The Age of Terror

[Part/Time Supporter]

Peter Taylor's stuff is usually worth watching. A four part series starts tonight at 9pm on BBC2.

Trailer for episode 1 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/age_of_terror/7345967.stm).

I'm intrigued by the trailer for episode 3, the revelation that there was an attempted 9/11 style attack on Paris in late 1994 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_8969). I hadn't heard that before.

http://www.emergency-management.net/airterror_hijack.htm


1994 December 24th. from Algiers, Algeria to Marseille, France: an Air France Airbus A300, flight 8969 bound for Paris was seized by four Islamic terrorists during take-off preparations; 3 passengers were killed before the plane departed from Houari Boumedienne Airport; in Marseille a special operations team of the French military stormed the aircraft and destroyed all 4 hijackers; 25 people were injured (13 passengers, 3 crew, 9 officers).

I bet we wouldn't have got all that ***** about freedom fries (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_fries) and so on if that had happened.

Or indeed if the attempt in 2000 to attack the Strasbourg Cathedral hadn't been foiled (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strasbourg_cathedral_bombing_plot).

The irony is that the reason that France was able to foil these attempts was that they were far more clued up regarding Islamic terrorism than the Yanks because they had been fighting those people for decades. Not because they were "cheese eating surrender monkeys".

:cool2:

[LiverpoolHibs]

Peter Taylor's stuff is usually worth watching. A four part series starts tonight at 9pm on BBC2.

Trailer for episode 1 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/age_of_terror/7345967.stm).

I'm intrigued by the trailer for episode 3, the revelation that there was an attempted 9/11 style attack on Paris in late 1994 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_8969). I hadn't heard that before.

http://www.emergency-management.net/airterror_hijack.htm



I bet we wouldn't have got all that ***** about freedom fries (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_fries) and so on if that had happened.

Or indeed if the attempt in 2000 to attack the Strasbourg Cathedral hadn't been foiled (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strasbourg_cathedral_bombing_plot).

The irony is that the reason that France was able to foil these attempts was that they were far more clued up regarding Islamic terrorism than the Yanks because they had been fighting those people for decades. Not because they were "cheese eating surrender monkeys".

:cool2:
Aye, looking forward to this having read most of his books on Ireland. Do you know if he's writtten on other things?

[Part/Time Supporter]

Looking at Amazon (http://www.amazon.co.uk/peter-taylor-Society-Politics-Philosophy-Books/s/ref=sr_pg_1?ie=UTF8&rs=60&keywords=peter%20taylor&rh=n%3A266239%2Ck%3Apeter%20taylor%2Cn%3A60&page=1), I don't think so.

[Sylar]

Forgot this was on tonight! :brickwall

I'll try and catch it on the Iplayer.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Forgot this was on tonight! :brickwall

I'll try and catch it on the Iplayer.
Can't say I was very impressed if I'm honest. It was obviously meant as a starting point to show the point at which political violence/terrorism was first met with unequivocable violent opposition from nation states but it was pretty narrow and uninteresting; that is presuming you know about Entebbe already - otherwise, granted, it may be interesting.

[Part/Time Supporter]

Yeah, it was a bit narrow in its focus on Entebbe and didn't place it in the wider context, except for the detail about how the two Germans got involved via late 60s radicalism in the Federal Republic.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Yeah, it was a bit narrow in its focus on Entebbe and didn't place it in the wider context, except for the detail about how the two Germans got involved via late 60s radicalism in the Federal Republic.
That part of it annoyed me as well. The assumption (and I don't mean this flippantly, I realise the significance of a German voice separating Jews/Israelis into another room) of anti-semitism was very akin to the way in which the right treats any opposition to Israel today.