI attacked the
group at Al-Farouk Mosque and they arrested them, while they resisted the
arrest of the blind imam but he surrendered himself. Ten other men were
arrested and convicted of sedition and conspiracy. Consequently, Sudan’s second secretary to the UN was expelled
due to his countries involvement to terrorism and Sudan was listed among US state
sponsors of terrorist where it still remains limiting aid and export to the
country.
5. Texas
Refinery Plot
The Texas Refinery Plot would have been the worst having
been planned by members of Ku Klux Klan faction in 1997; they included Texas
Carl Waskom Jr, Edward Taylor Jr, and married couple Shawn and Catherine Adams.
To make their plan a reality they decided to rob an armored car believed to
have been carrying $2 million en route to a bank in Chico, Texas.
But in order to succeed they needed to cause a diversion. This plan would have
claimed killed half of the population of the wise country.
The bomb was to be set at Mitchell Energy & Development
natural gas processing plant, which upon explosion would have produced a lethal
cloud of hydrogen sulfide that and would have killed up to 30,000 people. The
group had already tested explosive devices and surveilled the plant when one of
them change mind and became an informant for the FBI who arrested them upon
acquiring enough evidence and were sentenced to life imprisonment. The
informant was then put to the witness Protection Program.
6. London
Bombings
The 7/7 attacks shocked the word putting the British
government on edge after three men detonated bombs in the London underground
and while the fourth bombed a double-decker bus killing 52 people on July 7, 2005.
Yasin Omar, Ramzi Mohamed, and Hussain Osman plotted an identical plan two
weeks later by setting off explosive-laden backpacks in London underground, while Muktar Ibrahim
tried to detonate his backpack on a public bus. However, these did not go as
planned because the men were inexperienced. The attacks would have killed
dozens like the 7/7 horror.
They then fled after realizing that the attacks had failed
but were arrested with the help of a video surveillance within eight days. Documents
retrieved from Al-Qaeda safe houses revealed that both 7/7 and 7/21 had been
arranged by the group in a revenge mission for British participation in the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The four were arraigned in court and sentenced to serve at least 40 years each.
7. MLK Day Bomb Attempt
On January 17, 2011 a bomb was discovered in Spokane, Washington
as the town’s annual preparations of Martin Luther King Day were in progress.
The workers who discovered it contacted the police who found that the bomb
would have killed dozens. Surprisingly, it had an added vicious touch – the
shrapnel coated in rat poison which prevents blood clotting hence increasing
the number of causalities. After nearly two months crackdown, Kevin Harpham was
arrested by State and Federal Authorities. He was found to have links with a
white supremacist group known as National Alliance and after pleading guilty he
was sentenced to serve for 32 years in federal prison and long life supervision
after his release. This kind of attacks makes the US to have a tragic history of
racially motivated violence.
8. Attempt To Assassinate Prince Charles and Diana
In 1983, IRA operative Sean O’Callaghan was provided with
11kg (25lbs) by his superiors to assassinate Prince Charles and Princes Diana
during a Duran concert in London;
fortunately he had been a British mole since 1979 and reported every detail of
the plot to the British intelligence. Previously, the provisional Irish
republican army had waged a campaign of terror against mainland Britain from
1970s until they signed the Good Friday Peace Accords. During this time, the
targets were office buildings, pubs, and members of parliament. The British
Intelligence, spread rumors that O’Callaghan was wanted for question in
relation to unrelated plot. This was meant to cover up O’Callaghan; he actually
fled the country with that reason. His position was however, not replaced, thus
the drama was not acted saving the Prince and the Princess the attack that would
have killed many others.
9. The Bangkok
Israeli Embassy Plot
Ramzi Yousef, the World Trade bomber, now targeted the
Israeli Embassy in Bangkok
after he flees from US. He had again formed a cell with a young and charming
student Abdullah Salih, who was a local extremist with others joining them.
Yousef had constructed a one ton device and rented a delivery truck and
murdered the driver putting his body close to the bomb in the truck. On March
11, 1994, Yousef had already fled the country for Pakistani when the plot to
bomb the embassy went on. Fortunately, the truck that ferried the massive bomb
towards the embassy crashed into a motorcycle and after the intended suicide
bomber attempted to pay off failed, he fled leaving the truck, bomb and the
dead driver some few hundred meters from the embassy. Most members of the cell
were arrested but Yousef escaped capture in the tribal areas of Pakistan.
10. Operation Bojinka
Ramzi Yousef again, now plotting a remarkable attack after
fleeing Thailand, that would be remembered for decades, he would simultaneously
blow up 11 US-bound airlines over the pacific ocean. He had actually worked out
the plot very well. This time he would use small, powerful bombs detonated
near the planes’ central fuel tanks. He and his recruits would pass the airport
security, with the detonators and nitroglycerine placed in the soles of their
shoes and would be assembled in the lavatory once aboard. A wrist watch was
used as a timer and would be placed under the terrorist’s seats. They planned
how the plane legs would detonate the bombs in the targeted planes while up in
the deep seas. It was estimated that 4,000 people would have died if Yousef
succeeded.
Yousef successfully tested his first bomb in a Manila movie
theater, injuring dozen in late 1994. The next trial was in December 11 in a Philippines’
plane that killed one passenger and injured others; the highly skilled pilot
made an emergency landing. The 11 targeted planes had been chosen when on
January 6, 1995, Yousef’s apartment went ablaze while he was preparing the
bombs for the attacks. He was unable to extinguish the fire and fled on foot
and boarded a plane to Pakistan.
The police, who responded to the fire found Yousef’s laptop thus getting to
know more about Yousef. Yousef was later arrested two months later at a guest
house in Islamabad, Pakistan. He was arraigned in court
in the United States and
sentenced for life imprisonment in supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.
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