Deadly trickery of past fuels today's skepticism
ISLAM VIEW: One in a series of occasional columns from the London's Islamic community.

By KEE DEWDNEY, Special to QMI Agency

Last Updated: September 4, 2010 12:00am

From the 1950s until the late 1980s, Europe was besieged by a seemingly endless string of terrorist bombings.

Among
the better known events were the bombings in Milan and Rome on Dec. 12,
1969. Four bombs killed 16 innocent persons and injured 80. The
bombings were blamed on a leftist magazine editor, Giangiacomo
Feltrinelli, when bomb-making materials were "found" in his home.

In
another notable attack in Bologna on Aug. 2, 1980, a massive explosion
in the train station killed 85 people. Blame for the attacks usually
fell on communist or leftist/activist groups, from Baader Meinhof to the
Red Army Faction.

Over the entire period, hundreds of innocent civilians lost their lives and, not surprisingly, anti-leftist feelings ran high.

However,
a dogged investigation by an alert Italian judge, Felice Casson,
revealed links not to known activist groups, but to a network of secret
"armies," one per country, that received the full co-operation of
security agencies and high government officials.

The operation,
code-named Gladio, was apparently the brainchild of James Angleton, head
of the CIA in the postwar period. To give the operation plausible
deniability, the groups were labeled "stay-at-home" forces, which would
act as an underground in the event of an invasion of Europe by the
Soviet Union.

As far as is currently known, none of the leftist
groups blamed for the bombings were actually responsible (including that
poor editor).

Gladio was uncovered in Italy and rumblings of the
discovery spread through the European media. However, it was not until
Aug. 3, 1990, when Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti made a full
disclosure to the Italian parliament, that the issue became front page
news.

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