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Two killed in Amman bomb blast
Two people have been killed in a car bomb explosion in the Jordanian capital, Amman, which reportedly happened near the home of a high-ranking anti-terrorism investigator.
Police and witnesses said the two passers-by, a 17-year-old Egyptian and a 24-year-old Iraqi, were killed as the blast ripped through a densely-populated area of the Jabal Amman neighbourhood. A police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Associated Press that a bomb in a parked Toyota had exploded.
The car belonged to Yasmin Burjak, the wife of Lt Col Ali Burjak of the Jordanian Government's Anti-Terrorism Unit, a senior security official told the news agency. He said it was parked near the couple's house and had been triggered by a timing device. "This appears to be a message to the Jordanian security apparatus at this crucial time," he said, in reference to Jordan's support for the US-led war on terror.
Mr Burjak was highly involved in an investigation which led to the trial of 28 men charged with conspiracy to carry out terror attacks on US and Israeli targets in Jordan during the millennium celebrations.
28 February, 2002
A bomb attack in the northern Basque region of Spain has injured a local Socialist politician and her bodyguard.
The explosion occurred just after 0900 local time (0810 GMT) in the coastal town of Portugalete, and is reported to have been caused by a device placed in a shopping trolley. The politician was identified as Esther Cabezudo. The severity of the injuries to her and her bodyguard was not immediately known.
Police said the attack bore the hallmarks of the armed separatist group ETA. The Basque area has been plagued for years by violence wreaked by ETA, which is battling for independence in the region straddling northern Spain and south-west France. ETA frequently targets Socialist and Conservative politicians, who were in no doubt on Thursday that the group was responsible for the attack.
28 February, 2002 BBC
Police in Jerusalem say a bomb has exploded at an Israeli roadblock just outside the city. There are unconfirmed reports that a Palestinian suicide bomber died in the blast.
Initial reports said the blast occurred after a car pulled up to the roadblock between Jerusalem and the West Bank town of Jericho for a routine search.
A spokesman for the rescue services said ambulances arrived at the scene minutes after the blast. He said three people were wounded. The site of the blast is said to be near a large Jewish settlement.
No group has admitted carrying out the attack.
18 feb 2002, BBC
Nepal's Maoist rebels bomb tax office
Police in Nepal say there has been a bomb explosion at the tax department office in the capital, Kathmandu, wounding one person and causing minor damage to the building. The explosion has been blamed on Maoist rebels who have stepped up their violent campaign in recent weeks.
A military offensive has been underway in Nepal since November aimed at crushing the rebellion. Parliament is currently debating whether to extend a state of emergency to allow the offensive to be stepped up.
12 feb 2002, BBC
Two petrol bombs have been hurled into the offices of Zimbabwe's main independent daily newspaper, The Daily News, in the second city of Bulawayo.
Two petrol bombs were also thrown at the offices of a nearby private printing house, Daily Print, which has been handling campaign material for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
The incident early on Monday morning comes amid rising political violence in the run-up to presidential elections next month in which President Robert Mugabe faces the toughest challenge of his 22 years in power.
A Daily News journalist told Reuters news agency that nobody was injured and very little equipment damaged. "The petrol bombs were thrown through the window into the foyer, and the account we got from night guards is that the bombs were thrown from a moving car," the journalist said.
On Thursday, supporters of President Robert Mugabe pasted the president's campaign posters on the front of the Daily News offices. The paper's chief reporter in Bulawayo, Mdududzi Mathuthu, said staff were told to leave the posters in place or the building would be burnt down.
The Daily News' printing presses were blown up a year ago in a series of bomb blasts - but it has continued to publish - much to the annoyance of many within Zimbabwe's ruling party.
11 February 2002, BBC
A man who made a hoax terrorist threat to blow up a military base in Scotland has been jailed for two months.
Gareth Davies claimed he was a member of the IRA and was going to bomb the Cullybraggan Camp in the Perthshire village of Comrie. The camp was immediately put on a higher state of security and police road blocks were set up.
Sheriff Lindsay Foulis told the 21-year-old that his prank was a serious offence which had cost the taxpayers a great deal of money.
Tayside Police traced Davies, from Crieff in Perthshire, within half an hour of the threat. He told them he had only made his claims as a "prank". Davies admitted breaching the peace by making his threat at the camp on 8 September last year.
