home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- WORLD, Page 57World NotesTERRORISMOld Habits Die Hard
-
-
-
- Despite the high security imposed in England during the gulf
- war, the Irish Republican Army last week managed to set off
- bombs in two of London's main train stations. One pre-dawn
- explosion at Paddington station did little damage. But a second
- blast in a trash can at Victoria station during the morning
- rush hour killed one man and injured 46 other persons. The
- attacks set off a burst of hoax calls and bottled up nearly
- 500,000 metropolitan commuters. Coming only 11 days after the
- I.R.A. lobbed mortar shells at 10 Downing Street, the bombings
- aim at sustaining the terrorists' claim that they can and will
- bring dislocation to England just as they do in Northern
- Ireland.
-
- The blasts signaled not only an intensification of the
- organization's drive to oust the British from Northern Ireland
- but also a return to the tactics of the 1970s when civilian
- targets, including train and subway stations, were hit
- indiscriminately. That strategy was abandoned after a 1983 car
- bomb outside Harrods department store killed six people and
- caused a wave of revulsion against the I.R.A. But authorities
- fear that frustrated hard-liners have once again decided that
- bloody activity on the mainland is a far more effective way to
- prove that British rule in Ireland is untenable.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-