My new book 'Assassins' Deeds' - 'entertaining and haunting' says an expert on terrorism

Thank you to Dr Tim Wilson, Director, Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (CSTPV), University of St Andrews, for his comments on my new book:

 ‘Like Shakespeare himself, Assassins’ Deeds offers us a stage memorably strewn with the most distinguished of corpses. ‘Bloody instructions’ (as Macbeth called them) are certainly to be found here in abundance. But there are also wise words about how often incompetence and unintended consequences derail the best laid plans. Assassination, Withington instructs us in entertaining style, is no exact science. A messy tale: and a haunting one.’

Assassins' Deeds. A History of Assassination from Ancient Egypt to the Present Day, published by Reaktion, is out on 12 October.

http://www.reaktionbooks.co.uk/display.asp?ISB=9781789143515&aub=John+Withington&m=2&dc=4

It delves back 4,000 years to seek out the first known assassination, then examines the famous killings - Julius Caesar, Thomas Becket, Abraham Lincoln, JFK, right up to Qasem Soleimani, while also uncovering some less well-known deeds like those of the Turkish sultan who had nineteen of his brothers strangled. 

It examines how motivation has changed, and how methods often altered surprisingly little, in spite of great technological changes. It shows how often assassinations go wrong and how many victims were surprisingly careless. Abraham Lincoln had let his bodyguard go for a drink. Finally it investigates whether assassination works.

Most ISIS victims are Muslims

Following yesterday’s murder of an 86 year old Roman Catholic priest in his church in Rouen in northern France, a reminder that most victims of ISIS terrorists are Muslims.

More than 40 people have been killed by a massive suicide truck bomb in the Kurdish-controlled city of Qamishli in north-east Syria near the border with Turkey. ISIS said it was behind the attack which happened near a security headquarters. The blast appears to have caused a gas tank to explode, adding to the destruction.

Kurds have been perhaps the most resolute opponents of ISIS, in spite of also finding themselves under attack from Turkey’s increasingly autocratic president, Recep Erdogan. As a result they have often been the victims of bombings by the Islamist terrorists.

Earlier this month, an ISIS suicide bomber on a motorbike killed 16 people among a crowd which had gathered to celebrate the end of Ramadan in the Kurdish-majority city of Hasakah in northeastern Syria.

Bloody Sunday and the Birmingham pub bombings - no more double standards

The British government has spent up to £400 million trying to find out the truth about Bloody Sunday in 1972, when 13 civilians were killed by the army, with reports that a number of soldiers may face being charged with murder.

Less than three years later, in the Birmingham pub bombings of November 1974, 21 people were killed by IRA bombers, and 200 more seriously injured, but the authorities seem to be a good deal less enthusiastic about getting to the bottom of what happened.

Inquests on those killed were closed when six men were convicted of the mass murder, but they were the wrong men, and they were released in 1991. No one has ever been found responsible, and now some of the victims’ families are trying to get the inquests reopened, but West Midlands police are apparently going to oppose them.

Last week the police interviewed a Dublin solicitor who was the IRA’s ‘director of intelligence' at the time of the bombings. He expressed his ‘shame and regret’ over them. But as you will see from my earlier blog of November 21, 2014, there are some very odd things about the police investigation. The authorities have decreed that an independent review of it should remain secret for another 54 years, and a lot of evidence, including another bomb that failed to explode, has gone missing.

My earlier blog:-

http://disasterhistorian.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/birmingham-pub-bombings-40-who-were.html

Pakistan: fanatics for polio

There are only two countries in the world where polio is still endemic – Afghanistan and Pakistan. In Pakistan, Muslim extremists are helping it to go on killing and paralysing children by murdering vaccination workers.

In the latest attack this week, at least 15 people were killed by a suicide bomber at an inoculation centre at Quetta in Balochistan. It happened just as medics and the security staff who are needed to protect them had reported for duty before going out on their rounds. Another 20 people were injured.