6 February 2002, BBC
The Macedonian Interior Ministry says a man has been killed and another seriously injured in a bomb blast in a village near the capital, Skopje.
Reports say the man, Aco Stojanovski, was killed when he tried to enter his house in Aracinovo, 10 kilometres east of Skopje, for the first time since June last year. He had fled the village during intensive fighting between ethnic Albanian rebels and Macedonian forces.
10 February, 2002, BBC
Bomb explodes at Bangladeshi reception
In Bangladesh, a man has been killed in a bomb explosion in the port city of Chittagong where a prominent journalist, Shahriar Kabir, was scheduled to appear at a reception.
The bomb went off near the Chittagong Press Club where the reception had initially been arranged. Police said the man, a rickshaw puller, was seriously injured when a bomb was thrown from a moving vehicle. He later died in hospital.
Mr Kabir was previously imprisoned on charges of sedition by the government but was released last month. A little known group had made threats to disrupt the reception, accusing Mr Kabir of anti-state activities. Mr Kabir was arrested in November, after filming the plight of Hindu refugees in India, whoare alleged to have fled Bangladesh to escape persecution.
5 Feb 2002, BBC
Chaos after airport loses 'bomb suspect'
Airport officials in San Francisco have admitted that a major security breach led to the evacuation of thousands of passengers after what appeared to be traces of explosives were found on a man's shoes.
The United Airlines terminal was closed for three hours and dozens of flights delayed after an official operating screening equipment became distracted and security officials lost track of the man. They now say the substance found on him is more likely to have been fertiliser, but questions are being asked about why the passenger was allowed to wander off.
The official in question, who is currently being questioned by the FBI, works for one of America's largest private security companies which provides security at the airports from which two of the planes hijacked on 11 September took off.
Officials shut some 30 gates at the airport early on Wednesday after security guards detected the residue and all outgoing flights from that part of the airport were held.
31 january 2002
Nepal's Coca Cola plant bombed
Police in Nepal say a bomb has exploded in a Coca Cola bottling plant at Bharatpur in the south of the country.
They say no one was injured and only slight damage was caused. Two months ago, there was a similar explosion at the American company's other factory in the country, on the outskirts of Kathmandu.
No group has admitted carrying out the attacks, but the authorities have blamed them on Maoist rebels who have been fighting to overthrow the monarchy since 1996. Local businessmen said the bombings were clearly meant to show resentment against the United States.
30 Jan 2002, BBC
Reports from Algeria say that an explosive device has gone off in the capital, Algiers, injuring three people.
The Algerian news agency said the police had cordoned off the Bir Mourad Rais district where the blast took place.
The Algerian government routinely blames bomb attacks in Algiers and other cities on Islamic rebels. An estimated 150,000 people have been killed over the past ten years in the civil war in Algeria. The Algerian press has reported that six people, including an Islamist rebel, were killed over the past two days in separate incidents across the country.
26 january 2002, BBC
Four police officers and a child have been killed and several other people injured after a bomb exploded in front of a restaurant in the capital Bogota.
David Hernandez, a paramedic at the scene, said three police officers and a woman had been taken to hospital with serious injuries.It is believed the bomb had been on a bicycle.
Police defused a second bomb found in a northern Bogota neighbourhood, said police spokesman Sgt Alberto Cantillo. He confirmed that four officers had died in the blast.
25 january 2002, BBC
Bomb kills Lebanese former warlord
A former Lebanese Christian militia leader who was accused of massacring Palestinian refugees in the early 1980s has been killed by a car bomb in Beirut.
The assassination of Elie Hobeika sparked claims from Lebanon and elsewhere that his former ally, Israel, had carried out the attack to stop him giving evidence at an investigation in Belgium into the massacres.Israel has dismissed the allegations as "rubbish".
Mr Hobeika, 45, died along with five other people when a bomb exploded in a parked Mercedes as they drove past. Only days before his death, Mr Hobeika said he felt his life was "threatened" as the Belgian court considered launching an investigation into the massacres at Beirut's Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps in 1982. Mr Hobeika said he had important revelations to make about the killings, in which Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is being accused of crimes against humanity.
