New York City, the largest and most populous city in the United States, [1] [2] [3] has been the target of numerous acts of terrorism throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. The city, in particular, was one of the targets of the September 11 attacks, the single deadliest terrorist attack in history, which saw the destruction of the World Trade Center and the loss of 2,753 lives. [4] [5] The most recent fatal terrorist incident was a vehicle-ramming attack in Lower Manhattan, which killed eight people and injured eleven on October 31, 2017. [6]
Date | Method | Perpetrator | Motive | K | I | Description |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
July 4, 1914 | Bombing | Premature explosion of bombs stored by Anarchist Black Cross | Planned to blow up John D. Rockefeller's home in Tarrytown, New York | 4 | 20 | A large quantity of dynamite, and a lot of guns in a backpack which was apparently being used to construct a bomb to blow up John D. Rockefeller's Tarrytown home, exploded prematurely at a new seven-story model tenement on Lexington Avenue in East Harlem, Manhattan, killing three conspirators and another renter who was not part of the bomb plot. [7] |
September 16, 1920 | Bombing (animal-borne) | Unknown; suspected to be Galleanist anarchists | Possible revenge for the arrests of Sacco and Vanzetti and/or the deportation of Luigi Galleani | 38 | 143 | A bomb exploded on September 16, 1920, in the Financial District of Manhattan, New York City. The blast killed 38 people and seriously injured 143, and the total number of injured was in the hundreds. [8] The bombing was never solved, although investigators and historians believe the Wall Street bombing was carried out by Galleanists (Italian anarchists), a group responsible for a series of bombings the previous year. [9] |
1940 to 1956 | Bombings | George Metesky | Resent toward old workplace injury | 0 | 15 | Between 1940 and 1956, Metesky planted at least 33 bombs, of which 22 exploded, injuring 15 people. He had been angry and resentful about events surrounding a workplace injury suffered years earlier. [10] |
July 27 to November 12, 1969 | Bombings | Sam Melville | Anti-war activism [11] | 0 | 20 | Melville committed a series of eight bombings on various buildings in New York City in 1969. [11] Most of these bombs detonated during the night and did not injure anyone, [11] but one bombing occurred on the 8th floor of the Marine Midland Building in the Financial District on August 20, 1969, injuring 20 people. [12] |
March 6, 1970 | Bombing | Weather Underground | Planned to blow up sites in the New York area as part of opposition to Vietnam War | 3 | 2 | On March 6, 1970, a bomb being assembled by American radical left group Weather Underground accidentally exploded at West 11th Street in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, killing three members and injuring two other members. [13] |
January 24, 1975 | Bombing | FALN | Retaliation for bombing in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico | 4 | 50+ | A bomb planted in Fraunces Tavern in the Financial District exploded on January 24, 1975, killing four people and injuring more than 50 others. The Puerto Rican freedom fighters "Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña" (Armed Forces of Puerto Rican National Liberation, or FALN), which had executed other bomb incidents in New York in the 1970s, claimed responsibility. No one had been prosecuted for the bombing as of April 17, 2013. [14] [15] |
December 29, 1975 | Bombing | Unknown | Unknown | 11 | 74 | A bomb near the TWA baggage reclaim terminal in LaGuardia Airport in East Elmhurst, Queens, killed 11 and seriously injured 74. The bombing was never solved, with several suggested perpetrators, although investigators and historians believe that Croatian nationalists were the most likely. [16] |
September 11, 1976 | Bombing | Croatian nationalists | Sought Croatian independence from Yugoslavia | 1 | 30 | A group of Croatian nationalists planted a bomb in a coin locker at Grand Central Terminal on September 11, 1976. The group also hijacked TWA Flight 355. After stating their political demands, they revealed the location and provided the instructions for disarming the Grand Central Terminal bomb. The disarming operation was not executed properly and the resulting explosion wounded over 30 and killed one NYPD bomb squad specialist. [17] [18] |
August 3, 1977 | Bombing | FALN | Sought Puerto Rican independence from United States | 1 | 7 | Two bombs exploded in Manhattan office buildings. The first bomb exploded in the offices of the US Department of Defense at 9:37am, but the bomb had been detected and people moved to safety; no injuries. The second bomb exploded about an hour later in the offices Mobil Oil Corporation - killing one person and injuring seven. TV stations and newspapers had been contacted that morning with warnings that bombs had been placed in more offices throughout Manhattan leading to the evacuation of 100,000 office workers throughout the borough. [19] |
February 26, 1993 | Truck bombing | Ramzi Yousef, Eyad Ismoil, other co-conspirators | Islamic terrorism | 6 | 1,042 | On February 26, 1993, a 1,336-pound (606 kg) urea nitrate–hydrogen gas enhanced device [20] was detonated at the World Trade Center by Ramzi Yousef and Eyad Ismoil, with the intent of sending the North Tower (Tower 1) crashing into the South Tower (Tower 2), thus bringing both towers down and killing tens of thousands of people. [21] [22] in vengeance for America's support for Israel against Palestine. [23] It failed to do so but killed six people and injured over a thousand. [24] |
