In any case, my point stands. I don’t see any RADICAL and FUNDAMENTAL difference between Al-Qaeda and (some) previous terrorist movements. The idea that we are faced with some unprecedented new threat the likes of which the world has never seen is false, although of course (mainly due to changes in technology) there are differences of scale.

Marc, IIRC you are very inaccurate here. This is discussed in a book by the BBC journalist Michael Elkins- ‘Forged in Fury’, republished 1997 by Piatkus.’”

No, actually Marc is correct here. This is discussed in an article by E. Spinrak and Idith Zertal in “Toxic Terror” (ed. Jonathan Tucker of the Monterey Institute for International Studies). It’s one of the ten-odd actual cases of terrorist (or non-state actor, if you prefer) use or attempted use of poisons/WMDs.

The organization, called Avenging Israel’s Blood (Dahm Y’Israel Nokeam, or DIN), did plan to poison the city water supplies of several German cities; it even infiltrated a worker into the water utility at Nuremburg. One of their operatives, who had obtained poison (arsenic) from Chaim Weizmann in then-Palestine, was arrested on-ship while travelling back from then-Palestine; he managed to warn his colleagues before his arrest, who dumped the arsenic into the sea.

DIN then switched plans to poisoning Nazi POW’s in Stalag-13. They succeeding in poisoning the rye bread sent to the camp (which was almost exclusively eaten by German prisoners). Casualties are unknown (the Americans did not release details at the time for fear of creating a panic). Press reports at the time claimed that 2,300 were sickened, 207 hospitalized and none killed; DIN members claimed that 4,300 were sickened, 1,000 hospitalized, with 700 paralyzed or killed.

Marc, IIRC you are very inaccurate here. This is discussed in a book by the BBC journalist Michael Elkins- ‘Forged in Fury’, republished 1997 by Piatkus. My memory is that the plot was to poison German PoWs, especially SS men, and some attempt was made to do so: it may even have killed a few, but in the chaos of postwar Germany, there was no investigation. (Possibly no one in the US or British armies wanted to try Jewish Holocaust survivors for killing SS men, and so just quietly warned against any repetition.) Again IIRC there was no attempt to ‘kill millions’- any attempt to generally poison the German water supply would have had Allied troops as the first victims, since they had first claim on all water and food supplies. Many of the Jews participating in the attack had been trained in the British army and had little desire to kill Allied troops, at any rate in 1945. I could be wrong.

Re your question: ‘Out of interest, have there been any cases of Bin Ladenesque attacks with specific warnings?’ If Bin Ladenesque means ‘Islamicist’ I can’t think of any- but I would be interested to hear more about Muslim-on-Muslim terror campaigns (there are so many, but Algeria springs to mind). Possibly in that context, where there is at least some possibility of ‘converting’ the enemy to one’s precise religious and political views, there might have been some tactical restraint, a la the IRA.

Re ‘not heroic’: yes, all the social codes stuff is true. But if I make little of something bad that’s happened to me, that may be admirable stoicism, but adopting the stiff upper lip in the face of someone else’s pain is more than a little suspect.

Beyond that,I think we should ask British Muslims to confront the things done by some of their co-religionists, but God knows we ought to face up to the fact that a great many non-Muslim British, Irish and American people suffer from the same tendency to go all mealy-mouthed in response to murder.

That said perhaps someone will make the argument someday in earnest which I will now make in flippant fashion, that the suicide bomber is more moral than the IRA because the suicide bomber kills themself as well as their victims thus dealing out the punishment for their crime. Sounds like the movie Seven now that I think of it. One could work up quite a frothy paen to the noble suicide bomber and the deep brotherhood of death between them and their victims. I am however not sure how sincere it would seem.

I also remember reading something about survivors of the Holocaust who, in vengence, wanted to poison the German water supply and kill millions.

No, but if that P. O’Neill wants to meet face-to-face to discuss usage of the moniker, I’d be happy to oblige. I might even bring a gift to the meeting, such as a beard trimmer.

I’m joking, of course. Please don’t go assaulting any Andy Chaps you might know in revenge.

What happened was (if memory serves):

The bomb team was to place the device outside Omagh court-house, while a chap somewhere else was to phone in the warning specifying the location of the bomb and the time of detonation.

The bomb team, who were greenhorns, reached the target to find security forces there. Rather than abort the operation, which would have been standard operating procedure, they dumped the car-bomb down the road (Newry Court House sits on a hill).

Unaware of this, the warning guy phoned through with, as was now the case, the wrong location. Security forces cleared the area, as SOP, but in doing so inadvertently moved a large crowd to the very place where the device now stood.

The RIRA were forced to declare a ceasefire in the following furore; particularly as the Provos now felt they could get away with plugging them if they continued ‘armed struggle’.

I don’t really understand the pathology point. I think it’s just the case that republicans were embarrassed by ‘non legitimate’ civilian casualties, and alomst always tried to avoid them. From security force documents I’ve read, this seems to have been the understanding of the government too. Having said that, ‘legitmate targets’ covered a range beyond anything normally understood as combatants.

It’s certainly the case that ‘accidental’ civilian casualties are inevitable in this kind of campaign, so they cannot be excluded from the moral calculus just because they were disavowed.

Out of interest, have there been any cases of Bin Ladenesque attacks with specific warnings?