There were more than 300 cases of polio in Pakistan in 2014, the highest number since 1999, following a series of attacks by extremists. Last year, energetic efforts by the security forces enabled the vaccine teams to penetrate what had previously been no-go areas, and the number of cases fell to 50.

The fanatics claim immunisation is a Western plot to sterilise Pakistani children. As a result of the latest bombing, the vaccination programme in Balochistan has been suspended. (See also my posts of 24 February, 3 March, and 10 December, 2014.)

Europe's migrant crisis - facts and numbers

Last month, more than 218,000 migrants reached Europe by sea according to the United Nations – about the same as the number for the whole of 2014. More than 10,000 arrived in Greece alone on a single day. So far this year, nearly 3,500 are estimated to have died trying to get to Europe.

The vast majority have come via Turkey to Greece. This has replaced the route to Italy via Libya which used to be more popular. The highest number come from Syria – about 53 per cent, with Afghanistan next – 18 per cent.

The United Nations has been heavily critical of Europe’s response, but the organisation’s own predictions for the number of migrants expected have been gross underestimates. It forecast 700,000 for the whole year, but at the end of October with two months still to go, that figure had already been exceeded by 44,000.

Normally the numbers fall during the winter months, but that may not happen this year as the people traffickers seem to be offering bad weather discounts. The fact that some of the Islamic fanatics who carried out the mass murders in Paris apparently slipped into Europe as ‘refugees’ has heightened alarm.

Remember Paris, but don't forget Beirut, Nigeria, Mali, Egypt, Cameroon....

is not every week that English football supporters sing the Marseillaise when a French team is playing England, nor every week that British prime ministers and home secretaries break into French, but then it is not every week that 129 people are murdured in Paris by Muslim fanatics.

But that was only one of a spate of recent Islamist attacks across a number of countries. In Beirut, ISIS said it carried out two suicide bombings that killed 40 people. In Nigeria, more than 40 people died in bombings by Boko Haram, which killed more than 6,640 in 2014, making it the world’s deadliest terror organisation.

In Mali, 20 people perished in an attack on a hotel claimed by two Islamist groups, one affiliated to al-Qaeda, while ISIS claims it brought down the Russian airliner that crashed in Sinai on October 31 with the loss of 224 people.

Just today, suicide bombers, suspected to be from Boko Haram, claimed another four victims in Cameroon. It is not only the dead and injured of Paris that we need to remember.

Mumbai train bombers convicted

In India, 12 men have been convicted for their part in the co-ordinated bombings of Mumbai commuter trains in 2006 that killed 189 people and injured more than 800. One man was acquitted. Sentencing is due tomorrow.

The seven bombs went off during a 15 minute spell, and appeared to have targeted first class compartments as people were going home from jobs in the city’s financial district. Explosives were packed into pressure cookers, then put in bags.

Prosecutors said the attack was planned by Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI, and carried out by the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba with help from the Students' Islamic Movement of India, a banned Indian group. Pakistan has rejected the allegations.

Mumbai has been hit by a number of terrorist attacks. In 2013, bombs killed 257 people, and bombers also struck in 2003 and 2011, killing a total of 70, while in 2008, gunmen attacked a number of places in the city, killing 165.

'Homeland' comes true! How Pakistan handles top terror suspects

It sounds like a plot line out of Homeland. One of the main suspects alleged to be behind the Mumbai terrorist attacks of 2008 which killed more than 160 people, is said to be living a life of luxury in a Pakistan prison, with internet and mobile phone access, and dozens of visitors popping in and out every day, without anyone bothering to check who they are.

Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi is being held with six of his comrades at the Adyala Jail in Rawalpindi. After being named by Indian officials, he was arrested at what was said to be a training camp for the militant, some would say terrorist, group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

In 2014, after doubts were raised over the Indian evidence, he was released on bail – embarrassingly, barely a day after the worst terrorist outrage in Pakistan’s history when Islamic fanatics murdered 145 people, including 132 children, at a school in Peshawar. The Pakistan military and civilian authorities had responded by calling for a crackdown on ‘all shades of terrorism’.