March 1, 1994 | Shooting Shooting | Rashid Baz Ali Hassan Abu Kamal | Islamic Terrorism | 1 2 | 3 6 | On March 1, 1994, Ari Halberstam was shot on the Brooklyn Bridge while riding in a School Bus with Hebrew lettering. Ari Halberstam was declared dead from this attack on March 6, 1994. 3 other students were injured in the gun fire. On February 23, 1997, Kamal, a 69-year-old Palestinian teacher, opened fire on the observation deck of the Empire State Building in Midtown Manhattan The gunman killed one person and wounded six others before taking his own life with a gunshot to the head. |
Date | Method | Perpetrator | Motive | K | I | Description |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
September 11, 2001 | Aircraft hijacking suicide attack | Al-Qaeda | Islamic terrorism | 2,996 | 6,000+ | American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, respectively, hijacked and flown into buildings one and two (the "Twin Towers") of the World Trade Center. The towers subsequently collapsed due to structural weakening from the impact and subsequent fire. The attack remains the deadliest terrorist attack in world history. [4] [5] |
March 6, 2008 | Bombing | Unknown | Unknown | 0 | 0 | Improvised explosive device detonated in front of a United States Armed Forces recruiting station in Times Square. [25] [26] A bicycling-riding suspect was captured on videotape stopping outside the recruiting station, setting the bomb and lighting the fuse, but the perpetrator was never found, despite an offer of a $115,000 reward from the FBI and New York Police Department for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrator. [26] [27] The FBI said in 2015 that the case may be connected to two other unsolved bombings in New York City, both involving bicycle-riding suspects: at the British consulate (2005) and the Mexican consulate (2007). [27] |
May 20, 2009 | Attempted bombing and military attack | "Newburgh Four" | Islamic terrorism, antisemitism | 0 | 0 | Four men arrested in connection to a plot to shoot down military airplanes at Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh, New York, and bomb two synagogues in the Bronx suburb of Riverdale. [28] [29] |
May 1, 2010 | Attempted bombing | Faisal Shahzad | Islamic terrorism | 0 | 0 | Failed car bombing of Times Square, after the device failed to detonate and was disarmed after its discovery. Shahzad was implicated and arrested two days later. [30] [31] [32] [33] |
October 23, 2014 | Stabbing attack | Zale H. Thompson | Islamic terrorism | 1 | 3 | Hatchet attack on four New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers in Jamaica, Queens; two officers were injured in the attack, while a passer-by was injured and the perpetrator killed in the ensuing shoot-out. [34] [35] |
December 20, 2014 | Shooting | Ismaaiyl Abdullah Brinsley | Anti-police sentiment | 3 | 0 | Ambush of two NYPD officers, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu. Done out of hatred of police following the shootings of Eric Garner and Michael Brown by police officers. The suspect committed suicide after the killings. [36] |
April 2, 2015 | Attempted bombing | Asia Siddiqui and Noelle Velentzas | Islamic terrorism | 0 | 0 | Siddiqui and Velentzas, former roommates in Jamaica, Queens, were arrested for conspiring to carry out a pressure cooker bombing in New York City, in support of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the ISIL. [37] [38] They were caught as part of an FBI counter-terrorism sting operation. [39] Both pleaded guilty in 2019 to "teaching and distributing information pertaining to the making and use of an explosive, destructive device, and weapon of mass destruction, intending that it be used to commit a federal crime of violence." [40] Siddiqui was sentenced to 15 years in January 2020. [39] |
June 13, 2015 | Attempted bombing | Munther Omar Saleh, Fareed Mumuni, third undisclosed | Islamic terrorism | 0 | 0 | Saleh, Mumuni, and third unnamed conspirator arrested in connection to a plot to carry out a pressure cooker bombing in New York City in support of the Islamic State. [41] [42] [43] |
September 17, 2016 | Bombing | Ahmad Khan Rahimi | Islamic terrorism | 0 | 31 | Rahimi, who was inspired by Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki, placed two shrapnel-filled pressure cooker bombs in Chelsea, Manhattan. The first bomb detonated, causing a massive blast in which 30 people were injured by shrapnel. The second bomb failed to explode. Hours earlier, a bomb that Rahimi placed along a race route in Seaside Park, New Jersey. Before being captured by police, Rahimi also planted a backpack full of explosives at a New Jersey Transit station in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Rahimi was convicted by a federal jury of all charges against him for the New York bombs, involving attempted murder, aggravated assault, and weapons offenses. He was given a second life sentence in New Jersey state court for a shootout in which he attempted to kill New Jersey police officers. [44] [45] |
March 20, 2017 | Stabbing attack | James Harris Jackson | White supremacy | 1 | 0 | James Harris Jackson fatally stabbed Timothy Caughman, an African American man, in Hell's Kitchen, with a replica of a Roman sword. Caughman was the intended first victim of a Jackson's planned rampage targeting African American men. Jackson, however, turned himself to police after Caughman's murder instead. In a manifesto, Jackson wrote that he intended to precipitate an apocalyptic "Racial World War" on God's orders "to eliminate the Negro races from the face of the earth." Jackson pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. [46] |
