The Sabotage of MH 370

Some contextual points regarding the now admitted sabotage of Malaysian Airways Flight 370:

- China has experienced the second major terror attack against its citizens and transportation networks in as many weeks.

- Separatists in western China and their regional affiliates are most likely the perpetrators of both attacks.

- There will be no claim of responsibility.

- Al-qaeda never claimed responsibility for the 9/11 attacks.

- Transportation assets have always been the preferred targets of terrorist groups.

- Attacking transportation ensures large body counts and widespread global media coverage: validating the attackers credibility amongst current and potential supporters and guaranteeing a governmental response.

- The Chinese government, albeit an insular one, will now be forced to respond publicly.

- As I wrote well before 9/11, "Terrorism, if properly conducted by terrorists, generates disproportionate feels of anger, fear, and anxiety, in the population that is attacked. The bigger the attack, the more pressure on the government to do something, whether tangibly or symbolically."

- This attack is now the latest in an 80-year old story of disparate groups leveraging global air transport as the way to gain legitimacy for their cause.

- "Terrorism is the atomic bomb of the poor and disenfranchised." - Pablo Escobar