Mia Bloom, Dying to Kill: the Global Phenomenon of Suicide Terror.
NY: Columbia University Press, (forthcoming March 2005).
2
Bruce Hoffman documented that as many as 40 different terrorist groups from
Asia, Africa, North America, Europe and the Middle East were trained by the PLO --
who sometimes charged between $5,000 and $10,000 for a six week program of
instruction.
5
A patron-client relationship developed because of the competition between the
superpowers. Under bipolarity, the Soviet Union prioritized support for insurgent
organizations around the globe as long as they were steadfastly opposed to Western
Imperialism and could potentially act as a thorn in the West’s -- especially, the US’ side.
6
Sterling pointed out the degree to which Moscow participated in the global network of
terrorism and ran a virtual terrorist academy in the guise of the Patrice Lamumba
University, funding thousands of third world revolutionaries on full scholarship to the
Soviet Union to be indoctrinated with anti-colonial sentiment and study guerilla tactics.
7
Both Sterling and Hoffman date the internationalization of terror to 1968 when
the PFLP hijacked an Israeli El Al flight en route from Rome to Tel Aviv.
8
This
hijacking changed the genre of airline pirating wherein an airline was now symbolic to
and representative of the targeted country and not simply a means to return to the
homeland as many Cubans had done previously. This hijacking was particularly violent
and brutal, and, for the first time, demonstrated how porous international borders were for
terrorist activities. Finally the terrorists’ intent was to shock and awe to gain international
recognition.
9
They were effective.
5
Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism. NY: Columbia University Press, 1998, 84
6
See also Ray S. Cline and Yonah Alexander, Terrorism: The Soviet Connection. NY: Crane Russak, 1984.
7
Sterling, 135-137
8
1968 is also the beginning of the RAND – St Andrews University Chronology of International Terrorism
database.
9
Hoffman, 68
Convention