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Failed terrorism plots are terrorist plots that have either been foiled, uncovered by authorities or failed through mistakes.
On December 22, 2001, a failed shoe bombing attempt occurred aboard American Airlines Flight 63. The aircraft, a Boeing 767-300ER (registration N384AA) with 197 passengers and crew aboard, was flying from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, France, to Miami International Airport in the U.S. state of Florida.
The perpetrator, Richard Reid, was subdued by passengers after unsuccessfully attempting to detonate plastic explosives concealed within his shoes. The flight was diverted to Logan International Airport in Boston, escorted by American jet fighters, and landed without further incident. Reid was arrested and eventually sentenced to three life terms plus 110 years, without parole.  | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (September 2010) |
The Tyler poison gas plot was a domestic terrorism plot in Tyler, Texas, United States. It was thwarted in April 2003 with the arrest of William J. Krar, Judith Bruey (Krar's common-law wife) and Edward Feltus and the seizure of a cyanide gas bomb along with a large arsenal that included at least 100 other conventional bombs, machine guns, an assault rifle, an unregistered silencer, and 500,000 rounds of ammunition. [1] The chemical stockpile seized included sodium cyanide, hydrochloric acid, nitric acid and acetic acid.
The three individuals were linked to white supremacist and anti-government groups. [1] Feltus was a member of the New Jersey Militia while Krar was suspected of making his living traveling across the country selling bomb components and other weapons to violent underground anti-government groups. [1] Federal authorities had been watching Krar since at least 1995 when ATF agents investigated a possible plot to bomb government buildings, but he was not charged at the time. Since the September 11 attacks, their attention was focused on middle-eastern terrorist activities and were only alerted to Krar's recent activities by accident when he mailed Feltus a package of counterfeit birth certificates from North Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and United Nations Multinational Force and Defense Intelligence Agency IDs. The package was mistakenly delivered to a Staten Island man who alerted police. [1]
On May 4, 2004, Krar was sentenced to 135 months in prison after he pleaded guilty to building and possessing chemical weapons. Ms. Bruey was sentenced to 57 months after pleading to "conspiracy to possess illegal weapons". [2]
the National Security Agency (NSA) used Internet surveillance to uncover an extremist in Yemen who was in contact with an operative in the United States. Sean Joyce, the deputy director of the FBI, revealed that intelligence agents detected “nascent plotting” to bomb the exchange. [3]
Five men were arrested in late 2005 in Sydney, Australia and charged over a terrorism-plot they planned between July 2004 and November 2005. Each pleaded not guilty to the charges. [4] Police searches of their homes discovered instructions on bomb-making, 28,000 rounds of ammunition (including 11,000 rounds of 7.62×39mm), 12 rifles, militant Islamic literature, and footage of Islamic beheadings as well as footage of the aircraft crashing into the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001. According to the prosecution, the men purchased explosive chemicals and guns between July 2004 and November 2005. [5] [6]
The five: Khaled Cheikho, Moustafa Cheikho, Mohamed Ali Elomar, Abdul Rakib Hasan, and Mohammed Omar Jamal, were found guilty on 16 October 2009 and were jailed on 15 February 2010 for terms ranging from 23 to 28 years. [7] The trial was one of Australia's longest and involved approximately 300 witnesses and 3,000 exhibits, including 18 hours of telephone intercepts and 30 days of surveillance tapes, which has overtaken the record previously held by the liquidation of the Bell Group. [8]
In December 2014 they lost an appeal in the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal against their conviction and sentences. [9]
Seven men were arrested on July 27, 2009 near Raleigh, North Carolina on charges of participating in a conspiracy to commit "violent jihad" outside the United States. An eighth man named in the indictment, believed to be in Pakistan, has not been arrested. [10] The alleged leader of the group, Daniel Patrick Boyd, was accused of recruiting the other seven men, including two of his sons, to take part in a conspiracy “to advance violent jihad, including supporting and participating in terrorist activities abroad and committing acts of murder, kidnapping or maiming persons abroad.” [11]
At their detention hearings, U.S. Magistrate Judge William Webb ruled that all were to be held without bond until trial. [12]
On 25 August 2010, seven individuals were arrested in Ottawa and London, Ontario on terrorism-related charges. [13] It was the culmination of Project Samosa, a year-long probe by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which identified eight members of a cell targeting government buildings on Parliament Hill.
Also known as the "London Stock Exchange bomb plot", [14] nine conspirators were arrested in December 2010 for plotting a terrorist attack; [15] they all eventually pleaded guilty, and eight were convicted of engaging in preparation for acts of terrorism. [16] One of the convicts, Usman Khan, had his sentence reduced on appeal by Lord Justice Leveson. [17] [18] He became Cambridge University's "poster boy for Britain's anti-radicalisation strategy", but he went on to perpetrate the 2019 London Bridge stabbing. [19] [20]
On 31 January 2020, the day the United Kingdom was to withdraw from the European Union, the Police Service of Northern Ireland received two anonymous tips that a bomb inside a lorry would be on a ferry heading from Belfast Harbour to Cainryan, Scotland. [21] While the explosive device was not found at the harbour, or detonated, it would be found on 5 February inside a lorry on the Silverwood Industrial Estate in Lurgan, County Armagh, Northern Ireland after a search of 400 lorries; it was then disarmed by a bomb disposal team. While the perpetrator(s) remain unknown, the PSNI suspects the involvement of the Continuity Irish Republican Army, which would make the bombing part of the Dissident Irish Republican campaign. [22]
A series of Islamist terrorist attacks linked to al-Qaeda were planned to occur on or near January 1, 2000, in the context of millennium celebrations, including bombing plots against four tourist sites in Jordan, the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), USS The Sullivans, and the hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814.
