Terrorism Timeline

On 21 November 1974, bombs exploded in two pubs in Birmingham. The explosions killed 21 people and injured 182. The attacks were seen as the deadliest act of terrorism to occur in the UK between the Second World War and the 2005 London bombings.

Six Irishmen were arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment. These men became known as the Birmingham Six, and maintained that they were innocent. After 16 years’ imprisonment, their convictions were declared unsafe and unsatisfactory and were quashed by the Court of Appeal in 1991. The Provisional Irish Republican Army have never officially admitted responsibility for the bombings, but in 2014 a former senior officer confessed their involvement.

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The United States embassy bombing was a suicide bombing in Beirut, Lebanon, that killed 63 people, mostly embassy staff members, several soldiers and one Marine. 17 of the dead were Americans. It is thought of as marking the beginning of anti-U.S. attacks by Islamist groups.

The attack came in the wake of the intervention of a Multinational Force, made up of Western countries including the U.S., in the Lebanese Civil War, to try to restore central government authority. On the afternoon of 18 April 1983 a van gained access to the embassy compound, and packed with about 2,000 pounds (910kg) of explosives, exploded at the front of the embassy building. U.S. President Ronald Reagan denounced the "vicious terrorist bombing" as a "cowardly act". US envoys continued their peace mission in Beirut to discuss Lebanese troop withdrawals with a renewed sense of urgency.

A pro-Iranian group calling itself the Islamic Jihad Organization took responsibility for the bombing in a telephone call to a news office immediately after the blast. The anonymous caller said, "This is part of the Iranian revolution's campaign against imperialist targets throughout the world. We shall keep striking at any crusader presence in Lebanon, including the international forces.”

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The 1987 Hipercor bombing was a car bomb attack by the Basque separatist organisation ETA which occurred on 19 June 1987 at the Hipercor shopping centre in Barcelona, Spain.  

The bombing killed 21 people and injured 45. This represents the deadliest attack in ETA's history. Acting on orders received from the ETA leader, three members of ETA's 'Barcelona Commando' Ernaga, Troitiño and Simón, decided to place an incendiary bomb inside the store. Controversy surrounded the timing of telephone warnings made before the attack and the authorities' response to them. The attack occurred on a Friday afternoon. The car bomb, hidden in the boot of the vehicle, had been placed on the first floor of the three-storey subterranean car park below the commercial centre.

Initially 15 people were killed, 10 of them women (one of whom was pregnant) and 2 children and 3 men. In a subsequent communique ETA claimed that they had given advance warning of the bomb but the police had declined to evacuate the area. The police claimed that the warning had come only a few minutes before the bomb exploded. In 1989 Troitiño and Ernaga were given sentences of 794 years in prison and fined more than 1,000 million pesetas. In 2003 Simón was sentenced to 790 years in prison for his role in the attack. 

Two trucks, each with over 1,000kg of explosives exploded in a business district of the Peruvian capital city, Lima. The blast killed 25 and wounded 155, damaging 183 homes and 400 businesses.

This bombing was the start of a week long campaign by the Shining Path terrorist group -and its deadliest. It was preceded by smaller attacks by the militant group against police stations to clear the way and to disorganize the police forces. Once the trucks were in the street, the drivers abandoned their vehicles, leaving them to smash into buildings and force an explosion. In 1992, Peru was in the midst of a civil war, with several violent political insurgencies occurring, Shining Path were involved in these, being a militant offshoot of the Peruvian Communist Party.

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The 1993 Mumbai bombings were a series of explosions that took place in Mumbai, India on 12 March 1993 at locations including the Mumbai Stock Exchange, hotels, banks and a major shopping mall.

The coordinated attacks were the most destructive bomb explosions in Indian history. This was first such group of serial bombings in the world. Beginning with a car bomb which exploded in the basement of the Mumbai Stock exchange killing 50 people, a total of 13 bombs exploded throughout Mumbai soon afterwards. A double decker bus was very badly damaged in one of the explosions and that single incident accounted for the greatest loss of life – perhaps up to ninety people were killed. In total the attacks resulted in 257 fatalities and 717 injuries.

