It was during the 1970s and 80s that the world saw a rapid escalation in terrorist activity. Terrorism became a growth industry with a host of bombings, hijackings and assassinations. In the decade of the 70s, there were 8100 terrorist incidents worldwide. In the 1980s there were 31,000 incidents - with 70,000 people killed. There's a long list of terrorist actions, but some caught our attention in a very big way. Like the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland where 270 people lost their lives (December 21). And the 1995 bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which left 168 people dead and hundreds more injured (April 19). .
Terrorism is starting to peak once again, but instead of lots of little attacks, they are now large, planned events. The only problem is that for all you know, your next door neighbor could be a terrorist. Terrorists aren't just of Middle Eastern origin. Terrorists are trained to just fit in. To be normal. When a terrorist is trained to act normal, looks the same as you and is essentially your average John Doe, there is no wonder that counter-terrorism agencies have so much trouble catching them. In fact, even though there are special counter-terrorism squads and specialist units, trained to eliminate terrorists, they can not do anything until an act of terrorism has been committed, and hostage taking .
situations are becoming less .
frequent because of the fact that one can virtually never escape once that has happened, and an airplane can't stay in the air forever. The newest trend that has emerged is suicide bombings. These are nearly impossible to stop, since anyone with the internet can make a bomb and strap it to themselves. Another danger is that terrorists could get their hands on weapons of mass destruction. The major threats come in three forms: chemical, biological and nuclear. The threat of chemical weapons was seen during the Tokyo subway attack using Sarin gas or when Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of his own people.
