Word: terrorist
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...years Chicago's El Rukns seemed like the average urban street gang, dabbling in racketeering, narcotics sales and the occasional murder. But El Rukns (Arabic for "the cornerstone") was far more ambitious than that. Last week a federal jury convicted five members of conspiring to commit terrorist acts against the U.S. The plotters, prosecutors said, expected to receive $2.5 million from Libya's Colonel Muammar Gaddafi for bombing buildings and airplanes and assassinating American politicians. The verdict marked the first time American citizens had been found guilty of planning terrorist acts for a foreign government in return for money...
...Government built its case on more than 100 wiretapped telephone conversations in which El Rukns used a complicated code to discuss terrorist schemes. "The young friend" was a code name for Gaddafi, "the old man" meant Iran's Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. "Apples" and "potatoes" referred to explosives...
...gate leave the area when the shooting started, but many of the soldiers killed and wounded had been playing backgammon and checkers in a "clubhouse" tent when the guerrilla entered the military camp. "How did it happen," asked Army Chief of Staff Lieut. General Dan Shomron, "that one terrorist killed six soldiers and wounded seven others? We cannot live with an event like this...
...mechanism, which might have produced a spark; or to the prewar wooden stairs, which might have come in contact with a cigarette or other flame. Officials found faults with both explanations. And although they received some telephone calls claiming sabotage, authorities were inclined to rule out both arson and terrorist attack. At week's end the only thing police could say with certainty was that the fire started on the escalator itself...
...detailed local color and technical arcana that the thriller genre demands. Ignatius can convey the terror even an experienced spy feels when approaching isolated border crossings and potentially murderous guards. He can explain how to construct a remote-control detonator and how to gauge the damage of a terrorist blast by sight alone: "White smoke meant a very large explosion. A bomb that detonated so powerfully and quickly that it sucked the oxygen out of the air, leaving a white plume of smoke." The author also occasionally strains a little too hard to keep pulses racing. Hearts pound in chests...