Thread by @SpencerJJoseph

Modern Terrorism & the Far Left-Islamist Alliance 🧵

1. Airport security, as we know it, began in the early 1970s and was driven by a surge in aircraft hijackings and terrorist threats. The first significant measures were introduced in the US around 1971, following a wave of hijackings (particularly to Cuba) in the late 1960s.

The rise of far left-wing political movements contributed to the increase in politically motivated hijackings.

2. The PLO, supported by the KGB, was founded in 1964. Black September, a breakaway militant faction of the Palestinian organization Fatah, was founded in 1971 to seek retribution on Jordan’s military and to assassinate Jordan’s King Hussein after they forcefully confronted the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) during an attempted coup in 1970.

3. Before its official dissolution in 1974, Black September also participated in attacks against Israeli and Western targets worldwide, notably the massacre of members of Israel’s Olympic team at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

4. Notable left-wing terrorist groups active in the 1970s also included the West German Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhof Group), the Italian Red Brigades (BR), the Latin American Shining Path and Tupamaros, the French Action Directe, the Belgian Communist Combatant Cells, the Nicaraguan Sandinistas & the Spanish GRAPO.

5. The Iranian Revolution of 1978-79 (led by Islamists and Communists) then resulted in the toppling of the monarchy, the establishment of an Islamic republic and subsequent support for Islamist terrorist groups across the Middle East.

6. Qatar's funding of Islamist terrorism combined with funding of US universities in the late 1980s, with indications of a total contribution of $5.1 billion by 1986. The Qatar Foundation, a major funding body, was founded later in 1995 by the then-emir, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani.

7. French think tank Fondapol's research on global Islamist terrorism indicates a trend of increasing lethality. Recent reports documented 66,872 Islamist attacks and 249,941 deaths between 1979 and April 2024.

8. Reports from organizations like Europol and the European Parliament show a notable increase in jihadist terrorism across Europe.

Key Historical and Recent Events include :

London 7/7 bombings (2005):
A series of suicide bombings on the London Underground and a bus, resulting in 52 deaths and numerous injuries.

Madrid train bombings (2004):
Coordinated bomb attacks on commuter trains in Madrid, killing 193 people.

Paris attacks (November 2015):
Multiple coordinated attacks across Paris, including bombings at the Stade de France and the Bataclan, resulting in significant loss of life.

Manchester Arena bombing (2017):
A suicide bombing at a concert in Manchester, UK, killing 22 people.

9. The trend is ominous. Iran and Qatar are state financiers of Islamist terrorism around the world. They are supported by (NATO member) Turkey and Russia.

The leftist-Islamist alliance (the Red-Green alliance) shows radical leftist and Islamist groups collaborating due to shared anti-imperialist and anti-globalization stances. They are fundamentally anti-US and its allies, despite their entirely different and often conflicting ideologies.