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Lebanon pager attack -

At least nine people lost their lives, including an eight-year-old child, and 2,800 were injured in a pager bombing on September 2024. Lebanese hospitals hurried to treat a large influx of patients, including Hezbollah members, injured in a synchronized attack aimed at hundreds of pagers utilized by the militant group. 

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Crocus City Hall attack -

The attack, claimed by an arm of the Islamic State terrorist group, took place at the Crocus City Hall concert hall, in Moscow, on the night of March 22 and left 137 people dead, making it the worst in Russia in the last 20 years. Four gunmen stormed the venue as the band The Picnic was preparing to perform, according to Russian authorities.

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Munich Olympics attack -

One of the most publicized terrorist attacks in modern history, the massacre of 12 members of the Israeli Olympic team by gunmen belonging to the Palestinian militant organization Black September during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, became a worldwide media event.

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Manchester Arena bombing -

Twenty-two people, most of them youngsters, died after Islamic extremist Salman Abedi detonated a bomb inside the Manchester Arena in England following an Ariana Grande concert. Adebi was one of those killed in the explosion.

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Omagh bombing -

The Omagh car bombing of August 15, 1998, was carried out by the Real Irish Republican Army, a splinter group of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The blast killed 29 people and was ordered in opposition to the IRA's ceasefire and the Good Friday Agreement, signed earlier in the year. It is the deadliest single incident of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

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Brussels bombings -

Bombs at Brussels Airport in Zaventem, and one detonated on a train leaving a city center metro station, killed a total of 32 people and maimed many more. The attacks occurred on March 22, 2016.

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Sousse attacks -

On June 26, 2015, 38 people, of whom 30 were British, were murdered in a mass shooting carried out by a lone gunman in the name of the Islamic State. The killings took place in a tourist resort at Port El Kantaoui, about 10 km (6 mi) north of the city of Sousse, in Tunisia.

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London bombings -

Islamic terrorists struck London's transport network on July 7, 2005, when four devices exploded in a coordinated attack that left 52 dead and over 770 injured. Three of the blasts happened on the London Underground. A fourth was detonated on a bus.

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Norway attacks -

In the worst peacetime atrocity in Norway's history, far right terrorist Anders Behring Breivik murdered 77 people in two attacks carried out on July 22, 2011. Another 209 were injured in the deadly killing spree.

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Sharm El Sheikh bombings -

Terrorists killed 88 people, most of them tourists, when car bombs ripped through shopping and hotel areas in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik in Egypt on July 23, 2005. The perpetrators were identified as belonging to the Abdullah Azzam Brigades.

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King David Hotel bombing -

The notorious King David Hotel bombing of July 22, 1946, in Jerusalem claimed the lives of 91 people of various nationalities, including Arabs, Britons, and Jews. Irgun, the militant right-wing Zionist underground organization, said it planted the devices.

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Paris attacks -

Various locations in Paris were pinpointed by Islamic extremists on November 13, 2015, and attacked in a coordinated assault on the French capital. Crowded cafés and restaurants were singled out, as was the Bataclan theater. The terrorists killed 130 people, with seven of their own also dead.

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Oklahoma City bombing -

The deadliest act of terrorism in US history until the September 11 attacks, the truck bombing in Oklahoma City of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995, killed 168 people. Two anti-government extremists and white supremacists, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, were later convicted of the outrage, with McVeigh eventually executed for his role.

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Moscow theater hostage crisis -

Conceived and carried out by Chechen rebels, the seizure of the packed Dubrovka Theater in Moscow on October 23, 2002, involved 850 hostages and eventually led to the deaths of at least 170 people, including all 40 insurgents. The Kremlin's response to the crisis was widely criticized for its use of special forces units and their heavy-handed tactics.

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The Mumbai attacks -

The Mumbai attacks on November 26, 2008, were a series of coordinated assaults on targets across Mumbai in India by militant Islamists from Pakistan. Buildings targeted included Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus and the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel (pictured). A total of 175 people died, including nine of the terrorists.

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Madrid train bombings -

On March 11, 2004, the Spanish capital was rocked by 10 bombs that exploded on four trains during a busy morning rush hour. The blasts killed 193 people and injured 2,000. An Islamist group affiliated with al-Qaeda claimed responsibility. The Madrid train bombings are the deadliest attacks on civilians on European soil since the Lockerbie disaster.

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Bali bombings -

The terrorist organization Jemaah Islamiyah, later found to have links with al-Qaida, claimed responsibility for the October 12, 2002, bombings of two busy Kuta Beach bars in Bali. Another bomb exploded outside the American consulate. The majority of the 202 people killed were Australian citizens.

