Maps of Terror: August 13-18, 2017

There was a pattern to the recent terror attacks: Turkish restaurants and sites.

During the week of August 13, 2017, there have been a series of terrorist attacks around Europe, EuroAsia, and Africa - in Spain, Turkey, Finland, Germany, and Burkina Faso. There have been many terrorist attacks, worldwide this August. (Please see here.)

Here is a brief overview of this week of terror, in words and maps, for some locations.

Several foreign nationals were among 18 people killed in a suspected Islamic extremist attack on a Turkish restaurant in Burkina Faso’s capital Sunday night, August 13, 2017.

Meanwhile, in Istanbul, Turkey, a suspected Daesh terrorist who had been arrested on suspicion of preparing to carry out a suicide bombing, stabbed to death a policeman on Sunday, August 13, 2017. The suspect was shot dead after killing the policeman, according to Turkey's Anadolu news agency.

On Thursday, August 17, 2017, the big media attention was on the terror attacks occurring in Barcelona, Cambrils, and Alcanar, Spain. Please note hostages reportedly taken at luna de Istanbul restaurant in Barcelona.

On Friday, August 18, 2017, a man was stabbed to death in a shop in Elberfeld, near Dusseldorf, Germany. The incident took place on Kipdorf in Wuppertal-Elberfeld, in the city in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Knifemen killed two people and targeted five women, including one pushing a baby in a pram, in a stabbing spree in Finland. Armed police scrambled to the middle of Turku as a knife-wielding group reportedly rampaged through the city – as a manhunt was launched to find the attackers.

You will note that in four of these attacks - an Istanbul restaurant in Spain, a Turkish restaurant in Africa, locations in Turkey, and in the Finnish city of Turka, the Turkish link & name game is there.

Turku is a city on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River, in the region of Southwest Finland. Turku, as a town, was settled during the 13th century and founded most likely at the end of the 13th century, making it the oldest city in Finland.

The Finnish name Turku originates from an Old East Slavic word, tǔrgǔ, meaning "market place." The word turku still means "market place" in some Finnish dialects. The Swedish word for "market place" is torg, and was probably borrowed from Old East Slavic, and was present already in Old Swedish.

The name of Turkey is based on the ethnonym Türk. The first recorded use of the term "Türk" or "Türük" as an autonym is contained in the Old Turkic inscriptions of the Göktürks (Celestial Turks) of Central Asia (c. 8th century). The English name Turkey first appeared in the late 14th century and is derived from Medieval Latin Turchia.

The Greek cognate of this name, Tourkia (Greek: Τουρκία) was used by the Byzantine emperor and scholar Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in his book De Administrando Imperio, though in his use, "Turks" always referred to Magyars. Similarly, the medieval Khazar Empire, a Turkic state on the northern shores of the Black and Caspian seas, was referred to as Tourkia (Land of the Turks) in Byzantine sources. The medieval Arabs referred to the Mamluk Sultanate as al-Dawla al-Turkiyya (State of Turkey). The Ottoman Empire was sometimes referred to as Turkey or the Turkish Empire among its European contemporaries

The recent past....

The following map published in 2015 predicted areas that might experience terrorist attacks.

More Tridents: Medak & Air Algerie Disasters

The logo of Air Algerie, rotated to vertically present itself, appears similar to a trident. As noted here, "Flight MH17: Twilight Tridents and Noteworthy Numbers," tridents are connected, for whatever reason, to some recent crashes and accidents. Also, as it developed, the logo for Penghu County, where GE222 crashed, is trident-like (see here).

Furthermore, besides the Air Algerie incident today, 18 children and a bus driver were killed Thursday when a train crashed into their school bus at an unmanned railroad crossing in Medak District, southern India. 

Looking up "Medak," I "coincidentally" found this: "The Methukudurgam or Methukuseema citadel is a remnant of the city's prosperous times during the reign of the Kakatiya dynasty....The fort also holds a 17th-century cannon that is 3.2 meters long and is etched with a trident symbol." (Emphasis added.)

