Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

WEATHERMEN/WEATHER UNDERGROUND • 697(LTTE) released containers of liquid chlorine to gas Sri Lankanarmy forces. This attack succeeded in killing and immobilizing manysoldiers, but shifting winds caused several of the LTTE units to sufferfrom the same chlorine gas. The difficulties of precision targetingand long-term goals of political legitimacy do not make WMDthe weapon of choice for most groups. Groups committed to someutopian, apocalyptic, or millennialist vision might opt to use WMDagents in order to set in motion events that they believe would helpachieve their millennialist or utopian vision.Despite the relatively low probability that terrorists will use WMDagents, the free-floating public fear and ignorance about WMD enableeven false WMD threats, alarms, or false claims of their use to createreal public panic, incapacitate ordinary business, and even induce psychosomaticdistress among suggestible individuals or crowds. On 24April 1997 the delivery to the B’nai B’rith national headquarters of afoul-smelling envelope with the word “anthrachs” [sic] scrawled on itnot only led Washington, D.C., fire department officials to shut downthose offices but also caused two B’nai B’rith employees to experiencewhat they thought were the symptoms of anthrax infection. In 1997alone the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigated 68new cases of real or fake attempts to procure or deploy WMD, andin 1998 the yearly figure had reached about a hundred such cases inthe United States. While most cases involved anthrax hoaxes, oftendirected against abortion clinics, schools, courthouses, or other governmentoffices, the FBI regarded the disruptions and emotional distresscaused by these hoaxes to be a serious form of terrorism in itself. InOctober 2001 the first known cases of anthrax attacks involving deliberateanthrax poisoning surfaced in the United States, involving fivefatalities out of 22 cases of known infection.It should be noted that although WMD present frightening scenariosof mass carnage, to date most terrorist groups have found machineguns and bombs to be much more cost effective, lethal, and sufficientlyterrorizing to serve their political agendas. Therefore in all likelihoodthese will remain the preferred weapons of most terrorists.WEATHERMEN/WEATHER UNDERGROUND. The WeatherUnderground, or Weather Underground Organization, was an anarchisticleftist terrorist group active from 7 October 1969 to about1976 that was formed in the student radicalism of the late 1960s