by Ivan Eland

strikes were apparently intended to kill Qaddafi. According

to the Defense Science Board, contrary to popular belief,

the air strikes did not cause Qaddafi to shrink from using

terrorism. In fact, he began a secret campaign of terrorism

against the United States in retaliation for the air strikes

(see the next eight entries). Before 1986 there is little

evidence that Libyan agents harmed Americans. Ronald Reagan

had interpreted Qaddafi's terrorism as anti-American, but

Western European nations had been the major target. Begin-ning

in April 1986, State Department analysts linked Libyan

agents to an average of one attack per month against U.S.

targets.

· April 1986: In retaliation for the U.S. air strikes on

Libya, an American hostage in Lebanon was sold to Libya and

executed.

· 1986: In retaliation for the air strikes, Libyans attempt-ed

to blow up the U.S. embassy in Lomé, Togo.

· September 1987: In retaliation for U.S. air strikes, Abu

Nidal, working for Libya, hijacked Pan Am Flight 73 in

Karachi, Pakistan. The hijacking caused the death of sever-al

Americans.

· April 12, 1988: A Japanese Red Army operative was arrested

in New Jersey with three anti-personnel bombs that were

intended for a terrorist attack on a military base in the

United States. The attack was to have been timed to coin-cide

with the second anniversary of the U.S. air strikes on

Libya.

· April 14, 1988: The Japanese Red Army, under contract from

Abu Nidal, planted a bomb at the USO military club in Na-ples,

Italy, to coincide with the same anniversary. The

blast killed five people.

· December 1988: Two Libyan intelligence agents allegedly

bombed Pan Am Flight 103. The bomb killed 270 people, 200

of whom were Americans. The bombing was part of Libya's

retaliation campaign for U.S. air strikes in 1986.

· 1988: Libya carried out bombings of U.S. library facili-ties

in Peru, Colombia, and Costa Rica. The bombings were

part of Qaddafi's retaliation campaign.

· September 1989: Libyans recruited a Chicago street gang to

attack U.S. airliners with shoulder-fired weapons. The

plot, which was foiled, was part of Libya's retaliation

campaign.

Page 14

· March 10, 1989: A pipe bomb exploded beneath a van owned

by Sharon Rogers, wife of Will Rogers III, commander of the

U.S.S. Vincennes. The bombing was related to the July 3,

1988, incident in which the Vincennes had shot down an

Iranian airliner over the Persian Gulf (killing 290 civil-ians)

during U.S. participation in the "tanker war" against

Iran.

· March 31, 1990: Four terrorists attacked a U.S. Air Force

bus in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Eight people were injured.

The Moranzanist Patriotic Front claimed responsibility. The

attack was most likely related to the U.S. military presence

in Honduras.

· May 13, 1990: New People's Army assassins fatally shot two

U.S. airmen near Clark Air Base in the Philippines. The

killings came on the eve of the U.S.-Philippine exploratory

talks on the future of U.S. military bases in the Philip-pines.

Most likely, the attack was perpetrated to protest

the U.S. presence in the Philippines.

· May 1990: A group of religious extremists led by Ramzi

Yousef assassinated Rabbi Meir Kahane, radical leader of the

Jewish Defense League in the United States. The murder was

first treated as a mere homicide but was later discovered to

be a part of a larger revenge campaign against U.S. foreign

policy that included the World Trade Center bombing in 1993.

· June 13, 1990: An American Peace Corps worker was kid-napped

from his home in the Philippines. The New People's

Army was responsible. The American was released unharmed on

August 2 even though no ransom was paid. Coming around the

time of U.S.-Philippine exploratory talks on the future of

military bases in the Philippines and exactly a month after

the killing of two U.S. airmen at Clark Air Base, the attack

was most likely a protest against the U.S. presence in the

Philippines.

· January 2, 1991: A U.S. military helicopter was shot down

by the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front militants

(Marxist guerrillas) in San Miguel, El Salvador. The two

crewmen were then killed. The crewmen were most likely

targets because the United States provided military aid and

advisers to the government of El Salvador.

