Tangling With Terror

For a long time now, radical groups in the Arab world have considered the United States and Israel as their two main enemies. The Israelis have a lot more experience with terrorism because they've been getting hit a lot longer. Their prime weapon in striking back? Assassination, reports CBS News Correspondent Bob Simon.

In the 1972 Munich Olympics for example, 11 Israeli athletes were killed. The Israelis responded with a program of assassinations. The Mossad killed anyone they could find associated with the Munich massacre. The Israelis struck in Paris, Rome, Cyprus and Beirut.

Just two years ago, the Israelis assassinated a radical Islamic bomber nicknamed "the engineer" - because of his bombing expertise. They got him with a booby-trapped phone in Gaza.

But for Americans, assassination is illegal. The U.S. hasn't done much of anything in the way of retaliation against terrorism, except for the bombing of Libya in 1986. That was done as payback for the killing of American servicemen at a Berlin disco.

But it's a different story with Osama bin Ladin, who is suspected to have been behind the 1995 attack of the American embassy of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, as well as the 1996 bombing of the military barracks in Dharan, in which 19 American serviceman were killed.

Why now? Intelligence sources say Islamic groups are feeling stronger, their networks are wider, their pockets deeper. After the attacks in East Africa, reliable intelligence sources warned that this was just the beginning.

Whatever the damage inflicted in today's attack - whether or not bin Ladin's organization was hurt by it - the one prediction you can make with confidence is that this is not the last shot fired.