The attacks were coordinated by Dawood Ibrahim, leader of the Mumbai-based international organised crime syndicate named D-Company, who have been linked to terrorist groups including Al-Qaeda. Ibrahim is believed to have ordered and helped organise the bombings in Mumbai, through his subordinates Tiger Memon and Yakub Memon. The Supreme Court of India gave its judgement on 21 March 2013 after over 20 years of judicial proceedings sentencing over 100 of the accused. However, the two main suspects in the case, Ibrahim and Tiger Memon, have not yet been arrested.

The AMIA bombing was an attack on the Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina, a Jewish centre, in Buenos Aires in 1994. The attack was the deadliest in Argentina’s history, killing 85 and injuring over 300.

A van loaded with 275kg of explosives was driven by a suicide bomber into the building and the resulting explosion caused the building to almost totally collapse. This bombing came two years after the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, which caused the death of 29 people.

No suspects have been convicted of the AMIA attack – leading to calls of incompetence on the part of the Argentinian government. In 2006 two Argentinian prosecutors accused the then government of Iran and the Hezbollah militia as responsible for carrying out the attack. Iran has repeatedly and vehemently denied any involvement in the attack.

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The 1996 Manchester bombing was an attack carried out by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) in Manchester, England.

The 3,300-pound (1,500kg) bomb, placed in a van on Corporation Street in Manchester city centre, targeted the city's infrastructure and economy and caused widespread damage, estimated by insurers at £700 million (£1.2 billion as of 2016).

The IRA had sent telephoned warnings about 90 minutes before the bomb detonated. The area was evacuated, but the bomb squad were unable to defuse the bomb in time. Two hundred and twelve people were injured, but there were no fatalities.

Although Manchester had been the target of IRA bombs before, it had not been subjected to an attack on this scale; the biggest bomb detonated in Great Britain since World War II. The bombing was condemned by the British and Irish governments. Five days after the blast the IRA issued a statement in which it claimed responsibility, but regretted causing injury to civilians. 

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The Omagh bombing was a car bombing that took place in Omagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland.

It was carried out by the Real Irish Republican Army, a Provisional Irish Republican Army splinter group who opposed the IRA's ceasefire and the Good Friday Agreement. The bombing ultimately killed 31 people (including a mother pregnant with twins) and injured some 220 others, the highest death toll from a single incident during the Troubles. Telephoned warnings had been sent about 40 minutes beforehand, but were inaccurate and police had inadvertently moved people towards the bomb.

The bombing caused outrage both locally and internationally, spurred on the Northern Ireland peace process, and dealt a severe blow to the 'dissident' republican campaign. The Real IRA apologized and declared a ceasefire shortly after. The victims included people from many backgrounds: Protestants, Catholics, a Mormon teenager, five other teenagers, six children, a mother pregnant with twins, two Spanish tourists, and other tourists on a day trip from the Republic of Ireland. Both unionists and Irish nationalists were killed and injured.

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19 terrorists from al-Qaeda, hijacked four commercial airplanes, deliberately crashing two of the planes into the upper floors of the North and South towers of the World Trade Centre complex and a third plane into the Pentagon in Arlington.

The Twin Towers ultimately collapsed because of the damage sustained from the impacts and the resulting fires, which weakened the support columns. After learning about the other attacks, passengers on the fourth hijacked plane, Flight 93, fought back, and the plane was crashed into an empty field in western Pennsylvania about 20 minutes by air from Washington, DC.

In total the attacks killed 2,977 people, 2,753 people were killed in New York, 184 people were killed at the Pentagon and 40 people were killed on Flight 93. When the towers were struck, between 16,400 and 18,000 people were in the WTC complex, as many of these rushed out, emergency services were rushing in to try and save those injured or trapped. (For further information on 9/11, it’s causes and consequences, please see the other resources on our website).

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A suicide bombing, known as the Passover massacre, was carried out by Hamas, at the Park Hotel in Netanya, Israel on 27 March 2002 during the Passover Seder.