· Mid-January to late February 1991 (during the Persian Gulf

War): A sharply increased number of terrorist attacks hit

American targets all over the world (120 compared with 17

over the same period in 1990). Terrorism analysts labeled

Page 15

those incidents "spontaneous" or "freelance" Iraqi-inspired

terrorism. The following are examples of such terrorism:

· In late January 1991 two incidents occurred in Adana,

Turkey: A car exploded next to the U.S. consulate, and

Bobbie Mozelle, an American customs official, was

murdered outside a NATO air base. Dev Sol (Revolution-ary

Left), a Turkish group that analysts said had no

links to Iraq, claimed responsibility for the inci-dents.

The group claimed that Mozelle was a Central

Intelligence Agency agent and that the bombing campaign

was to retaliate for the Turkish government's approval

of U.S. air strikes on Iraq being launched from Turkish

air bases.

· During the same period of time, a bomb exploded

across the street from an American Express office in

Athens, Greece. U.S. involvement in the Persian Gulf

War was probably the reason for the attack.

· February 2, 1991: Dev Sol shot and killed a U.S.

civilian contractor who worked at Incirlik Air Base in

Adana, Turkey.

· Dev Sol shot a U.S. Air Force officer as he entered

his residence in Izmir, Turkey.

· March 12, 1991: A U.S. Air Force sergeant was blown up by

a remote-controlled bomb placed at the entrance of his

residence in Athens, Greece. A group called "November 17"

claimed responsibility. The deadliest terrorist group in

Greece, November 17, attacks U.S. targets because of "Ameri-can

imperialism-nationalism." The timing of the attack

indicates that it was most likely related to U.S. involve-ment

in the Gulf War.

· March 28, 1991: Three U.S. Marines were shot by an Arab

while driving near Jubial, Saudi Arabia. The incident was

most likely related to U.S. involvement in the Persian Gulf

War or the continued U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia.

· October 28, 1991: The Turkish Islamic Jihad claimed re-sponsibility

for a car bomb that killed a U.S. Air Force

sergeant. Like the other incidents in Turkey around that

time, the bombing was probably related to U.S. use of Turk-ish

air bases during the Gulf War.

· June 10, 1992: A U.S. Army vehicle traveling between

Panama City and Colón, Panama, was raked with gunfire. The

driver was killed and a passenger and a nearby civilian

Page 16

bystander were wounded. The incident was most likely relat-ed

to the U.S. military presence in Panama and U.S. control

of the Panama Canal Zone.

· October 12, 1992: A U.S. soldier serving with the United

Nations in Umm Qasr, Iraq, was stabbed and wounded. Most

likely, the stabbing was in retaliation for U.S. interven-tion

in Iraq.

· December 29, 1992: An explosion occurred at the Gold Mihor

Hotel in Aden, Yemen. About 100 U.S. soldiers, part of

Operation Restore Hope in Somalia, had been staying in Aden

since mid-December.

· January 23, 1993: Mir Aimal Kansi, a Pakistani, opened

fire on CIA employees on the highway outside the agency's

headquarters in Virginia. Kansi allegedly told a roommate

that he was angry about the treatment of Muslims in Bosnia

and was going to get even by shooting up the CIA, the White

House, and the Israeli embassy.

· February 26, 1993: A group of Islamic extremists detonated

a massive van bomb in the garage of the World Trade Center

in New York City. The Egyptian perpetrators were trying to

kill 250,000 people by collapsing the towers. Ramzi Yousef,

the leader of the terrorists, said the intent was to inflict

Hiroshima-like casualties to punish the United States for

its policies in the Middle East. The perpetrators consid-ered

augmenting the explosion with radiological or chemical

agents that would have increased the casualties.

· March 3, 1993: Terrorists exploded a bomb in front of the

U.S. embassy in Belgrade. This attack was most likely

directed at U.S. policy toward Serbia and Bosnia.