The force of the blast, a few hundred metres from Mr Hobeika's house in the Lebanese capital's Christian Hazimiyeh district, hurled his body 50 metres while that of one of his bodyguards landed on a second-floor balcony. Six people were also injured and fires were started in a nearby building, the Lebanese authorities said.
24 January 2002, BBC
Bomb blast at UK Islamabad embassy
A bomb has exploded next to the British High Commission in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
Police said the explosive device, contained in a vehicle left in the commission car park, was small. No casualties have been reported. Police have begun an investigation into the attack. They say no-one has claimed responsibility for the blast.
Since the 11 September attacks in the United States, security has been strengthened around diplomatic missions in Pakistan.
23 January 2002, BBC
Hoax bomb at republican's home
A suspected pipe bomb found at the home of a leading member of Sinn Fein has turned out to be an "elaborate hoax".
Northern Ireland Assembly Member Alex Maskey was not at home when the device was discovered on Tuesday. The Army bomb squad was called to examine the device which was spotted in the front garden of the house at Gartree Place in west Belfast.
Mr Maskey's home has been targeted by loyalists on several occasions in the past. The Sinn Fein member was at Stormont at the time of the incident.
Mr Maskey later said he had been told by police it was an elaborate hoax but he was treating it as a serious threat. "It was a large piece of piping. It had the bolts welded onto it. It had nails and other metal devices strapped to the side of it," he said. Mr Maskey said his son was in the house in Andersonstown when the device was discovered.
22 january 2002, BBC
Bomb goes off at American embassy
A bomb exploded outside the newly reopened US embassy in Kabul in the first reported attack on the growing international presence in the city, sources told the Guardian last night.
United Nations personnel, diplomats, and aid workers have been warned that there could be an attack on a major installation in the Afghan capital in the days ahead, and a contingency plan has just been drawn up for the emergency evacuation of all UN staff from Afghanistan.
The bomb, an anti-personnel mine, exploded after dark outside the US embassy last Thursday, said a source who was briefed on the incident the following day. No one was hurt. When US guards went to inspect the damage outside the embassy the following morning, they discovered the area was booby-trapped with several more bombs.
Trip wires were connected to more anti-personnel mines around the American embassy and the headquarters for the British-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf), which is situated nearby. The booby-trap bombs were defused.
The bomb was the first known targeting of Americans or international forces establishing a growing presence in Kabul.
21 january 2002, BBC
Basques protest against media bombs
A demonstration has taken place in the Basque region of northern Spain, to condemn the separatist group ETA's current parcel bomb campaign against the media.
The demonstration was headed by the Basque President, Juan Jose Ibarece, and other senior members of the regional government who have offered their unconditional support for freedom of expression in the Basque country. Journalists who attended the demonstration in the city of Bilbao, vowed to continue reporting events in the region, despite threats and intimidation by ETA. Madrid 'bias'
In the past two years the group has been actively targeting journalists and media executives with death threats and worse, explosive devices disguised as letters or parcels delivered to their homes.
The parcel bombs received on Friday by three executives of different media organisations - Radio Nacional, the Correo newspaper group, and Antenna Tres television - did not explode. But in one particularly gruesome attack last May a well-known Basque journalist, Gorka Landabarro, opened a package at his home. The package exploded in his face and blew off the thumb of his right hand.
21 Jan 2002, BBC
'Bomb-making' files stored on computer
A computer at the home of one of two Muslim men charged with plotting to cause explosions in the UK contained details of materials needed to make bombs, a court heard on Friday.
Files on Dr Faisal Mostafa's hard drive included one entitled "Mujahideen Explosives Handbook", a jury at Birmingham Crown Court was told. Another file on the computer was "Guerilla's Arsenal: Advanced Techniques for Making Explosives and Time Delay Bombs", the prosecution alleges.
Colman Treacy QC, prosecuting, told the jury how the material, which he alleged formed a "terrorist's handbook", was discovered on a laptop computer in Barrows Road, Sparkhill, Birmingham. Mr Mostafa, 37, and his alleged co-conspirator, Moinul Abedin, 31, are said to have used the rented terrace house as a "bomb factory" and storehouse for large quantities of home-made explosives.
MI5 surveillance Mr Treacy said the computer contained detailed information on how to make and use detonators and other explosives from readily-available household materials. Much of what was found referred to the explosive HMTD, the raw ingredients for which were found at Barrows Road and in bulk at a business unit, allegedly rented by Mr Abedin under an alias, in Tyseley, Birmingham.