India protested, while the US and China are also said to have put on pressure, and the Pakistan government detained Lakhvi again under the Maintenance of Public Order law. But if the authorities believe he is a threat, the ‘anything goes’ prison regime seems an odd way of trying to protect Pakistanis.

Boko Haram terrorists move into Niger

The Islamic fanatics of Boko Haram have launched their first assault on Niger, targeting the border town of Bosso. Until now most of the group's attacks have been in Nigeria, though it has also ventured into Cameroon where it killed at least 70 people in Fotokol on Wednesday.

Boko Haram terrorists reportedly attacked Bosso in the early morning using heavy weapons. The Niger government later claimed it had driven them back, killing 109 terrorists, while a civilian and four soldiers also died. Bosso is home to thousands of refugees who have fled the violence in Nigeria.

The Nigerian army has been heavily criticised for its failure to combat Boko Haram, while it killed at least 5,000 people in the country, and forced a million to flee their homes. Now Chad has deployed 2,500 troops to help Cameroon and Niger fight the terrorists.

Boko Haram, which means ‘Western education is forbidden’, has sworn allegiance to so-called ‘Islamic State’ in the Middle East. It is still believed to be holding 300 Nigerian schoolgirls it kidnapped last year. (See also my blogs of 3 March, 23 June, 19 December, 2014, and 15 January, 2015.)

Terrorism: Remember Paris....but don't forget Nigeria

The murders by Muslim fanatics in France have attracted widespread condemnation, and an impressive demonstration of international solidarity. What a pity the same cannot be said of the massacres committed by the Islamic terrorists of Boko Haram in Nigeria.

Amnesty International, after compiling eyewitness reports and studying satellite pictures, says last week’s attack on the villages of Baga and Doron Baga killed at least 150, including small children and a woman in labour.

The terrorists are said to have opened fire indiscriminately, and some say the death toll could be as high as 2,000. The villages were razed to the ground, with about 3,700 buildings, mainly people’s homes, destroyed.

In April 2013, the Baga area was raided by the Nigerian military in response to a Boko Haram attack that killed a soldier. Human Rights Watch say local people were killed, and more than 2,000 buildings destroyed, though the Nigerian government denied the claims.

(See also my blogs of March 3 and June 23, and December 19, 2014.)

Attacks on schools

Tuesday’s murderous assault on a school at Peshawar in Pakistan by Muslim fanatics that cost the lives of 132 children and 9 staff has caused revulsion across the world, but between 2009 and 2013, there were nearly 10,000 attacks on schools in 70 countries.

Diya Nijhowne, director of the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, says murders and abductions of pupils and staff and the destruction of school buildings are seen by terrorists and criminal gangs as very effective ways of intimidating and undermining communities, and preventing them from becoming more prosperous.

Muslim fanatics, such as Boko Haram in Nigeria, are often particularly resentful if girls are educated. The group kidnapped hundreds of female pupils in April. While in Pakistan, girls often have to be taught in secret by teachers who are risking their lives, to avoid the murderous attentions of the Taliban.

The deadliest ever terrorist attack on a school happened at Beslan in southern Russia in 2004, when Chechen terrorists massacred 334 people, including 186 children.  For the full story, see A Disastrous History of the World.

Islamic extremists for polio

Pakistan has recorded its highest number of new polio cases for 15 years, and is now one of only three countries in the world where the disease remains endemic. Health officials say the main reason is the killing of health workers carrying out immunisation programmes by Islamic extremists.

The extremists say the health workers are spies and that the immunisations are a Western plot to sterilise Muslims. They claim the US used a fake vaccination programme to track down and kill Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011.

The latest murder happened in the north-eastern city of Faisalabad where a 40 year old man was shot down by attackers on a motorcycle. Deaths among immunisation workers or police guarding them now number more than 60 over the last two years.

One result is that the World Health Organization has imposed travel restrictions, so that all Pakistanis must now carry proof of vaccination before going abroad. (See also by blogs of 24 February and 3 March.) 

Birmingham pub bombings + 40. Who were the killers?