October 31, 2017 | Vehicle-ramming attack | Sayfullo Saipov | Islamist terrorism inspired by ISIL | 8 | 12 | Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov drove a rented pickup truck into cyclists and runners on the Hudson River Park's bike path in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The attack killed eight people, six of whom were foreign tourists, and injured eleven others. After crashing the truck into a school bus, Saipov exited, apparently wielding two guns (later found to be a paintball gun and a pellet gun). He was shot in the abdomen by a policeman and arrested. A flag [ broken anchor ] and a document indicating allegiance to the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) were found in the truck. [47] |
December 11, 2017 | Attempted suicide attack | Ullah Akayed | Islamic terrorism | 0 | 4 | Ullah Akayed—a Bangladeshi electrician living in Brooklyn —attempted a suicide bombing in a passageway between the Times Square–42nd Street and 42nd Street–Port Authority Bus Terminal stations, armed with wires, a pipe bomb, and 9-volt battery. The improvised weapon malfunctioned; Ullah was seriously injured himself and four people were wounded. In 2018, he was convicted in federal court of six offenses, including using a weapon of mass destruction and bombing a public transportation system. Ullah had become radicalized by consuming ISIL propaganda. [48] [49] |
April 12, 2022 | Mass shooting | Frank Robert James | Black supremacy | 0 | 29 | On the morning of April 12, 2022, Frank Robert James is accused of committed a mass shooting on a northbound N train on the New York City Subway in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, New York, United States. [50] The attacker allegedly put on a gas mask, threw two smoke grenades onto the floor of a train car, and opened fire with a Glock 17 9 mm handgun as the train approached the 36th Street station. [51] On January 3, 2023, James entered a guilty plea to 10 counts of committing a terrorist attack, and one count of discharging a firearm [52] |
The FBI Most Wanted Terrorists is a list created and first released on October 10, 2001, with the authority of United States President George W. Bush, following the September 11 attacks (9/11 incident). Initially, the list contained 22 of the top suspected terrorists chosen by the FBI, all of whom had earlier been indicted for acts of terrorism between 1985 and 1998. None of the 22 had been captured by US or other authorities by that date. Of the 22, only Osama Bin Laden was by then already listed on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.
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.
Terrorism in Russia has a long history starting from the time of the Russian Empire. Terrorism, in the modern sense, means violence against civilians to achieve political or ideological objectives by creating extreme fear.
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.
Until the late 2000s, terrorism in Sweden was not seen as a serious threat to the security of the state. However, there has been a rise in far right and Islamist terrorist activity in the 21st century.
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.
Najibullah Zazi is an Afghan-American who was arrested in September 2009 as part of the 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.
Terrorism in France refers to the terrorist attacks that have targeted the country and its population during the 20th and 21st centuries. Terrorism, in this case is much related to the country's history, international affairs and political approach. Legislation has been set up by lawmakers to fight terrorism in France.
In late December 2015, authorities in several countries announced the discovery of attack plots, organized by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), targeting New Year's celebrations. Police in North America and Europe were on high alert in December 2015 because of a series of terrorist attacks and attack plots, including the November 2015 Paris attacks, and because of information picked up by security agencies indicating that militants might plan to attack public New Year's Eve celebrations.
Islamic terrorism has been carried out in Europe by the jihadist groups Islamic State (ISIL) or Al-Qaeda as well as Islamist lone wolves since the late 20th century. Europol, which releases the annual EU Terrorism Situation and Trend report (TE-SAT), used the term "Islamist terrorism" in reports for the years 2006–2010, "religiously inspired terrorism" for the years 2011–2014, and has used "jihadist terrorism" since then. Europol defines jihadism as "a violent ideology exploiting traditional Islamic concepts".
This article covers attacks and activity of terrorism in Belgium.
On December 11, 2017, a pipe bomb partially detonated in a corridor between the Times Square–42nd Street and 42nd Street–Port Authority Bus Terminal subway stations adjoining the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, injuring four people including the bomber. Mayor Bill de Blasio described the incident as "an attempted terrorist attack". The bomber was identified by police as 27-year-old Akayed Ullah, a Salafi Muslim immigrant from Bangladesh; he was convicted in 2018 and sentenced to life in prison in 2021.
The 2020 Jolo bombings occurred on August 24, 2020, when insurgents alleged to be jihadists from the Abu Sayyaf group detonated two bombs in Jolo, Sulu, Philippines, killing 14 people and wounding 75 others. The first occurred as Philippine Army personnel were assisting in carrying out COVID-19 humanitarian efforts. The second, a suicide bombing, was carried out near the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Cathedral.
This is a timeline of terrorist attacks in the United States throughout history.
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