The year 1995 was memorable for many reasons — including the frequency with which terrorism intruded.
In March 1995, members of a Japanese cult attacked the Tokyo subway system with Sarin gas, killing twelve people and sickening more than 5,000 others. In April, the elusive Unabomber struck for what would be the final time in his intermittent, 17-year letter-bombing spree. In September, the Washington Post and New York Times agreed jointly to publish the Unabomber's so-called Manifesto, a diatribe against industrial society that provided clues leading to his capture the following year.
In early October 1995, the blind sheik, Omar Abdel Rahman, and nine other militant Muslims were convicted in federal court in New York City of plotting terror and assassinations across the city. Abdel Rahman was sentenced to life in prison. Meanwhile, a secret U.S. National Intelligence Estimate written in 1995 warned, presciently, that Islamist terrorism posed a cold-blooded threat to the country.
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