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Stabbing attacks, which have been used as a tactic for thousands of years, became an increasingly common form of terrorism targeting random civilians in the 21st century, in particular during the 2010s and 2020s. [1]
In May 2016, Al-Qaeda's Inspire published an article entitled "O Knife Revolution, Head Toward America." [2] The magazine urged Muslims to kill "the intelligentsia, economic and influential personalities of America," by low-tech methods including stabbing attacks on the grounds that such assaults are "easy options that do not require huge efforts or man power, but the result is parallel to the big operations or even more." [2] [3]
In October 2016, Rumiyah , the online propaganda and recruitment magazine published by the Islamic State (IS) told followers that holy warriors down through Muslim history have "struck the necks of the kuffar" in the name of Allah, with "swords, severing limbs and piercing the fleshy meat of those who opposed Islam." The magazine advised its readers that knives are easy to obtain, easy to hide, and deadly, and that they make good weapons in places where Muslims might be regarded with suspicion. [4] [3]
According to security analyst Peter Bergen, stabbing attacks have gained popularity because such attacks are inexpensive and easy to carry out, but very difficult for security services to prevent. [5] According to Juan Romero, this resurgence emerged first with the GIA in the 1990s and later among Palestinian terrorists and Islamic State militants in the 21st century. [6]
A wave of lone wolf terrorist stabbing attacks in which Palestinian Arabs attacked Israelis began on 3 October 2015 with the first of the Lions' Gate stabbings. [7] The ensuing 2015–2016 wave of violence in Israeli-Palestinian conflict is thought to have been driven not by formal organizations but, rather by social media postings inspiring young Palestinians to undertake attacks with knives and with vehicles. [8] [7] [9] [10] In response, Israeli police have revamped their anti-terrorism tactics, increasing monitoring of social media, improving the intercommunication of mobile devices, and giving security agencies the ability to instantly trace phone calls made from such devices. [11]
The series of Palestinian stabbing attacks were followed by the spread of such attacks during the wave of Islamic terrorism in Europe which had seen "at least" 10 stabbing attacks allegedly motivated by Islamic extremism in Europe by the spring of 2017, with a particular concentration of such attacks in France. [12] [13]
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war against non-combatants. There are various different definitions of terrorism, with no universal agreement about it. Different definitions of terrorism emphasize its randomness, its aim to instill fear, and its broader impact beyond its immediate victims.
Islamic terrorism refers to terrorist acts carried out by fundamentalist militant Islamists and Islamic extremists.
A lone wolf attack, or lone actor attack, is a particular kind of mass murder, committed in a public setting by an individual who plans and commits the act on their own. In the United States, such attacks are usually committed with firearms. In other countries, knives are sometimes used to commit mass stabbings. Although definitions vary, most databases require a minimum of four victims for the event to be considered a mass murder.
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 2011 Tel Aviv nightclub attack was a combined vehicular assault and stabbing attack which occurred on 29 August 2011 when a Palestinian attacker stole an Israeli taxi cab and rammed it into a police checkpoint guarding the popular nightclub, Haoman 17, in Tel Aviv which was filled with 2,000 Israeli teenagers. After crashing into the checkpoint, the attacker jumped out of the vehicle and began stabbing people. Four civilians, four police officers, and the assailant were injured in the attack. The assailant was living illegally in Israel at the time of the attack.
Islamic extremism in the United States comprises all forms of Islamic extremism occurring within the United States. Islamic extremism is an adherence to fundamentalist interpretations of Islam, potentially including the promotion of violence to achieve political goals. In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, Islamic extremism became a prioritized national security concern of the U.S. government and a focus of many subsidiary security and law enforcement entities. Initially, the focus of concern was on foreign Islamic terrorist organizations, particularly al-Qaeda, but in the course of the years since the September 11 terror attacks, the focus has shifted more towards Islamic extremist radicalized individuals and jihadist networks within the United States.
A vehicle-ramming attack, also known as a vehicle as a weapon or VAW attack, is an assault in which a perpetrator deliberately rams a vehicle into a building, people, or another vehicle. According to Stratfor Global Intelligence analysts, this attack represents a relatively new militant tactic that could prove more difficult to prevent than suicide bombings.
On 21 December 2014, a Muslim man in the French city of Dijon was arrested after a vehicle-ramming attack in which he drove a van into pedestrians in five areas of the city in the space of half an hour. Thirteen people were injured, two of them seriously.
