The History of Semtex

Czechoslovakia started manufacturing Semtex in 1964. It was widely exported to countries allied to the Soviet bloc. Libya sold on substantial amounts of Semtex to the Irish Republican army or IRA. The Libyan sales could have been an act of revenge after the UK allowed the USA to launch a tax against Libya from a British airbase in 1986. In 1988 Pan Am passenger plane flying from Frankfurt to Detroit was blown apart by a bomb. All 259 people on board were killed and another 11 died in the small Scottish town of Lockerbie where the wreckage came down.