· April 15, 1993: Seventeen Iraqis were arrested by Kuwaiti

authorities as they tried to infiltrate Kuwait. A large car

bomb and weapons were confiscated. The group was charged

with being part of an Iraqi government plot to assassinate

former president George Bush on a visit to Kuwait. Accord-ing

to the U.S. government, Saddam Hussein was carrying out

a threat he had made during the Gulf War--to assassinate

President Bush in retaliation for his direction of the war

against Iraq. President Clinton later retaliated militarily

against Iraq for the assassination plot by attacking Iraqi

intelligence headquarters with cruise missiles.

· June 1993: Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman--a militant Egyptian

cleric--and other radical Muslims conspired to destroy

several New York landmarks on the same day, inflicting many

Page 17

casualties. On July 4, as a follow-on to their bombing of

the World Trade Center, the group planned to blow up UN

headquarters, the Lincoln and Holland tunnels under the

Hudson River, the George Washington Bridge, and the federal

government's main office building in New York. The group

also planned to assassinate Sen. Alfonse D'Amato (R-N.Y.)

and others. Funding for the operation apparently came from

Iran and was funneled through Sudan. Two intelligence

officers from Sudan were planning to place the bombs in the

UN building. At the time they were arrested, the conspir-ators

were mixing fertilizer and diesel fuel to create a

bomb like the one used on the World Trade Center. Rahman

and nine others were convicted of the plot on October 1,

1995. As in the World Trade Center bombing, the plotters

were attempting to punish the United States for its policies

toward the Middle East.

· July 1, 1993: Terrorists fired two rockets at the U.S. Air

Force base at Yokota, Japan. The incident happened a few

days before President Clinton arrived at the base. The

incident most likely resulted from opposition to the U.S.

military presence in Japan.

· July 7, 1993: Six days later, terrorists fired four pro-jectiles

at the headquarters of the U.S. Air Force in Japan

at Camp Zama, Japan. Again, the incident was most likely

related to opposition to the U.S. military presence in

Japan.

· October 3, 1993: Osama bin Laden's operatives trained

Somali tribesmen who conducted ambushes of U.S. peacekeeping

forces in Somalia in support of clan leader Mohamed Farah

Aideed. The ambushes culminated in the downing of two

helicopters, the death of 18 American Army Rangers, and the

dragging of dead American soldiers through the streets of

Mogadishu. An indictment of his followers alleged that bin

Laden's organization, al Qaida, believed that the United

States--an "infidel nation"--had a nefarious plot to occupy

Islamic countries, as demonstrated by its involvement in the

peacekeeping operation in Somalia and the Persian Gulf War.

The October 3rd incident led to the withdrawal of U.S.

forces from Somalia. Bin Laden called the Somalia operation

his group's greatest triumph.

· October 21, 1994: Members of the Abu Nidal organization

were convicted of plotting to kill Jews in the United

States, blow up the Israeli embassy in Washington, and kill

anyone who exposed their plots. The attacks were likely

motivated by anger over U.S. support for Israel.

Page 19

February 7, 1995: Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the World

Trade Center bombing, was arrested in Pakistan. The arrest

foiled a plan he had already set in motion to bomb 12 U.S.

jumbo jets in flight and kill the 4,000 passengers. Yousef

wanted to punish the United States for its policies toward

the Middle East.

· Shortly before Easter 1995: Authorities were tipped off by

Japanese police that members of the Aum Shinrikyo (Supreme

Truth) religious cult planned a nerve gas attack at Disney-land

in Anaheim, California. The group planned to attack

during a fireworks celebration when attendance at the park

would reach maximum capacity. U.S. authorities apprehended

members of the group at the Los Angeles airport before they

could launch the attack. The plan also included an attack

on petrochemical facilities in Los Angeles. Aum Shinrikyo

had earlier used sarin nerve gas to attack the Tokyo subway

(March 20, 1995). According to the group's belief system,

the last years of the millennium will give rise to an Arma-geddon

between Japan and the United States. Aum Shinrikyo

believed that attacking the Tokyo subway would hasten the

Armageddon. The group was hoping to kill tens of thousands

of people.

