539 B.C.: Persia's Cyrus the Great conquers Babylon in present-day Iraq. The Babylonian empire stretched to present-day Palestine and Lebanon.
1997: A massacre outside the Algerian town of Sidi Daoud leaves 43 people dead. The Algerian civil war is in its fifth year, having claimed by then between 75,000 and 120,000 lives. The began in 1992 when the military cancelled runoff elections that would have given power to the Islamic Salvation Front, or FIS. When the government banned the group, the war broke out. The war ended, for the most part, in 2002, though Islamist-led violence persists in Algeria.
1999: Pakistan's military strongman Pervez Musharraf pulls off a bloodless coup, ousting Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Musharraf's dictatorial rule stretches nine years and features Pakistan's switch from supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan to ostensibly supporting the United States in the "war on terror." Musharraf, however, persists in playing both sides until his ouster in 2008, leavinG Pakistan near failing-state status.
- Profile: Pervez Musharraf
- Pakistan beyond Musharraf
- Profile: Nawaz Sharif
- Profile: Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan's Mr. 10%
- Pakistan Near Chaos
2000: The U.S.S. Cole, a Navy destroyer on a refueling stop in Yemen's port of Aden, is bombed by al-Qaeda attackers in a fiberglass fishing boat. The bombing, at 11:15 a.m. local time, claims 17 American sailors' lives, wounding 39. The two men in the fishing boat smiled, waved and stood at attention immediately before blasting the Cole. The blast opened a hole 40 feet wide and 40 feet high.
2002: Al-Qaeda related terrorists detonate two bombs -- in Paddy's Pub and the Sari Club -- in Kuta, on te Indonesian island of Bali, killing 2002 and wounding more than 300.
October 12 is also the International Moment of Frustration Scream Day, according to wellcat.com, an especially apt observance in matters relating to the Middle East.
