ICT’s Research and Publications include short analyses and in-depth publications on a wide variety of topics including: terrorism, counter-terrorism, homeland security, radicalization process, cyber-terrorism, reviews from Jihadi Websites and insights from our database.
On October 31, 2015 a Russian Airbus A321 plane was shot down on its way from the Sinai Peninsula to Saint Petersburg by a bomb that was planted under one of the plane’s seats. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the terror attack and said that it had been able to detect a security breach at the international airport in Sharm El-Sheikh in the Sinai Peninsula. The force of the blast on the plane was equivalent to one kilogram of TNT explosive material which, according to the organization, had been hidden in a beverage can. The attack, which was carried out in the wake of Russia’s involvement in the war in Syria, caused the plane to crash and killed all 224 people on board.
Written by Dr. Eitan Azani, Lorena Atiyas Lvovsky and Danielle Haberfeld
Since the advent of modern terrorism, the transportation sector has been among the most frequent targets of terrorist attacks. For those determined to kill indiscriminately and in massive quantities to inflict mass casualties, economic disruption, world headlines, and psychological anxiety and fear among wider publics, aviation transportation in the form of airplanes and airports are ideal targets. Also making them ideal as potential targets is that they cannot easily be protected without interrupting the flow of passengers and goods which the general public takes for granted.
The decade between 1968 and 1978 was a peak of international terror activity, of the number of operations, a choice of goals, of daring and imagination, of high level involvement in terrorist activity and in resource allocation.