Timeline: Government Under Attack

[The Straight Story]

Timeline: Government Under Attack
By Dawn Lim and Ross Gianfortune [e-mail] March 5, 2010

Thursday evening's shootout between Pentagon police officers and a gunman apparently motivated by anti-government sentiment was the latest in a spate of attacks on federal employees and facilities and serves as a stark reminder that public servants too often find themselves unexpectedly in harm's way. The following timeline reviews major attacks during the past two decades.

Feb. 18, 2010. A small jet is flown into a building housing a federal tax office in Austin, Texas, injuring 13 and killing two. The pilot, Joseph Andrew Stack, was angry with the Internal Revenue Service.

Nov. 5, 2009. An Army psychiatrist goes on a rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13 people and wounding dozens. The alleged gunman, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, was a Muslim who had been in contact with a radical Imam and was about to be deployed overseas.

June 1, 2009. A gunman opens fire on a U.S. military recruiting office in Little Rock, Ark., killing one soldier and wounding another. The suspect, a Muslim convert, opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but was not affiliated with a larger terrorist network.

Sep. 12, 2006. Four Islamic militants armed with guns, grenades and a car bomb attack the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, killing one and injuring 14. The attack came at a time of heightened anti-American sentiment because of U.S. support for Israeli military action in Lebanon.

Sep. 18, 2001. Envelopes containing anthrax and notes with radical Islamist rhetoric are sent to news organizations and two senators. Five people die and at least 22 people -- including postal workers -- are infected. The FBI said Bruce Ivins, an Army biodefense expert who committed suicide in 2008, orchestrated the attacks himself.

Sep. 11, 2001. Hijackers linked to al Qaeda crash a commercial jet into the west side of the Pentagon, less than an hour after the World Trade Center came under attack. Passengers seize control of Flight 93 from hijackers and crash the plane, thought to have been headed for the Capitol or White House, into a field in Shanksville, Pa. 189 die in the Pentagon; 2,751 die in New York, and 40 die in Pennsylvania.

Oct. 12, 2000. An al Qaeda suicide attack damages the Navy destroyer USS Cole in the port of Aden, Yemen, killing 17 sailors and injuring 39.

....

http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=44742&oref=todaysnews