# Chapter IV. Maintenance of Public Safety and Disaster Countermeasures

### Section 1. Status of International Terrorism and its Countermeasures

### 1. Status of International Terrorism

## (1) Islamic Extremists

During 2009, as is shown in Table 4-1, there was a succession of terrorist incidents. Of these, the attempted terrorist attack on an American passenger aircraft from Amsterdam to Detroit in December 2009 was an incident in which an aircraft with many civilian passengers aboard was targeted, and terrorists were able to slip through airport security screening networks to almost carry out the attack. With this incident, it was recognized once again that threats of large-scale and indiscriminate terrorist attacks could actually happen.

Despite the strengthening of terrorism countermeasures by governments of all countries since the terrorist attacks on the United States on Sept 11, 2001, the threat of terrorism by Islamic extremists remains high. Among them, Al-Qaeda is attracting Islamic extremists in the world as the symbol of jihad (holy war) against the U.S. Moreover, Islamic extremist organizations such as Al-Qaeda are thought to form gradual networking through extremist thought.

Extremist organizations such as Al-Qaeda and their supporters are thought to make effective use of the Internet to spread extremist thoughts and recruit constituent members. Under such influences, it was recently observed that organizations that do not have a direct connection to Al-Qaeda’s core part (leadership) are propagating terrorism schemes in various parts of the world. In particular, every country in the world now recognizes that there is a danger of individuals with no connection to terrorist organizations becoming extremists through the Internet, leading them to carry out terrorist activities.

Table 4-1 Major Incidents of International Terrorism in 2009

Date	Incident
Jun. 17	The series of bombing of a U.S-owned hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia
Aug. 15	The suicidal bombing of ISAF in Kabul, Afghanistan
Oct. 8	The bombing of the Embassy of India in Kabul, Afghanistan
Oct. 10	The attack and seizure of GHQ in Rawalpindi, Pakistan
Oct. 28	The bombing in Peshawar, Pakistan
Nov. 27	The bombing of a train in Bologoye, Russia
Dec. 25	The attempted terrorist attack of a U.S. airplane heading from Amsterdam, the Netherlands to Detroit, U.S.

## (2) Threat of Terrorism against Japan

Japan is regarded as an ally of the United States by Islamic extremist organizations such as Al-Qaeda and has hitherto been included in the target list of terrorist attacks many times in the statement, etc, that are allegedly made by Osama bin Laden. It is confirmed that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a cadre of Al-Qaeda in US custody stated that he was involved in the plan to destroy the US Embassy in Japan.

It has been confirmed that those connected to Al-Qaeda, who were on the international wanted list have illegally entered and left Japan repeatedly in the past years, indicating that Islamic extremist networks loosely connected through extremist thought have also extended to this country.

Considering the situation, and given the fact that in Japan there are many U.S. facilities that are targeted by Islamic extremists, and that cases occurred where our country’s interests as well as the Japanese people were actually targeted, Japan faces the threat of large scale and indiscriminate terrorism within the country as well as abroad.

Diagram 4-1 Threat of Terrorism against Japan

## (3) The Japanese Red Army and the Yodo-go Group

## 1 ) The Japanese Red Army

The leader of the JRA Fusako Shigenobu who was prosecuted and on trial $ ^{1} $ for the Hague incident $ ^{2} $ and other crimes, declared the dissolution of JRA in April 2001 from her prison cell and was confirmed by the