A Palestinian bomber, Abdel-Basset Odeh, disguised himself as a woman and entered the hotel carrying a suitcase containing explosives. He successfully passed the security guards and detonated the bomb. 30 people were killed and 140 were injured. 

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The 2002 Bali bombings occurred on 12 October 2002 in the tourist district of Kuta on the Indonesian island of Bali.

The attack killed 202 people (including 88 Australians, 38 Indonesians, and people from more than 20 other nationalities). A further 209 people were injured. Various members of Jemaah Islamiyah, a violent Islamist group, were convicted in relation to the bombings, including three individuals who were sentenced to death.

The attack involved the detonation of three bombs: a backpack-mounted device carried by a suicide bomber; a large car bomb, both of which were detonated in or near popular nightclubs in Kuta; and a third much smaller device detonated outside the United States consulate in Denpasar, causing only minor damage. An audio-cassette purportedly carrying a recorded voice message from Osama bin Laden stated that the Bali bombings were in direct retaliation for support of the United States' war on terror and Australia's role in the liberation of East Timor.

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The Beslan school siege started on 1 September 2004, lasted three days, involved the capture of over 1,100 people as hostages (including 777 children), and ended with the deaths of at least 385 people.

A group of armed Islamist terrorists, mostly Ingush and Chechen, occupied School Number One (SNO) in the town of Beslan, in the Russian region of North Ossetia. The hostage-takers demanded recognition of the independence of Chechnya, and UN and Russian withdrawal from Chechnya.

On the third day of the standoff, Russian security forces stormed the building with the use of tanks, incendiary rockets and other heavy weapons. At least 330 hostages were killed, including 186 children, with a significant number of people injured and reported missing.

In the wake of Beslan, the government proceeded to toughen laws on terrorism and expand the powers of law enforcement agencies. 

One spokesman for the Chechen independence cause stated, "Such a bigger blow could not be dealt upon us...People around the world will think that Chechens are monsters if they could attack children".

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The Mumbai railway bombings were a series of seven bomb blasts that took place over a period of 11 minutes on the Suburban Railway in Mumbai, the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the nation's financial capital.

The bombs were set off in pressure cookers on trains on the Western line of the Suburban Railway network. 209 people were killed and over 700 were injured. A state of high alert was declared in India's major cities and both of Mumbai’s airports. Some 350 people were detained 36 hours after the incident in Maharashtra; police claim that these were people rounded up for investigations.

On 14 July, Lashkar-e-Qahhar, a terrorist organisation possibly linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), claimed responsibility for the bombings. In an e-mail to an Indian TV channel, the outfit says it organised the bombings using 16 people who are all "safe". According to the e-mail, the main motive seems to have been a retaliation to the situation in the Gujarat and Kashmir regions, possibly referring to the alleged oppression of Muslim minorities in certain parts of the region.

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On 6 March 2008, a lone Palestinian gunman shot at multiple students at the Mercaz HaRaz yeshiva, a religious school in Jerusalem, Israel.

Eight students were killed and a further eleven seriously injured before the perpetrator was shot dead by a part-time student and off-duty Israel Defence Forces Captain. The attack was committed by Alaa Abu Dhein, a resident of East Jerusalem who worked as a driver that made deliveries to the yeshiva. He entered the school with several magazines, shooting over 500 rounds within a twenty-minute period, before being shot twice by the part-time student.

Many of the students at the school are on courses that combine religious study with service in combat units in the Israeli Army. The shooting was criticised by the then UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon who described it as a “savage attack”.

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The 2011 Norway attacks were two sequential terrorist attacks by Anders Behring Breivik against the government, the civilian population, and a Workers' Youth League (AUF)-run summer camp.

The attacks claimed a total of 77 lives. The first attack was a car bomb explosion in Oslo. The van was placed next to the tower block housing the office of the Prime Minister, killing eight people and injuring at least 209 people, twelve of them seriously. The second attack occurred less than two hours later at a summer camp on the island of Utøya. The camp was organized by the AUF, the youth division of the ruling Norwegian Labour Party. Breivik, dressed in a homemade police uniform and showing false identification, took a ferry to the island and opened fire at the participants, killing 69 of them, and injuring at least 110 people. It was the deadliest attack in Norway since World War II, and a survey found that one in four Norwegians knew "someone affected by the attacks".

