Written by Grace Agnew [sources] At the end of the twentieth
century, the evolving nature of terrorism can be illustrated by
two signature events: the hostage taking and murder of eleven
Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich and the Olympic
park bombing that killed two people and injured one hundred
eleven at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. In the first incident,
eight terrorist commandos from the Arab group Black September
broke into the Munich Olympic Compound. The terrorists killed
two Israeli coaches outright and took nine Israeli Olympic team
members hostage. After a day of tense negotiations, which
included a demand for the release of 200 Arab guerrillas held
prisoner in Israel, all nine hostages were killed by their
captors. Five of the eight terrorists were killed and three
wounded. In 1996, during evening festivities that attracted
large numbers of visitors to Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park,
a bomb in a knapsack exploded, killing one woman and
precipitating a fatal heart attack for a Tur