The 50 Worst Terrorist Attacks

by Edward Mickolus

  Mountbatten, an uncle of Prince Phillip, was England’s leading World War II hero. He had been chief of the British Defense Staff, last viceroy of India, admiral of the fleet, Allied commander-in-chief in Southeast Asia, and First Sea Lord. Burma, where he had governed, declared a week of mourning.

  On August 7, 1998, McMahon, 50, was released from an Irish prison as part of the peace process. He had served 19 years of his life sentence. McMahon has since dissociated himself from the IRA.

  November 4, 1979

  Iran Hostage Crisis

  Overview: The overthrow of the Shah by followers of the relatively obscure, elderly, Paris-based Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini caught the Western world by surprise. Iran quickly changed from a pro-U.S. oasis to an unrelentingly hostile base protecting anti-U.S. terrorists. The takeover and subsequent ineffective negotiations were marked each day on television news with headlines of “Iran Hostage Crisis: Day X.” A failed rescue attempt modeled along the lines of the successes of the Israelis and the Germans further added to the American public’s perception of President Jimmy Carter’s administration as feckless in handling the crisis. The Iranians waited to release the hostages until the inauguration of President Ronald Reagan, further taunting Carter until the last possible moment of his presidency, thus ending the 444-day national ordeal.

  Incident: On November 4, 1979, 500 radical students attacked the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, seizing 100 hostages after a two-hour battle in which 14 U.S. Marine guards lobbed tear-gas canisters. The terrorists later picked up Jerry Plotkin, a California electronics businessman, at a Tehran hotel, and brought him to the embassy. The students called for the extradition of the exiled Shah of Iran, who 13 days before traveled to New York to be treated for lymphatic cancer.

  The students claimed that they were armed with only 10 pistols, although they later said that they had mined the embassy grounds and had placed explosive charges throughout the buildings. They threatened to kill the hostages and blow up the embassy compound if the United States attempted a military rescue.

  There was some question as to who was in charge of the attack and with whom the United States could negotiate. The Bazargan cabinet resigned on November 6, 1979, leaving all formal authority in the Khomeini-led Revolutionary Council. A series of foreign ministers—Ibrahim Yazdi, Abol Hassan Bani-Sadr, and Sadegh Ghotzadeh—followed and were frequently defied by those holding the embassy. It appeared that there may have been up to five different groups of students involved—fundamentalist Phalange, Qom theological students, Tehran university students, leftists, and Communists. ABC News reported that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) believed some of the students may have been trained by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Although the students said that they were loyal only to Khomeini, many observers suggested that the PFLP was directing the negotiations.

  While the takeover initially appeared to be student-led, the government quickly moved to back the demands of the students. On November 12, 1979, Bani-Sadr upped the ante, saying that Iran demanded U.S. recognition that the Shah is a criminal and must be extradited, the return to Iran of the Shah’s fortune, and an end to “American meddling” in Iranian domestic affairs. He announced an oil embargo on the United States at the same time President Carter was announcing that the United States would no longer buy Iranian oil. It was also noted that L. Bruce Laingen, the U.S. chargé, and two other U.S. diplomats were being held at the foreign ministry.

  On December 15, 1979, the Shah was flown to Panama from San Antonio, Texas, after successful surgery. Iran requested extradition from Panama, and the students said that this would not affect the freedom of the hostages, whom they threatened to try as spies.

  The American response consisted of incrementally increasing pressure on Iran, as well as diplomatically isolating Tehran. Numerous antiIranian protests in the United States underscored widespread support for the president’s actions. On November 14, 1979, the United States froze Iranian government assets and blocked Iran’s call for a UN Security Council debate. The United States had previously banned the sale of military spare parts to Iran. On November 23, 1979, Finance Minister Bani-Sadr said Iran would refuse to honor $15 billion worth of foreign debts involving loans from 28 private banks. On November 23, 1979, the U.S. Department of Defense canceled pilot training for Iranians. On December 12, 1979, the United States ordered all but 35 of the 218 Iranian diplomats in the United States to leave within five days.

  Internationally, the United States focused on obtaining condemnations of Iran’s actions by governments and international organizations. Scores of governments agreed that Iran had violated fundamental international legal norms. On November 9, 1979, UN Security Council president Sergio Palacios de Vizzio of Bolivia asked that the hostages be released. On December 4, 1979, the council again called for the release of the hostages, and said that the United Nations could be used as a forum for the settlement of Iran’s dispute with the United States. UN secretary general Kurt Waldheim was authorized to use his “good offices” in settling the crisis. On December 31, 1979, the council approved a U.S.-sponsored resolution calling for economic sanctions if Waldheim’s trip to Iran was not successful in obtaining the release of the hostages by January 7, 1980. Waldheim met with hostile demonstrations and was not allowed to meet with the hostages. The United States agreed to temporarily postpone consideration of a sanctions resolution when Iranian UN diplomats claimed to have a proposal to solve the crisis. On January 13, 1980, the Soviet Union vetoed a U.S.-sponsored sanctions resolution.