According to his attorney, Breivik has acknowledged that he is responsible for both the bomb and the shooting during interrogation but denies culpability, as he asserts that his actions were "atrocious but necessary". He held Islamophobic views and a hatred of Islam, and considered himself as a knight dedicated to stemming the tide of Muslim immigration into Europe.

A gang of eight knife wielding attackers left 29 people dead and many more injured at Kunming railway station in Yunnan province, south-west China.

The attackers were dressed in black, according to eyewitnesses, who also said they targeted civilians indiscriminately. Six of the eight were men, the other two women, all hailed from Xinjiang, a province in northwest China that is home to many ethnic minority groups. The region is on edge and has seen violence for decades as the Uyghur ethnic minority fight for greater independence. It is claimed the attack was partly in response to police suppressing a demonstration there against the closure of a mosque. Four of the assailants were killed at the scene, three were later sentenced to death and one was sentenced to life in prison.

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On Wednesday 22 May 2013, 25-year-old British Army soldier, Fusilier Lee Rigby of the Royal regiment of Fusiliers, was killed near the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich, Southeast London.

Rigby was off duty when his attackers, Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, hit him with a car before using knives and a cleaver to stab him to death in the middle of the street. The men stood by Rigby’s dead body and told passers-by that they were avenging the killing of Muslims by the British armed forces. Adebolajo and Adebowale were both raised as Christians but converted to Islam. Both men were found guilty of Lee Rigby’s murder and sentence to life imprisonment. Sue Hemming, head of special crime and counter terrorism at the Crown Prosecution Service, described the attack as an “appalling terrorist murder”, which was “brutal and calculated; it was also designed to advance extremist views”.

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On the night of 14-15th April 2014, 276 female students (aged 16-18) were kidnapped from the Government Secondary School in Chibok, Nigeria.

Boko Haram, an extremist and terrorist organization based in Northeast Nigeria, claimed responsibility for the kidnappings. Of the 276 children, 53 were able to escape at the beginning of May. In May 2016, Amina Ali, one of the missing girls, was found. She said that the girls were still being held, but that six of them had died. Ali also revealed that the girls are being held in Sambisa forest, where they are being starved and had resorted to eaten raw maize, that some had died in captivity, broken bones or gone deaf from being too close to explosions.

Three videos have been released by Boko Haram. A video released on 14 August 2016 showed approximately fifty of the girls, and demanded the release of imprisoned militants in exchange for the girls. It also said that some of the girls have been killed or injured by government air strikes. Another video was released in April 2016, while the first video was released in May 2014, and shows around 130 of the girls reciting the Koran together.

Boko Haram (which means “non-Islamic education is a sin”) have been involved in an armed rebellion against the Nigerian government since 2009, with violence at its height in 2014, when the conflict resulted in over 10,000 deaths.

Seven militants from the Pakistani Taliban attacked an army-run school in the north-west of Pakistan, killing 132 children and nine adults.

The victims were mostly aged between 12 and 16 and were gunned down in their classrooms by the militants. This was the deadliest ever terror attack to occur in Pakistan and resulted in the death penalty being reinstated for six of the attackers (the seventh and mastermind, Omar Khorasani, was killed in a drone attack in 2016), all of whom were foreign nationals. The massacre sent shockwaves through the country and the Pakistani Taliban was widely condemned. Parallels in the nature and preparation of the attack have been drawn with the Beslan school siege in North Ossetia, Russia, in 2004. 

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Two days after the Charlie Hebdo shootings, Amedy Coulibaly attacked the people in a kosher food shop in Porte de Vincennes in Paris.

Four people were killed in this attack, all of whom were Jewish, as fifteen others were held hostage. In an interview during a stand off with police, Coulibaly said that he had specifically targeted Jews. Coulibaly's wife, Hayat Boumeddiene, was a suspected accomplice. The siege was ended when the police stormed the store, and Coulibaly was shot and killed.