Forty years ago today, I was a reporter at ATV (the forerunner of Central Television covering the English Midlands) covering the Birmingham pub bombings. Two pubs in the city centre were blown up by the IRA, killing 21 people and injuring more than 180 others in what was then the worst terrorist attack in British history.

Today we still do not know who was responsible. The ‘Birmingham Six’ were wrongly convicted of the crime, and were released in 1991. Devon and Cornwall Police later conducted an inquiry into the West Midlands Police investigation. The authorities have decreed its contents must remain secret for another 55 years.

Julie Hambleton, whose sister was killed in the bombings, has been highly critical of this decision. The current Chief Constable for the West Midlands, Chris Sims, has maintained the investigation remains open, but Ms Hambleton has accused the police of lack of commitment to investigating Britain’s ‘largest unsolved mass murder,’ saying they seemed to be waiting for evidence to ‘drop on their desks’.

Another blow to those wanting to bring the killers to justice was the revelation that 35 pieces of evidence had gone missing, including a bomb that failed to explode. Mr Sims said it seems the items had been disposed of in the 1980’s, and that this was ‘not unusual at the time.’ 

The Yazidis - a history of persecution

The Iraqi government says ‘Islamic State’ militants have murdered at least 500 Yazidis, some women and children they buried alive. They are also accused of forcing 300 women into slavery.

Tens of thousands of other Yazidis are taking shelter on the hot, desolate summit of Mount Sinjar, with the Americans trying to drop aid from the air, and strike at the Islamists who are threatening the refugees.

The Yazidis’ religion is much older than Islam. They believe God created the world, but then left if to be ruled by seven angels and that after death, our souls are transferred to other human beings. They do not believe in hell or the devil.

Over the centuries, they have been persecuted by many groups including the Ottoman Turks, Muslim Kurdish princes, and Saddam Hussein’s government. Then after his fall, nearly 800 Yazidis were killed in 2007 in the deadliest terrorist act in history apart from 9/11. No one has admitted responsibility for the co-ordinated four-bomb attack, but it is generally blamed on al-Qaeda or other Sunni militants.

Gaza - a new way of seeing

The death toll so far – more than 600 Palestinians killed – most of them women, children and civilian men. 29 Israelis killed, almost all of them soldiers. And yet the UK and US governments keep telling us Hamas are the terrorists.

Whenever Israel’s apologists, like John Kerry or some chap called Hammond, who says he’s now the UK’s Foreign Secretary, are asked to condemn Israel’s slaughter of civilians they always fall back on the mantra that ‘Israel has the right to defend itself.’ But let’s imagine the boot was on the other foot.

Suppose it was the Israelis who had been expelled by terrorists from their country, and then blockaded in a giant prison camp or turned into a subject people whose menfolk could be rounded up and taken away by the occupying Palestinians whenever they felt like it, and who had a little more of their land stolen every day.

Suppose it was the Israelis who had been strung along for decades in a ‘peace process’ which was supposed to free them but never got anywhere. And suppose that every now and then they got fed up, and tried to resist, and that then the Palestinians slaughtered them by the houseful.

Would we hear Kerry and Hammond banging on about the Palestinians’ ‘right to defend themselves’? As one of the more intelligent Israeli newspapers put it: ‘The Palestinians are expelled from their homeland and later attacked in the refugee camps to which they fled, and the Jews boast of being more moral.’

Don't forget the kidnapped girls - or Boko Haram's other victims

In spite of the energetic worldwide ‘Bring Back our Girls’ campaign, the Nigerian Islamist terrorist group, Boko Haram, continues to hold the 200 schoolgirls it kidnapped in April.

And the group, whose name means ‘Western Education is forbidden’, mounted further attacks over the weekend in the country’s north-eastern state of Borno. They rolled into two villages is suv’s and spent six hours burning houses and gunning down everyone they could find. Dozens of people were killed.

Apparently they told villagers they had come to preach to them, and then when they had gathered a crowd, they opened fire. Witnesses said that on this occasion, Nigerian armed forces – often criticised for their inaction – did try to launch a counter-attack, killing a number of Boko Haram fighters.

