The English acronym, Ied, Improvised explosive device, it makes it seem more complicated than it is. In reality, an “improvised explosive device” is of a disconcerting banality: a container filled with homemade explosives. Metal plus a smattering of elementary physics and chemistry. Nothing else. What makes an IED scary, however, is not only the fact that a tour of the hardware store is enough to make one, but that it can be hidden, literally, anywhere. Even in Sacile, in the province of Pordenone, a town that has earned the nickname of Little Venice and where, for seven centuries, the Sagra dei Osei has been held. In the nineties the Sagra dei Osei is a relaxing break that suspends, even if for a short time, the unstoppable march of the “Locomotive of the Northeast”, the industrious Triveneto in which there is only one creed: work, work, work. And earn, of course.
The first attack on the Sagra dei Osei
In that period the province of Treviso covered one sixth of the foreign surplus and Vicenza had a higher export than that of Greece. The secret of the Locomotive is soon said: to lead the eighty deregulation into the decade of the Wind of change adding it to the mania that for some time seems to have infected everyone, the “do-it-yourself”. On the other hand, once the mechanism is understood, what is a locomotive if not metal driven by basic chemistry and physics? A simple artifact like the Ied that a woman, on 21 August 1994, during the Sagra dei Osei, found under a hydrangea bush. The explosion causes minor injuries and there is no claim, but a bomb means: terrorism. But the track of ecoterrorism turns out to be a dead end and the naziskin, waste products of which the Locomotive disseminates the territory, have nothing to do with it. On 17 and 18 December, in Pordenone and Aviano, two other bombs explode. Three Ieds, three days of celebration, the same hand: “Unabomber”.
The difference with Ted Kaczynski
The newspapers call it this by copying the American Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, although there is a huge difference between the two. Kaczynski hits specific targets, his Italian namesake, random people. Making everyone potential victims. In 1995, on March 5, Carnival, an IED explodes in Azzano Decimo. On 30 September, in Pordenone, Unabomber places two bombs on the same day. The first costs a retired woman’s arm, the second has a significant history. The woman who finds it picks it up and takes it home. The next day she puts it in the luggage rack of the bicycle and rides to the police station who make it shine despite being repeatedly handled without detonating. Let’s say goodbye to any traces. The purpose of an IED is terror, terror takes away clarity: Unabomber has succeeded in his intent. And it continues to strike: 11, 24 and 26 December. Aquileia, Latisana, Bibione. 1996: Glaut and Bannia, April 2 and 22. On August 4th, a new double strike. Terrifying, because the Ieds, this time, are made to kill. An explosion in Bibione and one in Lignano, both among the swimmers. The terror becomes panic and, at that point, with a theatrical gesture, Unabomber disappears.
Four years of absence to better prepare
He is said to be in prison for another crime. Or in Kosovo, to fight. Many hope he is dead. Instead, as revealed by the IED of March 6, 2000, Unabomber used those four years of absence to hone his ability to tailor and disguise the IEDs. Worse still, he also seems to have spotted a shivering target: children. The bomb of March 6, Carnival, in fact, is hidden in a can of streamers. On 6 July, in Lignano, an IED left on the shore, where sand castles are built, sends a carabiniere into a coma. On 13 September, Unabomber hits a vineyard in San Stino di Livenza. On October 31, he disguises the IED in an egg carton on the shelf of a hypermarket. The device does not explode and traces of precious DNA are found. The next day, November 1st, an IED is found in the vineyard already hit on October 13th: a challenge and a joke at the same time. On 7 November, a worker risks her life by buying a tube of tomato and on 17 November, Unabomber repeats her provocation: in that same hypermarket a tube of mayonnaise filled with explosives is found.
From the courthouse to the church, no goal scares him
From 2001 to 2003 there are other attacks: a jar of Nutella, a tube of soap bubbles, explosive in the church. Panic is now psychosis, but Unabomber is not enough: he wants more and more attention. In February 2003, a local newspaper denounced the lack of security of the courts and, citing Unabomber, demonstrates how easy it is to place a bomb in the bathroom used by the prosecutor who investigates the bomber. Unabomber, who is evidently an avid reader of the articles concerning him, takes notes and strikes: on March 24, that toilet is pulverized. On 25 April, in Fegarè della Battaglia, a little girl suffered very serious injuries to her hand and eyes and on 2 April 2004 Unabomber hit a church in Portogruaro.
The wrong track
A few weeks later, however, in May, the police announced that they had discovered his identity: Elvo Zornitta, engineer. The investigators (including an FBI agent who is robbed of the watch he has just landed in Venice) have heavy clues against him: Bic pens, lighters, duct tape, empty mints boxes, stylus batteries and a package of eggs from the same brand of the unexploded one in 2000. So, waiting for the DNA test, for two years, Zornitta is monitored 24 hours a day. Two years in which Unabomber strikes five times. And when the DNA test clears the engineer, here is a new announcement: a pair of scissors seized in his home show a groove that coincides with the one found among the remains of an IED. The groove, however, as the Supreme Court will ascertain, is the result of the tampering of a policeman: an action that gives the chills as much, or perhaps more, than an IED.
The last attack, then silence
Finally, on May 6, 2006, on the beach of Caorle, an engaged couple is injured by the explosion of a bottle with what appeared to be a message inside. A gimmick to attract attention, but also, in a sense, a farewell note. From 6 May 2006 Unabomber disappears. Perhaps reading the newspapers was no longer enough for him, and his voyeurism forced him to mingle with the bathers, in Caorle, to see the blood and hear the screams and when he realized the risk, for the first time, he had fear. Of the police, if not of himself.
The question that haunts him (if he’s not dead)
Or he got bored. Or those who hope he is dead are right. Certainly, if he isn’t, the guy who always blames strangers for his discomfort, intolerant of parties and who believes himself more skilled than he has proven himself to be, today spends his days scrolling through old newspaper clippings like a rusty locomotive. immersed in the memory of the glory days. Maybe trying to escape the question that since 2006 has ruined his liver and sleep: does it make sense to have been the best if no one ever finds out?