Word: northwest
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2010-2019
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...killing three U.S. soldiers in a bomb attack in a remote corner of northwest Pakistan on Wednesday, Feb. 3, the Taliban scored a political jackpot. With anti-American sentiment cresting in Pakistani public opinion, the presence of the three American trainers in a convoy passing through Koto village when it was struck by a roadside bomb has set off a flurry of questions and even wild conspiracy theories about the U.S. presence in the country. The news left Islamabad in a difficult position, deepened suspicion of the U.S. and further strained an already troubled relationship. (Watch a video about bomb...
Osama bin Laden has claimed responsibility for the failed bombing of a Northwest airliner on Christmas. That's not surprising, but what should be is that it took him nearly a month to do so. Either it took all of that time for news of the plan to reach him, or he's lying. And if he's lying, we need to consider that the man is completely irrelevant...
...same is true for the Northwest Airlines bombing attempt: there's not a shred of evidence that bin Laden's al-Qaeda had anything to do with it. And the fact that bin Laden in his statement provided no inside detail of the attack pretty much says he wasn't involved. The Northwest attempt was homegrown, the would-be suicide bomber recruited in either Nigeria or Britain, the explosive device made in Yemen. His handlers call themselves al-Qaeda in Yemen, but there's no evidence that this group takes orders from the al-Qaeda leadership in Pakistan's tribal...
...Laden's example may have been an inspiration for the Northwest attempt, but so what? If he didn't exist, there would be any number of historical figures who could be held up as inspiration, from the Prophet Muhammad to the four caliphs that followed him. It's little different from the extremists at Waco, Texas, who claimed their lunacy was inspired by Jesus Christ...
...None of this is to say homegrown terrorism isn't a danger. Take, for instance, the firing device that nearly brought the Northwest plane down. It was a chemical initiator, four common chemicals that progressively speed up the detonation. Any competent chemist can build one. Only small quantities of the chemicals are needed, and they can be easily smuggled through airport security. As for the explosive used in the Christmas attempt, PETN, it's everywhere and difficult to detect with the current airport-security systems...