It is just the latest in a series of attacks by the group in the region that have seen hundreds of people killed in the last few months. 45 died in Borno’s capital, Maiduguri, at the beginning of this month, but Boko Haram have also struck in Nigeria’s capital city, Abjua.  

Iraq and madness

‘Put a sock in it!’ That was London Mayor Boris Johnson’s advice to Tony Blair after his latest attempt to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Mr Johnson, who voted for the war, declared that Mr Blair ‘has finally gone mad’.

You can see why the mayor might take this view. Bush and Blair attacked the country as part of the ‘war on terror’. When they launched their invasion, there was plenty wrong with Iraq, but there was no terrorism to speak of. Now Prime Minister David Cameron rates the ISIS Islamic extremists of Iraq and Syria as the biggest terrorist danger to the UK.

One of the reasons why so many people in the UK opposed invading Iraq was that it would put us at risk of events like the 7.7 bombings of 2005. Now, what do you know? Mr Cameron is warning us that ISIS is planning attacks in the UK.

It is, of course, the Iraqi people themselves who are the main victims of terrorism, and I have blogged frequently about their suffering. Last month nearly 800 people were killed, and already this month, hundreds more have died.

Tsunamis and terrorism - two anniversaries

Today sees the third anniversary of the Japanese tsunami of 2011 which killed at least 15,880 people. More than 2,600 remain unaccounted for, while 267,000 are still living in temporary accommodation.

The 9.0 magnitude earthquake that triggered the tsunami caused a triple meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, and medical authorities in the region are reporting a big increase in thyroid cancer in children and young adults.

The number of suspected or confirmed cases among those under 18 at the time of the disaster has reached 75, compared with 59 at the end of September. There is disagreement over whether the increase is a result of the accident or just of more widespread screening.

Today also sees the 10^th anniversary of the Madrid train bombings of 2004. Ten explosions ripped through 4 commuter trains, killing 191 people, and injuring another 1,800. Seven of the alleged plotters blew themselves up in a flat surrounded by police three weeks later, though arguments continue about who was responsible for the attack.

* A sneak preview of my book Flood: Nature and Culture on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkC-V685Bms

The movie star and the terrorists

Bollywood tough guy actor Sanjay Dutt has been ordered to return to prison for his connection with the explosions in Mumbai in 1993 that killed 257 people.    He has been on bail since 2007, after spending 20 months in gaol, while he appealed against his 6 year sentence for buying weapons from the bombers.

The Indian  Supreme Court has reduced his sentence to 5 years, and ordered to him to return to prison in four weeks to complete the remaining 3 and a half years of his term.   Dutt, the son of a Hindu father and a Muslim mother, had said he needed the weapons to protect his family during inter-communal riots.

The judge who passed the original sentence on the star, had told him: ‘Don’t get perturbed. You have many years to go and work, like the Mackenna’s Gold actor, Gregory Peck.’

On March 12, 1993, 12 bombs went off in Mumbai.   The attack was alleged to have been carried out by the city’s Muslim-dominated underworld in retaliation for riots in which most of the victims were Muslims.   Two key suspects are still at large.

Iraq disaster goes on......and on

The disaster that Bush and Blair unleashed when they blundered into Iraq a decade ago shows no sign of abating.   Yesterday at least a dozen people, mainly Shia pilgrims, were killed in a series of bombings across the country.

No one has claimed responsibility, but Sunni militants, some of whom have links to al-Qaeda, have been blamed for much of the recent violence.   On Wednesday, more than 40 people were killed by bombs.

According to the authoritative independent Iraq Body Count monitoring group, last year 4,471 civilians were killed, an increase on 2011.   Every week on average, there are 18 bombings in the country.

Relations between Sunnis and Shias appear to get worse by the day.  Under Saddam Hussein, the Sunnis ruled the roost.     Since the invasion, they feel they have been marginalised and they have begun staging strikes and sit-ins.

* http://lagotafria.blogspot.com.es/  2nd blog on this page discusses my Historia Mundial de los desastres