It was later revealed that Coulibaly had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and was a close friend of the Charlie Hebdo shooters, Saïd Kouachi and Chérif Kouachi, after meeting them in jail in 2005. 

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On 17 August 2015, a bomb exploded in Erawan Shrine in Bangkok, killing 20 people and injuring 125.

CCTV footage showed a man, believed to be the bomber, leaving a bag on the floor in the shrine and walking out before the bomb exploded. Adem Karadag was arrested and accused of being the bomber. Police also gave an account of a network of around 17 people who they believed helped to plot, prepare and plant the bomb.

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Metrojet Flight 9268 disintegrated above the northern Sinai on 31 October 2015 on route from Egypt to Russia. The aircraft was carrying 217 passengers and seven crew members; all of whom were killed.

Of those aboard, mostly tourists, there were 219 Russians, four Ukrainians, and one Belarusian. The possibility that a bomb was put on the aircraft at Sharm el-Sheikh led several countries to suspend flights to that airport. Although the cause was initially unclear, shortly after the crash, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)'s Sinai Branch, claimed responsibility for the incident. By November, British and American authorities suspected that a bomb was responsible for the crash and the Russian Federal Security Service announced on 17 November that they were sure that it was a terrorist attack, caused by an improvised bomb.

Three suicide bombers struck near the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, followed by suicide bombings and mass shootings at cafés, restaurants and a music venue in central Paris.

The attackers killed 130 people, including 89 at the Bataclan theatre, where they took hostages before engaging in a stand-off with police. Another 368 people were injured, 80–99 seriously. Seven of the attackers also died.

The attacks were the deadliest on France since World War II, and the deadliest in the European Union since the Madrid train bombings in 2004. France had been on high alert since the January 2015 attacks on Charlie Hebdo offices and a Jewish supermarket in Paris that killed 17 people and wounded 22, including civilians and police officers. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying that it was retaliation for the French airstrikes on ISIL targets in Syria and Iraq. The President of France, François Hollande, said the attacks were an act of war by ISIL planned in Syria, organised in Belgium, and perpetrated with help from citizens of France. All of the known Paris attackers were EU citizens who had fought in Syria. Some of them had returned to Europe among the flow of migrants and refugees.

On the morning of 22 March 2016, three coordinated nail bombings occurred in Belgium: two at Brussels Airport in Zaventem, and one at Maalbeek metro station in Brussels.

In these attacks, 32 victims and three perpetrators were killed, and over 300 people were injured. Another bomb was found during a search of the airport. Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed responsibility for the attacks. The bombings were the deadliest act of terrorism in Belgium's history. Two suicide bombers, carrying explosives in large suitcases, attacked a departure hall at Brussels Airport. A third bomb was found in a search of the airport and was later destroyed by a controlled explosion.

Belgium's federal prosecutor confirmed that the suicide bombers had detonated nail bombs.

Another explosion took place just over an hour later in the middle carriage of a three-carriage train at Maalbeek metro station, located near the European Commission headquarters in the centre of Brussels. A total of five attackers were involved, with three of them dying in suicide bombings and the remaining two arrested in the weeks after. All had involvement in the planning and organization of the November 2015 Paris attacks.

On 16th June 2016, one week before the EU referendum, Labour MP for Batley and Spen, Jo Cox died after being shot and stabbed multiple times. Cox was on her way to a meeting with voters, at the library in Bristall when the attack took place.  

Thomas Mair, was found guilty of her terrorist murder. While attacking her, Mair is reported to have yelled: “Britain first, keep Britain independent, Britain will always come first and this is for Britain”

A local man, Bernard Kenny, 77, was also injured in the attack as he tried to fend off the attacker.

Mair was sentenced to whole-life imprisonment. The judge claimed that the murder was inspired by  ‘admiration for Nazism, and similar anti-democratic white supremacist creeds’. 

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Four suicide bombings exploded across Saudi Arabia on 4 July 2016.

