1.Bush's war on terror escalates
It may have started in Afghanistan, but 2002 saw US President George W. Bush's war on terror leapfrog national borders and encircle the world with its frantic search for evildoers -- no matter where they might lurk.
With terrorist No. 1 Osama bin Laden evading the allied war machine hunting for him in the hills of Tora Bora, Bush leveled his sights elsewhere, warning Americans in January's State of the Union address that terrorists "are now spread throughout the world like ticking time bombs -- set to go off without warning."
By June, the White House had unearthed its new targets, attacking in Bush's year-defining "Axis of Evil" speech the state-sponsored terrorism of Iran, Iraq and North Korea. But while the president's bombast soothed American dismay over a seemingly unwinnable war, elsewhere it added fuel to mounting fears over US unilateralism.
Terrorists, meanwhile, would-be and otherwise, were still making their presence felt. Shoe bomber Richard Reid -- in court for attempting to blow up an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami last Christmas -- candidly told a Boston judge in October, "Basically I got on the plane with a bomb. Basically I tried to ignite it."
On Oct. 12, 191 mostly young Australians lost their lives in an explosion in a Bali nightclub, while on a bright, late November morning in Kenya, three suicide bombers smashed a truck laden with explosives through the gates of an Israeli holiday compound, igniting a fireball that killed 12 people.
North Korea made sure it was also in Bush's thoughts at Christmas time by revealing that it not only had an ongoing nuclear weapons program but it was nearing completion. That forced US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to pointedly remark on Dec. 23 that, as US and British troops gear up for a likely Iraq offensive next year, the US is "capable of fighting two major regional conflicts" -- and easily winning both. -- Andy Morton
2. Bali in frontline on war of terror
Paradise became hell when a bomb attack on the island retreat of Indonesia's Bali killed 191, among them five Taiwan-based people.
The popular resort town of Kuta was packed with revellers just after 11pm on Oct. 12, when two small bombs left in plastic bags went off outside two pubs on the main drag.
Hundreds of tourists and locals poured out onto the streets and soon after, another much bigger bomb went off.
A minivan parked outside the Sari Club had been packed with explosives and went off sending shrapnel in every direction.
In addition to those killed, around 350 were injured in the outrage, mostly Australian tourists and locals, who were drinking in the clubs on the strip, working there, or just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Around 15 Taipei Baboons Rugby Football Club members and five supporters had traveled to Bali from Taiwan for the annual 10s rugby tournament. Four foreign players died along with a Taiwanese supporter of the team.
That the Bali bomb went off on the second anniversary of the USS Cole attack proved to be no coincidence.
It was immediately suspected that there were links between the deadly bomb blasts and al-Qaeda and these fears were later confirmed as Indonesian police swooped on suspects linked to the explosions.
Amrozi, a 39-year-old mechanic from East Java was found to have bought the explosives and owned the van used in the blast.
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