Pete Trumbore Before getting into this week’s look back, it is worth noting some terrorism news that came to light over the weekend here in Michigan.


In incidents reminiscent of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski’s decades-long bombing campaign against industrialization in general, and big tech in particular, two explosive devices were discovered outside cellphone stores Michigan’s Upper Peninsula late last week. According to the FBI, the devices were in USPS priority mail boxes and sealed with black duct tape. They were accompanied by threatening notes addressed to Verizon and AT&T.

The logo of the Puerto Rican nationalist terrorist group Fuerzas Armadas Liberacion
Nacional (FALN). The slogan roughly translates to “Struggle Until Victory”


The letters “CMT” were written on the outside of both boxes. The FBI and Michigan State Police believe the bombs are connected to a series of letters found last month at multiple telecommunications tower sites across the Upper Peninsula. According to the FBI the letters, signed by the “Coalition for Moral Telecommunications,” make specific demands to the telecommunications companies. No details, however, have been released.

The planting of bombs at cellphone stores is similar to two of the attacks carried out by Kaczynski. In December 1985 a Sacramento, Calif. computer store owner was killed by a nail-and-splinter bomb that Kaczynski had planted in the store’s parking lot. In February 1987, the owner of a Salt Lake City, Utah computer store was severely injured by another of Kaczynski’s bombs.

Kaczynski is currently serving eight life sentences in federal prison in Colorado. The University of Michigan Special Collections Library houses correspondence between Kaczynski and more than 400 others since his arrest.

And now on to this week’s look back to the week in American terrorism history.

  • Sept. 20, 1976 — San Francisco: The residence of the Consul General of South Africa is targeted in a bombing attack carried out by the New World Liberation Front, a small California-based militant revolutionary anti-capitalist terrorist group. No one was injured in the attack. The NWLF formed in 1970 and was responsible for nearly 90 separate attacks in the San Francisco Bay Area and other parts of the American West between 1974 and 1978.
  • Sept. 21, 1976 — New York City: A bomb explodes on the 24th floor of the Hilton Hotel. An hour later, a caller to the New York Post claims responsibility for the bombing in the name of Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional (FALN), a Puerto Rican nationalist group. In a note taped to a phone booth near the hotel, FALN stated that the blast was an attempt to protest the appearance of Rafael Hernandez Colon, the Governor of Puerto Rico, who was attending a political fund-raising dinner at the hotel. Between 1974 and 1982, the FALN carried out 120 separate attacks, mostly in New York City, Chicago and in Puerto Rico itself.

Professor Peter Trumbore blogs @ Observations/Research/Diversions.

This Week In Terrorism History: Sept. 19-26

Pete Trumbore Before getting into this week’s look back, it is worth noting some terrorism news that came to light over the weekend here in Michigan.


In incidents reminiscent of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski’s decades-long bombing campaign against industrialization in general, and big tech in particular, two explosive devices were discovered outside cellphone stores Michigan’s Upper Peninsula late last week. According to the FBI, the devices were in USPS priority mail boxes and sealed with black duct tape. They were accompanied by threatening notes addressed to Verizon and AT&T.

The logo of the Puerto Rican nationalist terrorist group Fuerzas Armadas Liberacion
Nacional (FALN). The slogan roughly translates to “Struggle Until Victory”


The letters “CMT” were written on the outside of both boxes. The FBI and Michigan State Police believe the bombs are connected to a series of letters found last month at multiple telecommunications tower sites across the Upper Peninsula. According to the FBI the letters, signed by the “Coalition for Moral Telecommunications,” make specific demands to the telecommunications companies. No details, however, have been released.

The planting of bombs at cellphone stores is similar to two of the attacks carried out by Kaczynski. In December 1985 a Sacramento, Calif. computer store owner was killed by a nail-and-splinter bomb that Kaczynski had planted in the store’s parking lot. In February 1987, the owner of a Salt Lake City, Utah computer store was severely injured by another of Kaczynski’s bombs.

Kaczynski is currently serving eight life sentences in federal prison in Colorado. The University of Michigan Special Collections Library houses correspondence between Kaczynski and more than 400 others since his arrest.

And now on to this week’s look back to the week in American terrorism history.

  • Sept. 20, 1976 — San Francisco: The residence of the Consul General of South Africa is targeted in a bombing attack carried out by the New World Liberation Front, a small California-based militant revolutionary anti-capitalist terrorist group. No one was injured in the attack. The NWLF formed in 1970 and was responsible for nearly 90 separate attacks in the San Francisco Bay Area and other parts of the American West between 1974 and 1978.
  • Sept. 21, 1976 — New York City: A bomb explodes on the 24th floor of the Hilton Hotel. An hour later, a caller to the New York Post claims responsibility for the bombing in the name of Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional (FALN), a Puerto Rican nationalist group. In a note taped to a phone booth near the hotel, FALN stated that the blast was an attempt to protest the appearance of Rafael Hernandez Colon, the Governor of Puerto Rico, who was attending a political fund-raising dinner at the hotel. Between 1974 and 1982, the FALN carried out 120 separate attacks, mostly in New York City, Chicago and in Puerto Rico itself.

Professor Peter Trumbore blogs @ Observations/Research/Diversions.

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