Directory of international terrorism

The Achille Lauro hi-jacking, the Luqa airport killings, the massacre at the Munich Olympics, the raids on Entebbe and Mogadishu, the storming of the Iranian Embassy in London, the shootings at Lod, Athens, Vienna and Rome airports, the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Olof Palme have become the violent landmarks of modern history. It was the attack on Israel's ambassador to London, Shlomo Argov, which launched the Israeli invasion of Lebanon which destabilised that country and cost the lives of thousands.

Almost every day the horrific consequences of terrorism leap from the pages of our newspapers and TV screens. But who are these fanatical young people of the PLO, the IRA, the Rote Armee Fraktion, ETA or the Japanese Red Army? What do they want? Can their demands ever be met? Are they, as most of them claim, dedicated freedom fighters? Or are they merely psychopaths masquerading as political activists?

And who are their paymasters and political supporters? What kind of weapons do they use and where are they obtained? Is the modern world peculiarly vulnerable to terrorist activity? And how are the governments of the world coping with the terrorist phenomenon? Just how effective are the various anti-terrorist squads the British SAS, the West German GSG-9, the American Delta Force, the Soviet Union's 'Spetsnaz' squads?

This book sets out to shed some light on the shadowy, violent world of international terrorism in a cool, factual and easily comprehended way. Incidents, individuals, victims, firearms and organisations are set out in separate entries, and cross referenced to one another. The result is a unique source of information on what has been dubbed 'the terror network', a phenomenon which has plagued the world for the last 100 years.