The cult chose the United States--a friendly nation--as

Japan's adversary rather than other regional nations that

are much more likely to be future rivals of Japan in East

Asia-—China, Russia, and North and South Korea. That indi-cates

how easily an interventionist superpower can be vili-fied

by conspiratorially minded groups, even in a friendly

nation.

The Aum Shinrikyo cult had assets of $1.2 billion and

the capability to produce sarin and VX gas, the agents that

cause anthrax and botulism, and radiological weapons. The

group is still active.

· August 18, 1995: The Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front

claimed responsibility for a bomb explosion at an office

building that housed the American company Fluor Daniel in

Santiago, Chile. The group stated that the incident was

carried out in solidarity with Cuba and in opposition to the

American economic blockade of that island.

· September 13, 1995: A rocket-propelled grenade was fired

at the U.S. embassy in Russia. Authorities suspect the

attack was in retaliation for U.S. involvement in NATO air

strikes against Bosnian Serb targets.

Page 19

November 13, 1995: A car bombing of a military complex in

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia--which housed a U.S. military advisory

group--killed 7 people (including 5 Americans) and wounded

42 others. Muslim militants seeking to topple the Saudi

monarchy and push the "infidel" United States out of Saudi

Arabia carried out the bombings. Three groups, including

the Islamic Movement for Change, claimed responsibility.

U.S. officials suspect that Osama bin Laden was involved.

Bin Laden is opposed to the U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia

and U.S. support for Israel.

· November 15, 1995: An explosive device was discovered on a

power line to a U.S. military complex in Sagmihara, Japan.

No group claimed responsibility. The incident was most

likely related to opposition to the U.S. military presence

in Japan.

· February 15, 1996: Unidentified assailants fired a rocket

at the U.S. embassy compound in Athens, Greece, causing

minor damage to three diplomatic vehicles and surrounding

buildings. The State Department noted that the circumstanc-es

of the attack suggested it was an attack by the group

November 17. November 17 attacks U.S. targets because of

"American imperialism-nationalism."

· May 31, 1996: In Nicaragua a gang of disgruntled former

Contra guerrillas kidnapped an employee of the U.S. Agency

for International Development who was assisting in prepara-tions

for the Nicaraguan elections. She was later released

unharmed.

· June 25, 1996: A truck bombing of the U.S. military apart-ment

complex, Khobar Towers, near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia,

killed 19 U.S. airmen, wounded 515 persons (including 240

U.S. citizens), and resulted in many other casualties.

Muslim militants seeking to topple the Saudi monarchy and

push the "infidel" United States out of Saudi Arabia carried

out the bombings. U.S. officials have linked Osama bin

Laden to the bombing. Some analysts also suspect Iranian

complicity.

· February 23, 1997: Ali Hassan Abu Kamal, a Palestinian,

opened fire on the observation deck of the Empire State

Building in New York City. After killing or wounding sever-al

tourists, he committed suicide. Abu Kamal apparently

acted in revenge for the treatment of Palestinians by the

United States and Israel.

· July 31, 1997: Police in Brooklyn arrested two Palestinian

men who allegedly planned suicide bombings of the subway and

Page 20

a commuter bus. They had a portrait of Sheik Omar Abdul

Rahman in their possession. Like Rahman, the Palestinians

were probably motivated by opposition to U.S. policies

toward the Middle East.

· November 12, 1997: Four employees of Union Texas Petroleum

died in an attack on their vehicle one mile from the U.S.

consulate in Karachi, Pakistan. Two groups--the Islamic

Revolutionary Council and the Aimal Secret Committee--

claimed that the killings were revenge for the conviction of

Mir Aimal Kansi, the Pakistani who had murdered CIA employ-ees

to protest the treatment of Muslims in Bosnia. (Angry

about the treatment of Muslims in Bosnia, Kansi had told his

roommate that he would get even by shooting up the CIA, the

White House, and the Israeli embassy.)