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East African embassy bombings -

On August 7, 1998, near-simultaneous bombs blew up in front of the American embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. More than 220 died in the attacks, masterminded by al-Qaeda operatives.

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Lockerbie bombing -

An explosion onboard Pan Am Flight 103, which brought down the passenger aircraft over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on December 21, 1988, was blamed on the regime of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. With a total of 270 fatalities, this is the deadliest terrorist attack to date on British soil.

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Beirut barracks bombing -

The bombing of the Beirut barracks in Lebanon on October 23, 1983, claimed 307 lives: 241 US and 58 French military personnel, six civilians, and two attackers. The devasting blast was caused by a dump truck packed with an estimated 5,400 kg (12,000 lbs) of explosives being driven through the compound's front gates before being detonated. A group called Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.

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Air India Flight 182 bombing -

The downing of Air India Flight 182 on June 23, 1985, was the world's deadliest act of aviation terrorism until the September 11 attacks in 2001, killing 329 people (it remains the worst terrorist attack in Canadian history, the doomed plane having originated form Montreal). The Sikh terrorist entity, the Babbar Khalsa separatist group, was implicated in the bombing. Pictured is the wreckage being used to reconstruct the entire plane.

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Beslan school siege -

Chechen separatists were blamed for the Beslan school siege in Russia that began on September 1, 2004. When it ended three days later, 333 people, 186 of them children, were dead. Thirty-one of the attackers were also killed.

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Battle of Tabqa Airbase -

The Battle of Tabqa Airbase refers to a series of clashes between the Islamic State and the Syrian Arab Army in August 2014, during the Syrian Civil War. The number of dead recorded stands at 517.

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Beni attack -

The March 20, 2004, attack carried out by the People's Liberation Army during the Nepalese Civil War (1996–2006) killed 518 people, many of them soldiers stationed at government positions in the town of Beni in western Nepal.

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Mogadishu bombings -

On October 14, 2017, two truck bombs likely placed by members of the Islamist group al-Shabaab exploded in the Hodan District of Mogadishu in Somalia. At least 587 people, most of them civilians, died in the blasts. The attack is currently the deadliest in the country's history.

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Badush prison massacre -

The Badush prison massacre was an atrocity committed by forces loyal to ISIS on inmates at a jail facility in northern Iraq. On June 10, 2014, at least 670 Shia prisoners were murdered by jihadists after they stormed the prison compound. Pictured are Iraqi military vehicles transporting coffins containing DNA-identified remains of inmates for burial.

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Mai Kadra massacre -

A horrifying wave of ethnic cleansing took place in Ethiopia on November 9–10, 2020, in and around the town of Mai Kadra. The first wave of killings were committed by ethnic Tigrayans against Amharas, according to Reuters. Then came revenge killings by forces from the Amhara region. An estimated 766 people from both sides of the ethnic divide died in the fighting. This photograph shows an inscription on a sign at a collective grave in a Mai Kadra cemetery.

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Sinjar massacre -

An estimated 953 people lost their lives in the Iraqi city of Sinjar in August 2014 during a sustained attack by members of the Islamic State. The victims were Kurdish-speaking Yazidis. The massacre marked the beginning of the genocide of Yazidis by the militant Islamist terrorist group.

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Nyarubuye massacre -

Also referred to as the Nyamata church massacre, this outrage took place on April 15, 1994, when upwards of 1,180 Tutsi were murdered by Hutu extremists in Nyarubuye, Rwanda.

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Camp Speicher massacre -

On June 12, 2014, Da'esh/ISIL fighters captured and murdered at least 1,500 Iraqi Shi'a Air Force cadets outside Tikrit Air Academy (formerly known as Camp Speicher). According to Statista, however, the casualty figure is likely nearer 1,700. This atrocity remains the second-deadliest terrorist attack after 9/11.

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September 11 -

The deadliest terrorist atrocity in the world to date took place in the United States on September 11, 2001. A total of 2,996 people (2,977 victims and 19 hijackers) died on that day. In the attacks on the World Trade Center, 2,750 perished.

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September 11 attacks -

The attack on the Pentagon building claimed 183 lives.

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September 11 attacks -

All 44 passengers and crew died when United Airlines Flight 93 crashed outside Shanksville in Pennsylvania after hijackers flew the plane into the ground during a passenger revolt.  

Sources: (Associated Press) (Reuters) (Statista)  

See also: The deadliest passenger plane crashes ever

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