Four people were killed when a bomb exploded in the parking lot of the Al-Masjid an-Nabawi. The second and third suicide bombers targeted the Shia mosque in Qatif, but no one else was harmed. The final explosion occurred after police tried to arrest the suicide bomber near the US consulate in Jeddah. Two Saudi Arabian police officers were injured. The attack was the first ever terror attack that occurred in Medina. No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks but ISIS is suspected. 

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A truck was deliberately driven into the Christmas market at Breitscheidplatz in Berlin, leaving 12 people dead and 56 injured.

One of the victims was the original driver, Lukasz Urban, from Poland, who was found shot dead in the passenger seat. The subsequent investigation found that the driver had been killed several hours before the truck was driven into the market. The perpetrator was Anis Amri, a failed asylum seeker from Tunisia. Amri had previously been sentenced to four years in prison for violence and robbery, which he served in two jails in Sicily. He was then told to return to Tunisia, but the authorities there refused to accept him, around this time (in 2015) it is believed he went to Germany. After a four day manhunt, Amri was killed in a shootout with police in Milan, Italy.

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A car was deliberately driven into pedestrians on the pavement along the south side of Westminster Bridge, killing five and injuring 50. 

After the car crashed into a perimeter fence at the Westminster side of the bridge, the attacker abandoned it and ran into New Palace Yard where he fatally stabbed an unarmed police officer. A nearby firearms police officer, seeing the attack, shot and killed the assailant. The attack lasted just 82 seconds in total.

The perpetrator of the attack was Khalid Masood, a 52 year-old British man who changed his name and converted to Islam in 2005. He had previously served two prison sentences; for grievious bodily harm in 2000 and for posession of an offensive weapon in 2003.

Whilst MI5 did know of Masood - in 2010 he had been investigated as a potential Islamist extremist - he was described as a "peripheral" figure and not considered a terrorist threat. The Metropolitan Police said he was not the subject of any current investigations and there was no prior intelligence about his intent to mount a terrorist attack.

ISIL claimed responsibility for the attack, but this has been questioned by UK investigative authorities who believe he acted alone, although Masood is believed to have had an interest in jihad.  

The attack condemned across the UK and the world. On 23 March, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh faith leaders met officers at Scotland Yard to discuss responses to the attack. In the evening of 23 March there was a public candlelit vigil in Trafalgar Square to honour victims of the attack. It was led by the Mayor of London Sadiq Kahn and the Home Secretary Amber Rudd.

In the late hours on the evening of 3rd June 2017, three Islamist terrorists: ringleader Khuram Shahzad Butt, Youssef Zaghba and Rachid Redouane committed the third major terrorist incident in the United Kingdom of the year. 

Two of the three men were known to police. Butt was a Pakistani born British citizen, an investigation had been opened on him by counter-terrorism officers following reports of him attempting to radicalise children. He was also featured on a Channel 4 documentary The Jihadis Next Door.
Zaghba, born in Morocco to a Moroccan father and Italian mother, was living in east London and held a dual Moroccan and Italian citizenship. He was monitored continuously whilst living in Italy and had been placed on a watch list that was shared with several countries including the UK.
Redouane was not previously known to police and was claimed to be either Moroccan or Libyan.

The three men drove a hired white Renault van into pedestrians on London Bridge, mounting the pavement and killing three. Armed with 30cm kitchen knives tied to their wrists using leather straps, they then fled the van and ran to the Borough market area, where they stabbed four people. The attackers were shot dead within 8 minutes of the incident by City of London and Metropolitan police services. They were also discovered to have been wearing fake bomb vests.

 In total, eight people lost their life; a Briton, Spaniard, Canadian, 2 Australians and 3 French citizens, with a further 48 injured. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack on the following day. 

There was a resonance of praise for the emergency services following the incident for their quick and effective response. A vigil was held to remember the victims led by London mayor, Sadiq Khan. Khan was quoted saying – “by standing together as a city we will send a powerful message here and around the world - that Londoners will never be cowed by terrorism.” 

