The top FBI official who managed all aspects of the investigation for the US reveals what it took to bring two Libyans to trial in this inside story of the 12-year investigation of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie.
An intimate look at Robert Mueller, the sixth Director of the FBI, who oversaw the investigation into ties between President Trump's campaign and Russian officials. Covering more than 30 years of history, from the 1980s through Obama's presidency, The Threat Matrix explores the transformation of the FBI from a domestic law enforcement agency, handling bank robberies and local crimes, into an international intelligence agency -- with more than 500 agents operating in more than 60 countries overseas -- fighting extremist terrorism, cyber crimes, and, for the first time, American suicide bombers. Based on access to never-before-seen task forces and FBI bases from Budapest, Hungary, to Quantico, Virginia, this book profiles the visionary agents who risked their lives to bring down criminals and terrorists both here in the U.S. and thousands of miles away long before the rest of the country was paying attention to terrorism. Given unprecedented access, thousands of pages of once secret documents, and hundreds of interviews, Garrett M. Graff takes us inside the FBI and its attempt to protect America from the Munich Olympics in 1972 to the attempted Times Square bombing in 2010. It also tells the inside story of the FBI's behind-the-scenes fights with the CIA, the Department of Justice, and five White Houses over how to combat terrorism, balance civil liberties, and preserve security. The book also offers a never-before-seen intimate look at FBI Director Robert Mueller, the most important director since Hoover himself. Brilliantly reported and suspensefully told, The Threat Matrix peers into the darkest corners of this secret war and will change your view of the FBI forever.
Venturing into the ever-shifting panorama of airborne terrorism, this book immerses the reader in a vivid retelling of pivotal incidents from recent history, while delving into the terrorists' favored methods of attack. These include hijackings, in-flight bombings, and precision missile strikes, as well as the rising peril of cyberattacks aimed at airports and commercial airliners mid-flight. Readers will encounter the controversial TWA Flight 800 disaster and the baffling vanishing act of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. These events ignited enduring discussions about terrorism and governmental transparency. The book ventures into the unsettling world of the September 11th attacks, where jetliners were transformed into guided missiles. Also witnessed are the chilling tales of "Black Widows"--Chechen female suicide bombers leaving their indelible mark on Russian soil. Also explored are Libyan culpability in the bombings of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and UTA Flight 772 over the Sahara Desert. The evolution of security measures in air travel is chronicled and an examination is given of emerging biometric technologies along with security protocols relevant to the post-Covid era.
The bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over the small Scottish town of Lockerbie in December 1988 was one of the most notorious acts of terrorism in recent history. Its political and foreign policy repercussions have been enormous, and twenty-five years after the atrocity in which 270 lost their lives, debate still rages over the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, as well as his controversial release on compassionate grounds by Scotland's SNP government in 2009. John Ashton argues that the guilty verdict, delivered by some of Scotland's most senior judges, was perverse and irrational, and details how prosecutors withheld numerous items of evidence that were favourable to Megrahi. It accuses successive Scottish governments of turning their back on the scandal and pretending that the country's treasured independent criminal justice system remains untainted. With numerous observers believing the Crown Office is out of control and the judiciary stuck in the last century, politicians must address these problems or their aspirations for Scotland to become a modern European social democracy are bound to fail.
In September 2000, I was sitting on a bench facing the Mediterranean Sea in the French Riviera town of Nice. I had flown there during a three-day break in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial in Camp Ziest, Netherlands, where I was expected to testify. As I sat on this bench eating lunch, I suddenly found myself overwhelmed by emotion. It was an awakening: I realized that my being there was the fulfillment of one of my many life dreams and goals that were launched thirty-one years earlier from another bench facing the Three Sisters Ponds in Baltimore’s Druid Hill Park. Now, from a bench in the French Riviera, I began to chronicle the manifestation of those dreams and goals, accomplished through my thirty-six-year law enforcement career as a Baltimore City policeman and FBI agent. I'm hoping my story catches on with anyone who dares to dream and set challenging and aggressive life goals. While writing Three Sisters Ponds, there were areas of my story where I felt compelled to express myself poetically.
Johnny Zen and his girlfriend Jessica Sellars are back with another adventure when they are asked by a close friend to look into the cold case murder of a college student, Hannah McGuire. Who would want Hannah dead? From the viciousness of the crime it was obvious this was no random act of violence. Someone wanted to make sure Hannah was dead. The main suspect at the time was Hannah's own professor and thesis advisor. But almost as quickly as he the number one suspect, the police suddenly dropped their investigation of him and no one else ever seemed to come onto their radar. Now fourteen years later, Johnny and Jessica start digging into the bones of the stone cold case. There are those who will stop at nothing to prevent them from revealing secrets that will change everything we've been led to believe about 9/11. In the quiet recesses of Johnny's mind, he must ask himself, - What if it's true?
'You know me as the Lockerbie bomber. I know that I'm innocent. Here, for the first time, is my true story: how I came to be blamed for Britain's worst mass murder, my nightmare decade in prison and the truth about my controversial release. Please read it and decide for yourself. You are now my jury'. (Abdelbaset al-Megrahi). For the first time the man known as 'the Lockerbie bomber' tells his story. This long-awaited book argues that, far from being an unrepentant terrorist, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was the innocent victim of dirty politics, a flawed investigation and judicial folly. Based on exclusive interviews with Megrahi himself, and conclusive new evidence, it destroys the prosecution case and puts the Scottish criminal justice system in the dock. Megrahi: You Are My Jury makes a compelling argument that the murderers of the 270 Lockerbie victims were acting on behalf of an entirely different government, rather than Colonel Gadafy and Libya.
Now in its Third Edition, Practical Bomb Scene Investigation explores the investigative process that improvised explosive device (IED) specialists undertake at the scene of an explosion. Providing easy-to-understand, step-by-step procedures for managing and processing a bomb scene, it enables investigators to find the evidence and then make sense of what is found. The book is not only a roadmap on how to find and collect evidence and assess the scene, but also provides instruction on identifying the bombmaker's signature through latent print, DNA, explosive residue, metallurgical, and toolmark examination and forensic analysis.
Terrorism usually is a consquence of geopolitical decisions. Therefore, this book chooses a historical approach: it shows the most important terrorist attacks and their contexts. After all, terrorism is ultimately not a string of disconnected events; rather follows a line of development that this book seeks to trace in a chronicle.