ABSTRACT
That the United Nations itself should be singled out for terrorist attack would inevitably come as a shock to the organization and the public. Its charter mission of peace-with the mandate to address the sources of conflict as well as the symptoms-and its claim to impartiality should have insulated it from even the cauldron of Middle East strife. But a spectacular attack taking the life of the head of a U.N. mission would make clear that even the United Nations could be the target of violent extremists for whom an honest broker represents a dangerous obstacle to fervently held political objectives.