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On the afternoon of 17th August 2017, a van was driven into pedestrians, crashing for about 550m, on La Ramblas in Barcelona, Spain. The attack claimed the lives of 13 victims, and injured a further 130. The driver then fled on foot and hijacked a car, by stabbing and killing his 14th victim.

Nine hours later, on the 18th of August 2017 in nearby Cambrils, five men in an Audi A3, thought to be linked to the van attacker, drove the car into a crowd of people before it overturned. The 5 men then exited the vehicle wearing fake suicide vests and began to attack bystanders with knives. Police shot dead all five assailants, who killed one woman and injured 6 others.

Younes Abouyaaqoub, believed to be the driver of the van used in Barcelona attack, was shot and killed by police four days later on 21 August, near a gas station in Subirats about 25 miles from Barcelona. 

The overall death toll rose to 16 after a woman died of her injuries in hospital on 27th August 2017. More than a 100 people from over 34 nations were also injured, 15 critically, in the attacks. 

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On 31st October 2017, shortly after 3pm local time, a rented vehicle struck cyclists and pedestrians in New York, as it drove down a cycle path on West Houston Street, Lower Manhattan. It was driven for many blocks before hitting a school bus and coming to a halt.

The driver exited the vehicle holding what appeared to be two hand guns before he was shot in the abdomen by a police officer.

The incident killed 8 people and injured 12 (including the suspect). It was the worst act of terror New York has seen since 9/11.

The attacker was named as Sayfullo Saipov, a 29-year-old Uzbek Immigrant who claimed to be inspired by Islamic State.
Videos containing Islamic State propaganda were found on his phone. The attack fits the recent pattern of vehicle attacks perpetrated by Islamic State.

Saipov appeared in federal court in a wheelchair the next day where he did not enter a plea, and was then transferred from hospital to prison.

New York mayor, Bill de Blasio, called the incident “a particularly cowardly act of terror”. 

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On the morning of 23rd March 2018, Moroccan born French national, Radouane Ladkim, 25, killed four people and injured a further 16 after carrying out a series of attacks.

The petty criminal known to police and on the radar for links to radical Salafist networks, first approached a parked car in Carcasonne, wounding the driver and shooting dead an accompanying passenger, whose body was later found hidden in a bush.

Lakdim then drove the car towards military and police barracks, shooting at four officers returning from a jog, seriously injuring one.

The attacker then continued to Super U supermarket in Trèbes, armed with a gun, knife and explosives.
He is reported to have declared being a soldier of ISIS upon entry and immediately shot dead a staff member followed by a customer.
Dozens of shoppers managed to flee before Lakdim proceeded to hold hostages inside the supermarket.

The hostage situation lasted over 3 hours, during which the attacker was heard screaming "Vengeance for Syria!" and also demanded the release of Paris attacker Salah Abdeslam.
All hostages were eventually released and  police officer Lt. Col. Arnaud Beltrame offered to trade places with one of the female hostages who Lakdim was using as a human shield.
The officer left his phone on and to one side inside the supermarket, so that his colleagues on the outside could hear his interactions with the attacker. As soon as gunfire were heard, police entered and shot dead Lakdim.
Beltrame was shot whilst entering the supermarket, and later died in hospital from bullet and stab wounds.

French president, Emmanuel Macron, praised Lt. Col. Arnaud Beltrame in a statement following his death, saying he died “in the service of the nation to which he had already contributed so much, by giving his life to end the murderous escapade of a jihadist terrorist, he died a hero."

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On 13th May 2018, 3 suicide attacks targeting churches were carried out in the Indonesian city of Surabaya, in which 13 people lost their lives. 

A family of 6 were behind the wave of blasts, which the youngest member being a nine-year-old girl. 

The two brothers of the family carried out the first attack by detonating explosives they were carrying on motorcycles at the first church location.
The other two attacks took place 5 minutes apart, with the mother and 2 daughters detonating suicide vests at one church, while the father of the family targeted another with a vehicle full of explosives.

The blasts were coordinated to target those attending morning services. 

ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, with police confirming that the family had recently spent time in Syria.

