Terrorism United States

A Republican congressman called on the Clinton administration Saturday to deploy a missile defense system that would shield the country from terrorist attacks. "Today, the United States is vulnerable from missile attacks," said Rep. Michael Pappas of New Jersey in the GOP's weekly radio address. "Most Americans think we have the capability to destroy an incoming missile. The truth is, we do not have a system fielded that can destroy an enemy's missile before it reaches us," Pappas added.

A coalition of extremist Islamic groups linked to a dissident Saudi millionaire has issued new threats against the United States, an Arabic newspaper reported Wednesday. In a statement sent to the Cairo bureau of the Pan-Arab daily Al Hayat, a group calling itself the International Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders warned that recent "holy struggle operations" against the United States will continue "until all American forces retreat from the Islamic lands."

A few years ago, the Pentagon's secretive Office on Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict quietly buried one of the most comprehensive reports ever commissioned on the changing patterns of global terrorism. The "Terror 2000" findings compiled by 41 experts--including former ranking CIA, FBI, State Department and Rand Corp. officials, as well as an ex-KGB general and Israeli intelligence agent--were deemed too alarmist and far-fetched. "Outrageous," commented one CIA official.

There's a lot of hate talk swaggering through certain corners of society these days. Talk about taking down the government. So when the FBI seized anthrax from two men in Las Vegas last week, experts who follow American extremist movements blanched. That anthrax turned out to be a harmless veterinary vaccine. But as scientists point out, the real stuff is frighteningly easy to get. Other toxins are, too.

The Palestinian who drove the bomb-laden van into the parking garage under the World Trade Center during the 1993 terrorist attack was sentenced to 240 years in prison Friday. U.S. District Judge Kevin T. Duffy also fined 26-year-old Eyad Ismoil $250,000 and ordered him to pay $10-million restitution "just to make sure that you never make a dime out of this."

Despite an enormous federal effort to prepare for a biological terrorist attack, a mock germ warfare assault last month showed that the United States is unprepared to deal with such a crisis, a published report said today. The secret drill simulated a smallpox hybrid virus that was dropped along the U.S.-Mexico border, the New York Times said.

A grand jury investigating what prosecutors dismissed as crackpot theories about the Oklahoma bombing returned a sealed indictment Wednesday but said it found no evidence of additional conspirators or a government cover-up. The Oklahoma County grand jury was convened by way of a citizen petition drive, over the objections of the district attorney, because of some residents' suspicions that Timothy J. McVeigh and Terry L.

Recent anthrax threats in Southern California dramatically underscore the lack of a comprehensive national plan to guide health agencies responding to biological or chemical terrorism, federal officials said Tuesday. Using $120 million in federal funds appropriated this fall, officials from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are scrambling to draw up the nation's first blueprint for such an emergency public health response, said Dr.

Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski committed numerous acts of vandalism near his mountain home and may have shot a miner, according to a new book by a man who considers himself Kaczynski's friend. "Unabomber: The Secret Life of Ted Kaczynski--His 25 Years in Montana" describes Kaczynski as being a man motivated more by anger and hatred than by his reported concern for the environment or distrust of technology.