ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to provide a background to terrorism and the actions that government and agencies – including the police – have taken in response.
Terrorism is not new. In 1867 a gunpowder charge placed at the outside wall of Clerkenwell Prison in London killed a child and an elderly resident in neighbourhood housing and damaged 400 houses. Suicide bombings and assassinations, now the tactics of choice by some terrorist organisations, have been used by the Tamil Tigers and Palestinian groups for decades. Recent terrorist activity includes the World Trade Centre and Pentagon attacks in 2001, the Bali Bombing in 2002 and the Madrid Train Bombings in 2004. On 7 July 2005, terrorists attacked London, killing 52 people and injuring hundreds more. Alarmingly, the recipe for the illegal manufacture of many explosives from everyday materials is freely available on the internet.