The bombings were the deadliest on Indonesian soil since 2005.

Hours later, another exploded in an apartment in the city of Sidoarjo, as police were conducting a raid. The explosion killed 3 adults inside who were believed to be planning similar attacks.

The following day, on 14th May 2018, another suicide attack was launched at police headquarters in Surabaya by a family of 5, believed to have been friends with the family who had carried out the deadly church attacks the day before.
4 of the perpetrators were killed in the attack, with the 7-year-old daughter surviving the blast. 10 civilians were injured. 

On Tuesday 29th May 2018, in the city of Liège, Belgium, Benjamin Herman, who had been given temporary release from prison the day before, stabbed two police officers as they were checking parking meters and then shot them dead with one of their service revolvers. They were identified as Lucile Garcia, 53, and Soraya Belkacemi, 45.
He then shot dead university student, Cyriel Vangriecken, 22, who was in the passenger seat of a car stopped at a red light close to where where the officers had been killed. 

Herman went on to enter a nearby school, taking a cleaner hostage. Herman agreed not to harm the cleaner, named only as Darifa, once he had confirmed that she was a Muslim observing Ramadan.  Herman was subsequently shot by police as he left the school building. 

It was confirmed that Herman shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ several times during his shooting spree, and the next day the Islamic State’s news outlet declared him a ‘soldier of the caliphate’. 

The following day it also emerged that Herman had committed a murder on Monday night as well, killing his former prison-mate, Michael Wilmet by hitting him repeatedly with a hammer in his apartment. 

The attacks were treated as ‘terrorist murder’ by prosecutors, with local media reporting that he may have been radicalised whilst in jail. The gunman had been in and out of prison since he was a teenager, with his criminal record including assault and drug offences. 

On Wednesday 25th July 2018, in the early hours of the morning, a surprise coordinated offensive by the Islamic State in the city of Sweida and nearby towns and villages in south-western Syria, claimed the lives of more than 240 people. 

The attack involved four suicide bombings in mainly government-held Sweida, and simultaneous raids in which militants stormed nearby villages, slaughtering civilians, by knocking on doors and shooting them in their homes.  

Islamic State claimed responsibility by saying 'soldiers of the Caliphate' attacked Syrian government positions and security outposts in Sweida city, then detonated explosive belts.

The areas were mostly populated by the minority Druze sect, who were targeted for their belief system as they are considered heretics by the Islamic State.

The offensive developed into armed clashes with the local militiamen, with government forces killing two suicide bombers before they had an opportunity to detonate their vests. At least 56 jihadists died carrying out the assault. 

The attack was one of the deadliest in the history of the Syrian civil war. 

On the morning of 27th October 2018, 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighbourhood of Pittsburgh lost their lives and 6 others were injured when gunman, Robert Bowers, opened fire during the morning’s Shabbat services. The shooting is  believed to be the worst recorded anti-Semitic attack in American history according to a statement from the Anti-Defamation League, which tracks anti-Semitic incidents.  ​

Shortly before the attack, Bowers, 46, posted on the social media platform ‘Gab’ that: “HIAS [Jewish Refugee Aid Organisation] likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in”. The social networking site, Gab, attracted and targeted the alt-right and far-right as its target audience. In the aftermath of the attack Gab has taken itself offline.

By 9.50am local time, Bowers had entered the building armed with Glock .357 handguns and a Colt AR-15 rifle and opened fire - just five minutes after the morning’s services had begun. He continued to shoot for around 20 minutes before the SWAT team arrived and entered the building. Bowers exchanged gunfire with both the police and SWAT team, wounding two police officers and three members of the SWAT team, one critically. Two civilians were also wounded.

At 11.08am Bowers surrendered after becoming wounded himself in the exchange of fire. After having been taken into custody he told a SWAT officer he wanted “all Jews to die”.

As of 01/11/2018, Bowers faces 44 federal charges – most of them being death penalty offences. Included are 11 counts each of obstruction of the free exercise of religious belief resulting in death and use of a firearm to commit murder during a crime of violence.