Mr Abedin and Mr Mostafa both deny a joint charge of conspiracy to cause explosions with intent to endanger life and cause serious injury to property in the UK. They also face one count each of acting with intent to cause explosions and another joint charge of possession of explosives.
18 Jan 2002, BBC
A man convicted of planting a series of hoax bombs in Bangor - which brought the city to a standstill - has been sentenced to four years by a judge at Caernarfon Crown Court.
Daniel Plows pleaded guilty to three charges of placing hoax bombs and asked for a further four offences to be taken into consideration. The court was told that there were a series of seven hoaxes between 8 and 17 October last year, spread across the north Wales city's high street.
The first incident reported that a bomb had exploded outside the police station and led to the station and the magistrates court being evacuated. In another incident, the entire high street was shut with estimated losses for local businesses of around £100,000.
Plows also caused an anthrax alert near Territorial Army offices by scattering white powder around a phone box in which he had left a package. Caernarfon Crown Court heard that on closer inspection, the powder turned out to be harmless.
However, two days later an army bomb squad lance corporal was overcome by fumes as he examined a device left in public toilets in Bangor high street. Plows was eventually caught when police stopped him in a street in Bangor, and found two more hoax devices in his bag.
Judge Morgan told him that he had created a climate of anxiety and disruption in the city. The judge also described the attacks as "a very deliberate campaign waged to paralyse a whole community".
18 Jan 2002 BBC
Bomb cache magistrate jailed for five years
A magistrate who manufactured a cache of bombs, sparking fears of a major terrorist campaign, was jailed for five years yesterday.
Jonathan Wilkes, 40, was convicted of possessing eight devices, some more sophisticated than any the IRA had used, with intent to endanger life. He was also convicted of possessing another device. The motive for making the bombs is a mystery. Detectives have delved into Wilkes's background but not found any links to radical political groups.
During the trial at Oxford crown court the prosecution suggested that Wilkes, who has a long-term partner and a young son, may have planned to target the new boyfriend of a former lover. Sentencing Wilkes, Judge Peter Crawford QC told him that the bombs were the "work of a depraved mind". He said: "You are a man of education and intelligence. The devices were specifically designed to maim and kill. Who was the intended victim nobody can know for sure. It is a sad day when the court has to sentence a justice of the peace for a crime of this gravity."
When the bombs were found in Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire in the summer of 2000 it was thought they had been made by terrorists or a lone extremist. At that time dissident Irish republicans were causing chaos by planting devices near railway lines and bridges while animal activists were besieging laboratories and breeding centres.
The first device made by Wilkes, a plastic water bottle packed with explosive and 3kg of metal nuts with an adapted alarm clock as a timer, was found in the hamlet of Syreford, near Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, by a gamekeeper. Three days later a man walking his dog in woods in Freeland, near Witney in Oxfordshire, uncovered three bin liners full of plastic bottles, bolts and wire. Six army bomb disposal experts worked for almost 48 hours to make eight devices safe.
The experts at the forensic explosives laboratory in Sevenoaks, Kent, had never seen bombs like them. Five were fitted, like the one found in Syreford, with timer devices but three could be detonated by remote control and had mercury tilt switches designed to set the bombs off if they were tampered with. It was estimated that the nuts would fly out as far as 500m. Police said the devices had been put together with "finesse"and may have been made by someone with military expertise.
Detectives began the painstaking process of tracing the manufacturers of the bomb components. Eventually their inquiries led them to the door of Jonathan Wilkes. Wilkes seemed the unlikeliest of suspects. The son of a Worcestershire teacher, he had a degree in computer science and had run a number of successful IT companies. He had also worked in Paris as a consultant earning more than £100,000 a year. He had a French partner, Annie Henriot, and a young son. A stalwart of the community, he had begun to train as a magistrate and had already sat in some cases. But he lived in Freeland, close to the woodland cache. His scientific background and knowledge of firearms - he was a keen shot - meant that he could have had the expertise to make the bombs.
However, his motive remained a puzzle. When he was arrested police were amazed at his story. Wilkes claimed he had been blackmailed over an affair he had had with a former colleague, Collette Cooper. The blackmailer, he said, ordered him to obtain the components used to make the bombs.
