1956: In Cyprus, then still a British colony, riots erupt when British authorities deport of the head of the island's Greek Orthodox Church, Archbishop Makarios, on trumped up charges of “fostering terrorism.” Makarios, who holds a revered position in Cypriots’ eyes, leads a campaign to unify Cyprus with Greece. The riots trigger three years of violence that culminate in a 1959 agreement between Greece, Turkey and Britain granting Cyprus independence, which is declared in 1960, when Makarios returns to the Mediterranean island and is elected president.
1957: Saudi native Osama bin Laden, co-founder, with Ayman al-Zawahiri, of al-Qaeda, is born. He is the only child of in a brief marriage between Syrian-born Alia Ghanem and construction scion Muhammad bin Laden, who divorce shortly after Osama’s birth. Osama is one of some 50 children born to Muhammad bin Laden and more than a dozen wives. In a 1998 interview with al-Jazeera, bin Laden says he was born in Riadh, the Saudi capital. “Then God was gracious to us as we went to Holy Medina six months after I was born.” He is raised by his mother’s second husband, Muhammad al-Attas, who worked at Osama’s father’s company.
- Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda: Profile
- Bin Laden, Family Man? Osama bin Laden and His Children
- Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive?
- “Young Osama: How he learned radicalism, and may have seen America,” by Steve Coll (The New Yorker)
- Ayman al Zawahiri: Profile of Al Qaeda's No. 2 Man
- Ayman al Zawahiri, Obama and the "House Slave"
1976: Haifa Wehbe, a Lebanese actress, singer and Miss Lebanon runner-up, is born in a small town in South Lebanon. In 2006, she is ranked 49th on AskMen.com’s list of 99 most desirable women. (Jessica Alba, Sienna Miller and Angelina Jolie are ranked 1-2-3). The same year, in an interview with Reuters, she defends Hezbollah in its war against Israel. Lebanon, she says is “a land that has people to defend it ... and therefore [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah had a big role ... in defending Lebanon's honour and border,” she tells Reuters before a concert in the Lebanese town of Jounieh.
2002: Hours after 14 Israeli civilians, including a baby, are killed in two separate terrorist attacks in Jerusalem and Netanya, Israeli helicopters and gunboats fire 25 missiles at Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s office compound in Gaza City, destroying it. No one was in the compound. Palestinians claim their terror attacks are in retaliation for repressive Israeli sweeps through Palestinian refugee camps in the nine days preceding the Jerusalem attack.
2000: In Karachi, Pakistan, three gunmen assassinate Iqbal Radh, the lawyer for former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was removed from power in a coup by Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf subsequently had Sharif arrested and charged with hijacking, abduction, attempted murder and terrorism. In his last hours as prime minister in 1999, Sharif had diverted Musharraf’s plane to prevent what he suspected was an impending coup. Sharif was right, but Musharraf prevailed anyway. “The killing of an eminent lawyer by terrorists,” Musharraf says after the assassination, “is the most heinous crime, which could only serve the purpose of vested interests.” The vested interests most served by the assassination are Musharraf’s.