Terrorism Archive

SEVILLE, Spain — “Ridiculous! Nobody takes that seriously,” laughs Santiago, the young Spanish tourism executive, when asked to comment on Osama bin Laden´s references to reclaiming Spain´s once Moorish province of Andalusia. “The city of Seville expelled the Muslims in 1248, even before they were driven out of the rest of Andalusia. The threat is not worth discussing.” Bin Laden has in the past called for an Islamist takeover of what he calls “al-Andaluz” as the center of a restored Caliphate, a single Islamic state, one nation under Allah stretching from Indonesia to southern Spain that would contain 1.5 billion […]

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams is to travel to Israel on a self-styled “peace mission” on Tuesday at the invitation of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyam. Adams’ itinerary includes meetings with the Palestinian Legislative Council and its ruling group Hamas — a move that has angered a White House determined to isolate a group it designates as terrorists. However, it is not yet clear whether Adams will even be allowed through security at Tel Aviv airport. President Bush’s special envoy to Northern Ireland is reported to be “livid” about the proposed visit. It may also threaten […]

An article that was published in this space on Sept. 1, 2006, analyzing the late-August attacks in Istanbul, Marmaris and Antalya, Turkey, did not correctly report the likely origin of those attacks. Rather than “Islamic extremists,” as the piece had stated, the Kurdistan Liberation Hawks, reportedly an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party, claimed responsibility for the attacks. The Kurdistan Workers Party is a Kurdish nationalist and Marxist-Leninist group and has little in common with Islamist groups such as al-Qaeda. Because information about the origin of the attacks was reported prior to the publication of the story, World Politics Review […]

DAGESTAN, Russia — The newlyweds sat at the front of the dim banquet hall here looking out at their guests. Three hundred people intermittently gathered around the long food-filled tables or hopped around the dance floor, sweating through their fancy clothes as they swished their arms back and forth doing the region’s traditional dance, the lezginka. After three hours of reveling in the southern Russian heat, the flawlessly coiffed bride descended to the floor in her corseted white dress while her groom danced around her holding a fluffy taffeta baton. As he passed it off to various male relatives and […]