· December 23, 1997: Assailants fired shots at the teachers'

residential compound of the Karachi American School. The

school and the teachers' residence are in the same neigh-borhood

as other consulate residences. One guard was shot

at a guard post that had been established after the November

12, 1997, shooting of Union Texas Petroleum employees in

Karachi. Because of the timing (about a month after the

first incident) and the location, this attack was probably

also in retaliation for the conviction of Mir Aimal Kansi.

· April 3, 1998: The Greek November 17 movement claimed re-sponsibility

for a recent rash of attacks against U.S.

targets. November 17's victims since 1975 include a CIA

station chief and three other Americans. The group issued a

statement saying the campaign was "aimed against American

imperialism-nationalism."

· August 7, 1998: Simultaneous car bombings of the U.S.

embassies in Kenya and Tanzania--allegedly linked to wealthy

Saudi Osama bin Laden--led to more than 200 deaths. Before

the bombings, bin Laden declared openly that he would kill

Americans and would not discriminate between military per-sonnel

and civilians. Bin Laden objects to the U.S. pres-ence

in Saudi Arabia and American support for Israel. On

August 20, 1998, the United States launched cruise missiles

on bin Laden’s training camp in Afghanistan and a chemical

factory in Sudan. The Clinton administration claimed that

the Sudanese factory produced chemical weapons and was

allegedly linked (at least tangentially) to bin Laden.

· August 25, 1998: A Planet Hollywood restaurant (part of an

American chain) in South Africa was bombed. South African

authorities said the likely culprits were local terrorists

("Muslims Against Global Oppression") seeking revenge on the

Page 21

United States for the U.S. cruise missile attacks against

Afghanistan and Sudan.

· August 26, 1998: A U.S. government information center in

Pristina, Kosovo, was fire-bombed by an unknown person. The

incident was most likely aimed at U.S. and NATO policy on

Kosovo.

· Early September 1998: The Ugandan government and the

Federal Bureau of Investigation uncovered a plot by Osama

bin Laden's terrorist organization to bomb the U.S. embassy

in Kampala, Uganda. It was the second attempt to bomb the

embassy; the first attempt occurred on August 7 in conjunc-tion

with the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and

Tanzania. U.S. and Ugandan officials agreed that the August

7th attempt failed because Uganda had more experience with

terrorism and was better prepared to deal with it than were

Kenya and Tanzania. Ugandan officials say that the U.S.

cruise missile strike on Sudan in retaliation for the bomb-ings

in Kenya and Tanzania may have prompted the bombers to

try a second time to attack the embassy in Kampala. Several

arrests have been made in connection with the bombing.

All of the examples of terrorist attacks on the United

States can be explained as retaliation for U.S. intervention

abroad. Empirically validating the connection between an

interventionist foreign policy and such attacks is more

critical than ever now that terrorists can more readily

obtain weapons of mass destruction and seem to be more

willing to use them. The extensive number of incidents of

terrorism linked to U.S. foreign policy implies that the

United States could substantially reduce the chance of

catastrophic terrorist attacks if it lowered its military

profile overseas.

16

The United States needs to adopt a new

policy that would use military force only as a last resort

in the defense of truly vital national interests.

The Cold War has ended, yet the United States continues

to use its worldwide military dominance to intervene any-where

and everywhere in an effort to maintain its defense

perimeter far forward. In a changed strategic environment

in which ostensibly weak terrorist groups might acquire

weapons of mass destruction, such an extended defense perim-eter

may actually increase the catastrophic threat to the

American homeland. Even the U.S. Department of Defense

admits the problem:

Page 22

Indeed, a paradox of the new strategic environment

is that American military superiority actually

increases the threat of nuclear, biological, and

chemical attack against us by creating incentives

for adversaries to challenge us asymmetrically.

These weapons may be used as tools of terrorism

against the American people.