The 2006 Ontario terrorism case is the plotting of a series of attacks against targets in Southern Ontario, Canada, and the June 2, 2006 counter-terrorism raids in and around the Greater Toronto Area that resulted in the arrest of 14 adults and 4 youths . These individuals have been characterized as having been inspired by al-Qaeda.
The 2004 financial buildings plot was a plan led by Dhiren Barot to attack a number of targets in the U.S. and the United Kingdom which is believed to have been approved by al-Qaeda. The evidence against the plotters consisted of home videos, written notes, and files on computers. At the time of the arrests the group had no funding, vehicles, or access to bomb-making equipment.
Terrorism in Australia deals with terrorist acts in Australia as well as steps taken by the Australian government to counter the threat of terrorism. In 2004 the Australian government has identified transnational terrorism as also a threat to Australia and to Australian citizens overseas. Australia has experienced acts of modern terrorism since the 1960s, while the federal parliament, since the 1970s, has enacted legislation seeking to target terrorism.
The Tyler poison gas plot was an American domestic terrorism plan in Tyler, Texas, thwarted in April 2003 with the arrest of three individuals and the seizure of a cyanide gas bomb along with a large arsenal. Authorities had been investigating the white supremacist conspirators for several years and the case received little media coverage and limited attention in public from the government.
Mohammad Momin Khawaja is a Canadian found guilty of involvement in a plot to plant fertilizer bombs in the United Kingdom; while working as a software engineer under contract to the Foreign Affairs department in 2004 became the first person charged and found guilty under the Canadian Anti-Terrorism Act following the proof that he communicated with British Islamists plotting a bomb attack. On March 12, 2009, Khawaja was sentenced to 10.5 years in prison and was eligible for parole five years into the prison term. On December 17, 2010, Khawaja's sentence was increased to life imprisonment by the Ontario Court of Appeals.
In the United States, a common definition of terrorism is the systematic or threatened use of violence in order to create a general climate of fear to intimidate a population or government and thereby effect political, religious, or ideological change. This article serves as a list and a compilation of acts of terrorism, attempts to commit acts of terrorism, and other such items which pertain to terrorist activities which are engaged in by non-state actors or spies who are acting in the interests of state actors or persons who are acting without the approval of foreign governments within the domestic borders of the United States.
Mountaineer Militia was a local anti-government paramilitary group, members of which plotted to blow up an FBI building in Clarksburg, West Virginia in 1996. The group also used the name West Virginia Mountaineer Militia, and had ties with another militias from other states.
On May 20, 2009, US law enforcement arrested four men in connection with a fake plot concocted by a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) informant to shoot down military airplanes flying out of an Air National Guard base in Newburgh, New York, and blow up two synagogues in the Riverdale community of the Bronx using weapons supplied by the FBI. The group was led by Shahed Hussain, a Pakistani criminal who was working for the FBI to avoid deportation for having defrauded the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles. Hussain has never been charged in the United States with any terrorism related offenses and was paid nearly US$100,000 by the FBI for his work on this plot.
The 2005 Sydney terrorism plot concerned a group of five men arrested in 2005 on charges of planning an act of terrorism targeting Sydney, Australia's most populous city and the capital of New South Wales. The group was found guilty on 16 October 2009 and were sentenced on 15 February 2010 for terms up to 28 years.
The 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot was a terrorist plot to detonate liquid explosives, carried aboard airliners travelling from the United Kingdom to the United States and Canada, disguised as soft drinks. The plot was discovered by British Metropolitan Police during an extensive surveillance operation. As a result of the plot, unprecedented security measures were initially implemented at airports. The measures were gradually relaxed during the following weeks, but passengers are still not allowed to carry liquid containers larger than 100 ml onto commercial aircraft in their hand luggage in the UK and most other countries, as of 2024.
The 2009 New York City Subway and United Kingdom plot was a plan to bomb the New York City Subway as well as a target in the United Kingdom.
Najibullah Zazi is an Afghan-American who was arrested in September 2009 as part of the 2009 U.S. al Qaeda group accused of planning suicide bombings on the New York City Subway system, and who pleaded guilty as have two other defendants. U.S. prosecutors said Saleh al-Somali, al-Qaeda's head of external operations, and Rashid Rauf, an al-Qaeda operative, ordered the attack. Both were later killed in drone attacks.
Colleen Renée LaRose, also known as Jihad Jane and Fatima LaRose, is an American citizen who was convicted and sentenced to 10 years for terrorism-related crimes, including conspiracy to commit murder and providing material support to terrorists.
The 2011 Manhattan terrorism plot was a conspiracy by two Muslim Arab-Americans to bomb various targets in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, United States. They had planned to attack an unspecified synagogue and one of them expressed interest in blowing up a church and the Empire State Building. New York City law enforcement arrested the two suspects, 26-year-old Ahmed Ferhani and 20-year-old Mohamed Mamdouh, in a sting operation on May 11, 2011. Their plot was motivated primarily by "hatred of infidels and anti-semitism" according to the authorities.
Usman Khan, also known as Abu Saif, was a Pakistani-British Islamic terrorist and murderer who on 29 November 2019 murdered 2 people and wounded 3 others during an attack near London Bridge before being fatally shot by City of London Police after being subdued by civilians.
Operation Guava is the code name for a long-term British Security Service (MI5) operation. The operation tracked a terrorist cell, which planned "a significant terrorist plot." The Operation Guava plotters used the Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula magazine Inspire as an instruction manual for the bomb they planned to leave in a toilet stall at the London Stock Exchange. The police code name for the investigation was Operation Norbury.
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The poster boy for Britain's anti-radicalisation strategy turned up at the event with a hoax explosive device strapped to his chest
Learning Together, a Cambridge University programme, worked with Usman Khan in prison and after his release and used him as a case study to show how they helped prisoners