While Oklahoma City, Oklahoma may seem an unlikely target for terrorist activity, University scholars point to two possible motives behind Wednesday's bombing.
Though terrorists were known for hijacking commercial airline flights in the late 1960s and 1970s, increased security measures have caused a shift to building bombings, said Peter Feaver, assistant professor of political science.
Telephoned bomb threats in Boston and New York on Wednesday also forced evacuation of many major office buildings across the nation.
"There's a generic problem with terrorism," said Feaver, an expert on national security issues. "It's like squeezing a balloon. It's hard to empty the air because it moves to a different area."
But both Feaver and Martin Miller, professor of history and a scholar on the history of terrorism, said there may be a specific reason for the Midwest bombing.
The bombing happened on the second anniversary of the fiery, fatal ending of the federal siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, Miller pointed out.
As investigators probe for suspects and possible motivations for the Oklahoma City bombing, Miller added that a "fairly substantial" Middle Eastern community has migrated to Oklahoma City in recent years.
Feaver said he does not think the bombing was carried out by a highly organized terrorist group. "Killing 17 children is beyond the pale," he said. "Targeting a day-care center is rather extraordinary. It makes me suspect a fringe group."
Nonetheless, Feaver said there were potential links between events Wednesday and the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City. "There were warnings [of more terrorism] all of last year when the trials of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman began," he said.
In addition, the bomb in Oklahoma City appeared to be the same size as the car bomb that detonated in the Trade Center's parking garage two years ago, investigators said.
Regardless of the specific reasons, the terrorists definitely had a motive, Miller said. "It's not mindless," he said. "The most dastardly acts of terror are purposeful."
New York Times wire services contributed to this story.
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