17

But proponents of America's current interventionist

foreign policy, such as the National Review, ignore the new

strategic realities and criticize the proposed policy of

military restraint as "preemptively capitulating to the

terrorists."

18

Adopting a restrained foreign policy has

nothing to do with appeasing terrorists. Terrorist acts are

morally outrageous and should be punished whenever possible.

Reducing the motive for terrorists to attack the United

States with weapons of mass destruction is not the only

reason to adopt a policy of military restraint overseas,

although it is a sensible one. In the more benign environ-ment

of a post-Cold War world, promiscuous military inter-vention

by the United States--which can result in lost

lives, high financial costs, and open-ended commitments--is

no longer needed. It is common sense, rather than appease-ment,

for the United States to adapt its activist Cold War

foreign policy to the new strategic environment that re-quires

more restraint overseas.

1. Quoted in John Carey, "Missile Defense vs. Terror: New

Terrorism Has Many Faces, Including Ballistic," Defense

News, August 31-September 6, 1998, p. 27.

2. Charles William Maynes, "Fighting Dirty Won't Work,"

Washington Post, August 31, 1998, p. A21.

3. Defense Science Board, The Defense Science Board 1997

Summer Study Task Force on DoD Responses to Transnational

Threats (Washington: U.S. Department of Defense, October

1997), vol. 1, Final Report, p. 15. Emphasis added. Cited

hereafter as Transnational Threats.

4. White House, "Radio Address by the President to the

Nation," August 8, 1998.

5. Richard Betts, "The New Threat of Mass Destruction,"

Foreign Affairs 77, no. 1 (January-February 1998): 28.

Page 23

6. Quoted in Dan Smith, "The Great Terrorism Scare," De-fense

Monitor, October 1, 1998, p. 3.

7. Ibid., p. 4.

8. White House, "Remarks by the President to the Opening

Session of the 53rd United Nations General Assembly," Sep-tember

21, 1998.

9. Ibid.

10. Gerald Seib, "Why Terror Inc. Puts Americans in the

Cross Hairs," Wall Street Journal, August 28, 1998, p. A24.

11. U.S. Department of State, Patterns of Global Terrorism:

1997 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1997), p. 2.

12. Betts, p. 40.

13. Transnational Threats, p. ix.

14. Ibid., pp. 15-16.

15. The list shows only the most prominent acts of

terrorism against the United States in retaliation for its

interventionist foreign policy. It is by no means

exhaustive. The sources for the list are as follows:

International Policy Institute for Counterterrorism data

base (www.ict.org.il /inter _ter/attackresults.cfm); Louis

Mizell Jr., Target USA: The Inside Story of the New

Terrorist War (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998), pp. 179-

200; Beau Grosscup, The Newest Explosions of Terrorism:

Latest Sites of Terrorism in 90's and Beyond (Far Hills,

N.J.: New Horizon, 1998),

pp. 1-34, 123-45, 263-319, 363-410; Leroy Thompson, Ragged

War: The Story of Unconventional and Counter-Revolutionary

Warfare (London: Arms and Armor, 1996), pp. 156-75;

Transnational Threats, pp. 13-20; Edwin P. Hoyt, America's

Wars and Military Excursions (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987),

pp. 525-29; and J. Robert Moskin, The U.S. Marine Corps

Story (Boston: Little, Brown, 1992), pp. 727-41.

16. For a more comprehensive discussion of that thesis, see

Ivan Eland, "Protecting the Homeland: The Best Defense Is

to Give No Offense," Cato Institute Policy Analysis no.

306, May 5, 1998. See also Betts, pp. 27-28, 40-41; and

Oscar Lurie, "Does 'Superior Power' Abroad Risk Terror at

Home?" Weekly Defense Monitor, October 15, 1998, p. 5.

Page 24

17. U.S. Department of Defense, Proliferation: Threat and

Response (Washington: Government Printing Office, November

1997), p. iii. Emphasis in the original.

18. "The Right Blames America First," National Review,

August 28, 1998.