We are looking at logos and art that are stylized flowers, birds, and planes, needless to say, yes, but tridents, nevertheless.

Todd Campbell was looking at Tridents from 2007-2011, at his blog. Campbell's "Through the Looking Glass" was on target before it was insightful to be hitting the bullseye with tridents.

Etemenanki tweets that the reason behind all the recent activity: "Neptunalia - feast day of Neptune-Poseidon, god of horses, sea, quakes, and associated with Atlantis.” Neptunalia begins on July 23rd. Tridents, again, of course.

It is also worthy of noting that the 2008 Mumbai attack (India's so-called "9/11") was at various locations, one of which was the assault against the Trident Hotel.

Plus, also, July 23rd was "Batman Day," and guess what the fictional Wayne Enterprises uses as their logo?

Now to the breaking news from Africa...

On Thursday, July 24, 2014, an Air Algerie flight with 116 people on board dropped off radar, prompting a search for the missing plane.

Flight 5017 lost radar contact 50 minutes after takeoff from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, early Thursday. It was supposed to arrive at Algiers' Houari Boumediene Airport about four hours later.

The Air Algerie Flight 5017 disappearance comes exactly a week after a Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was brought down in Ukraine with 298 people on board.

[Ouagadougou is the capital of Burkina Faso and the administrative, communications, cultural and economic centre of the nation. It is also the country's largest city, with a population of 1,475,223 (as of 2006). The city's name is often shortened to Ouaga. The inhabitants are called ouagalais. The spelling of the name Ouagadougou is derived from the French orthography common in former French African colonies. If English orthography were used (as in Ghana or Nigeria), the spelling would be Wagadugu.
The name Ouagadougou dates back to the 15th century when the Ninsi tribes inhabited the area. They were in constant conflict until 1441 when Wubri, a Yonyonse hero and an important figure in Burkina Faso's history, led his tribe to victory. He then renamed the area from Kumbee-Tenga, as the Ninsi had called it, to Wage sabre soba koumbem tenga, meaning "head war chief's village." Ouagadougou is a Francophone spelling of the name.]

The plane, an MD-83, was carrying 110 passengers, two pilots and four crew members. The MD-83 is part of the McDonnell Douglas MD-80 family of twin-engine, single-aisle jets.

The plane belongs to a private Spanish company, Swiftair, but it appears to have been operated by Air Algerie.

The Swiss Air logo on its side, of course, is a trident.

"We have lost contact with the plane," Swiftair said.
"At this moment, emergency services and our staff are working on finding out more on this situation."
Air Algerie said via Twitter, "Unfortunately, for the moment we have no more information than you do. We will give you the latest news live."
The tweet appears since to have been deleted, according to CNN.

Initial reports of the crash were confirmed by Algerian aviation authorities. "I can confirm that it has crashed," an anonymous official told Reuters. While details of the whereabouts of the plane remain unclear, early reports from the CCTV network and Algerian TV suggested that it went down in Niger.

Later reports say that this Air Algerie flight with at least 116 people on board that dropped off radar is thought to have crashed in Mali, the flight operator said.

Air Algerie said via Twitter that the plane has apparently crashed in the Tilemsi area, about 43 miles (70 kilometers) from the southeastern city of Gao (which had the ancient name of Kawkaw or Kuku).

There are reports that many French citizens may have been on board 5017.

Air Algerie is Algeria's national airline, with flights to 28 countries.

The deadliest incident in the airline's history occurred in March 2003 when a domestic flight crashed after takeoff, killing 102 people on board. One person survived.

In February 2014, a Hercules C-130 military aircraft crashed in the mountains of eastern Algeria, killing 77 of the 78 people on board.

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So, where should we look for the next tragedy, terrorist attack, or crash? 

The Japan Airlines logo is a stylized trident.

Club Med uses the trident as their logo.

Even Arizona State might be in the mix with their trident logo.

At Washington and Lee University, we find, "The Trident, designed by student Thomas Greene (Tubby) Stone in 1904, is the University's primary athletics symbol."

Does the past predict the future?

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