During the morning rush hour of 21 January 2015, a Palestinian man from Tulkarm, West Bank boarded a bus in Tel Aviv and stabbed multiple people in a terrorist attack. After the bus he boarded had driven about 400 meters, the Palestinian attacked the driver, who fought back, before turning to other passengers and attacking them. The bus stopped, with the passengers fleeing, and the Palestinian attacked others too. Israeli police shot the terrorist in the foot and arrested him.
On 3 October 2015, a Palestinian resident of al-Bireh attacked the Benita family near the Lions' Gate in Jerusalem, as they were on their way to the Western Wall to pray. The attacker murdered Aaron Benita, the father of the family, and injured the mother Adele and their 2-year-old son Matan. Nehemia Lavi, a resident who heard screams and came to help was also murdered and his gun taken by the assailant. The attacker, 19 year old Muhanad Shafeq Halabi was shot and killed by police as he was firing on pedestrians.
An increase of violence occurred in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict starting in the autumn of 2015 and lasting into the first half of 2016. It was called the "Intifada of the Individuals" by Israeli sources, the Knife Intifada, Stabbing Intifada or Jerusalem Intifada by international sources because of the many stabbings in Jerusalem, or Habba by Palestinian sources. 38 Israelis and 235 Palestinians were killed in the violence. 558 Israelis and thousands of Palestinians were injured.
On 8 January 2016, two suspected militants, armed with a melee weapon and a signal flare, allegedly arrived by sea and stormed the Bella Vista Hotel in the Red Sea city of Hurghada, Egypt, stabbing two foreign tourists from Austria and one from Sweden. One of the attackers, 21-year-old student Mohammed Hassan Mohammed Mahfouz, was killed by police as he tried to take a woman hostage. The other attacker was injured. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claimed responsibility.
On 8 March 2016, a 21-year-old Palestinian man from Qalqilya killed an American tourist and wounded ten civilians in a stabbing spree in Jaffa Port, Tel Aviv, Israel. The attacker was shot dead by the police after a chase along the beach promenade.
On 5 October 2016, three police officers were attacked by a man wielding a machete in the Schaerbeek municipality of Brussels, Belgium. Two of them suffered stab wounds, while the third was physically assaulted but otherwise uninjured. The suspected assailant, a Belgian citizen named Hicham Diop, was apprehended and charged with attempted terrorism-related murder and participating in a terrorist group.
On 9 October 2016 in Jerusalem, Musbah Abu Sbaih, a Hamas militant shot 8 people from a car near the Ammunition Hill light rail stop, killing two and wounding six. The police gave chase, Shaih was shot and killed while shooting at pursuing police.
On 14 July 2017, three Arab-Israeli men left the Temple Mount, and opened fire on Israeli border police officers stationed near the Gate of the Tribes which is close to the Lions' Gate. Two Israeli border police officers were killed and two more were injured in the attack. All three attackers were shot and killed by Israeli police after fleeing back into the complex.
The Halamish attack, or the Halamish massacre was a terrorist attack on a Jewish family in the West Bank Israeli settlement of Halamish, that took place on 21 July 2017, in which three Israelis were stabbed to death and one severely wounded. The victims of the attack were Yosef Salomon, his daughter Chaya and son Elad, the three who were murdered in the attack, and Tova Salomon, Yosef's wife, who was injured but survived.
The 2017 Temple Mount crisis was a period of violent tensions related to the Temple Mount, which began on 14 July 2017, after a shooting incident in the complex in which Palestinian gunmen killed two Israeli police officers. Following the attack, Israeli authorities installed metal detectors at the entrance to the Mount in a step that caused large Palestinian protests and was severely criticized by Palestinian leaders, the Arab League, and other Muslim leaders, on the basis that it constituted a change in the "status quo" of the Temple Mount entry restrictions.
The Rafah terror attack was a terrorist attack conducted by the Islamic State – Sinai Province on an Egyptian Armed Forces checkpoint in Rafah in North Sinai on 7 July 2017 and resulted in the death and injury of 23 Egyptian soldiers, including the high-ranking El-Sa'ka officer, Col. Ahmed Mansi. 46 terrorists were killed and six cars of the militants were destroyed in the attack.
On 3 September 2021 at 14:40 NZST, eight people were injured in a mass stabbing at the LynnMall Countdown supermarket in New Lynn, Auckland, New Zealand. The attacker, Ahamed Samsudeen, was being followed by police officers, who intervened during the attack and shot and killed him after he charged the officers. He was pronounced dead at the scene. The incident was treated as terrorism and was "ISIS-inspired" according to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. It was the second stabbing in less than four months to occur at a Countdown supermarket, the first being in Dunedin, and the first terrorist attack in New Zealand since the Christchurch mosque shootings in 2019.