Wilkes continued to deny making the bombs until the morning of his trial. He then admitted he had built them but came up with the unlikely explanation that he intended to use them to kill himself as he was depressed at being blackmailed.
The jury found him guilty of possessing the eight devices found in Freeland with intent to endanger life and of possessing the single bomb found at Syreford. Detectives have discovered no evidence that Wilkes was being blackmailed. Nor have they found any links with terrorism or evidence that he harbours radical political ideals.
During the trial the prosecution said he was devastated when his affair with Ms Cooper ended and may have made the bombs intending to target his former lover's new boyfriend. He had asked friends if they knew a "hitman" who could "do away" with someone. But the prosecution conceded it could not prove this. Unless Wilkes finally comes clean, his motive is likely to remain a mystery.
January 18, 2002, The Guardian
A forensics expert who examined bombs made by a magistrate has told a court they could have been accidentally exploded by children.
Kim Simpson said it was possible remote-controlled toys were capable of detonating the devices. Miss Simpson gave evidence at the second day of the trial of Jonathan Wilkes at Oxford Crown Court, on Tuesday.
She said: "A child or adult using such a toy in the vicinity of an activated device could have detonated one of the bombs by simply using the same radio frequency waves," She also told the court the nine bombs were "highly and unnecessarily sophisticated".
Mr Wilkes is alleged to have made the bombs with intent to endanger life, in the summer of 2000. The 40-year-old father of one admits constructing the pipe bombs, but denies intending to put anyone's life in danger. He was sacked as a JP on the Oxfordshire courts circuit.
The fragmentation bombs - water bottles packed with the 3kg of metal nuts - were found in Syreford in Gloucester and in Freeland, Oxfordshire, in August 2000. Prosecutor Simon Mayo said they were "truly terrifying in their potential to maim and kill".
When examined by forensic experts three of the devices could clearly be operated using a remote control. They also contained mercury-tilt switches, which effectively booby-trap them to explode when handled. The remaining devices were operated by timer controls.
Miss Simpson, who works at the Forensic Explosives Laboratory in Sevenoaks, Kent, added: "I have never come across any radio controlled devices constructed in this way before."
8 Jan 2002, BBC News
"Shoe-bomber" linked to hijack suspect
Suspected shoe-bomber Richard Reid spoke by phone with Zacarias Moussaoui, the first man charged for the September 11 hijack plot, The Washington Times has reported.
Citing U.S. law enforcement authorities, the paper said Reid, accused of trying to destroy a trans-Atlantic airliner by detonating explosives in his shoes, had several telephone conversations with Moussaoui toward the end of 2000. The phone calls are the second link between the two men, who also worshipped at the same London mosque. British intelligence agents intercepted the conversations, which ended in December 2000 when Moussaoui left England for Pakistan, The Washington Times said. The FBI were not immediately available for comment.
A U.S. indictment accuses Moussaoui of conspiring with Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network in the September 11 attacks. More than 3,200 people died when three hijacked planes slammed into key U.S. landmarks and a fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.
Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, on Wednesday invoked the name of Allah and refused to plead to six counts of conspiracy, four of which carry the death penalty. His lawyers then entered a plea of not guilty to the court in Alexandria, Virginia. Reid is being held without bail in Boston.
Just before Christmas, passengers and crew on an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami overpowered the 28-year-old Briton and strapped him down with belts after a flight attendant saw him trying to set his shoes on fire. An FBI agent said Reid's shoe bombs were powerful enough to blow a hole in the plane.
3 Jan 2002, Washington Times
Explosions mark Indonesia's New Year
Bombs have exploded at four churches in the eastern Indonesian province of Sulawesi, injuring at least two policemen.
Reports say the bombs exploded simultaneously at three churches ,the Indonesian Christian Church, the Adventist Church and the Ecclesiastical Pentecostal Church, as midnight struck in the town of Palu, followed by a fourth blast later at another church in the same area.
The Central Sulawesi police chief, Brigadier General Andi Zainal Ishak, said the blasts were designed to cause chaos in the province, which has seen almost three years of sporadic fighting between Muslims and Christians.
In a separate incident, a man was killed by a blast in Jakarta.
1 January, 2002, BBC News
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