  In Geneva on November 29, 1979, the United States announced that it would petition the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for interim measures, noting that Iran had violated three international agreements on protection of diplomats, the UN Charter, and the 1955 U.S.–Iran Treaty of Amity. Iran refused to participate in the deliberations. On December 15, 1979, the ICJ unanimously ruled in favor of the U.S. position, calling upon Iran to release the hostages and remove all unauthorized personnel from the U.S. Embassy grounds.

  Tehran claimed that the issue was not its holding of hostages but rather the crimes of the Shah and alleged American intelligence collusion with the former regime. Numerous demonstrations involving tens of thousands of individuals underscored support for this position by Tehran residents. On November 13, 1979, the Revolutionary Council called for the interrogation of the Shah by a team of Iranian-picked investigators to prepare for his eventual trial in Iran. Khomeini repeatedly referred to the embassy as a “nest of spies” and claimed that the hostages had lost their diplomatic immunity due to their actions. On December 8, 1979, the foreign minister said Iran would form an international tribunal to review “the crimes of the U.S. government in Iran,” and that the “spies” would be displayed before the tribunal. This was a departure from previous Iranian statements that the hostages would be tried in Islamic courts or possibly by the students.

  The Iranians sequentially released several of the hostages, ultimately holding only those whom they claimed were spies. Thirty Iranian employees were freed shortly after the students seized the embassy. Three other non-Americans were released the next week. On November 18, 1979, as part of their careful attempts to exploit the heavy media coverage of the embassy siege, the students brought forward three hostages before television cameras. The trio—Kathy Gross, 22, a secretary, and two black U.S. Marine security guard sergeants, Sgt. Ladell Maples, 23, and Sgt. William Quarles, 23—were released the next day. On November 18, 1979, the director of Iranian media said women and blacks would be released. Khomeini so ordered on that day, saying “Islam reserves special rights for women” and that “blacks for a long time lived under oppression and pressure in America and may have been sent [to Iran under duress].” Four white women and six black men flew to Paris on November 20, 1979. The female secretaries were identified as Lillian Johnson, Elizabeth Montagne, Terry Tedford, and Joan Walsh. The blacks were U.S. Marines Sgt. David Walker and Cpl. Wesley Williams, contracting o
fficer Lloyd Rollins, and three U.S. Air Force administrators, S. Sgt. James Hughes, Capt. Neal “Terry” Robinson, and M. Sgt. Joseph Vincent. On November 23, 1979, the students released a Bangladeshi, a Korean, a Pakistani, and two Filipinos. Those remaining, including blacks and a woman, were dubbed spies.

  Visits by outsiders to the hostages were carefully orchestrated as media events by the students. Visitors were not allowed to see all of the hostages, leading observers to suggest that some of the hostages had been removed from the U.S. Embassy grounds.

  Letters from several hostages, including some of those who had been accused of being spies, trickled out of the embassy to the hostages’ families and the Washington Post.

  In late January 1980, the Canadian government helped smuggle out six Americans who had escaped from the U.S. Embassy during the initial attack. The group first hid in the Tehran home of Robert G. Anders, a consular official, and then moved to the Iran–American Society to establish a telephone link with Washington, D.C. They hid at several locations before being given shelter at the Canadian Embassy. Under cover of a general personnel drawdown at the Canadian Embassy, the Americans used Canadian passports to slip out of the country with the rest of the embassy staff. The Canadian heroism triggered an outpouring of pro-Canadian sentiments in the United States and led to the making of the 2012 Oscarwinning movie “Argo.”

  On March 23, 1980, the Shah flew from Panama City to final asylum in Egypt.

  On April 7, 1980, the United States broke diplomatic relations with Iran, imposed an economic embargo banning all exports to Iran except food and medicine, ordered a formal inventory of Iranian financial assets in the United States, and canceled all future visas for Iranian travel in the United States. On April 22, 1980, the European Community agreed informally not to purchase Iranian oil priced above Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)-set prices. On May 18, 1980, the European Community agreed to cancel contracts signed with Iran after November 4, 1980, except for food and medicine.

  Visits to and interviews with the hostages continued during the second quarter of 1980. On April 14, 1980, Red Cross officials claimed that they had been permitted to see all of the hostages. Three U.S. clerics were allowed to perform Easter services at the U.S. Embassy. On April 21, 1980, Barbara Timm was permitted to visit her son, U.S. Marine Sgt. Kevin Her-mening, 20.

  On April 24, 1980, an attempt by U.S. military forces to rescue the hostages failed when three of the eight helicopters assigned to the mission became unavailable due to mishaps in the desert near Tabas, Iran. During the preparation for the flight from Tabas to Tehran, the rescue team was forced to detain a busload of 50 Iranians who came onto the scene. After a decision to call off the mission, a helicopter crashed into a transport plane, killing eight. After being displayed by an Iranian cleric at the U.S. Embassy, the remains of the men were returned to the United States. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance resigned over the wisdom of the mission. The Iranian students claimed that they would prevent future rescue attempts by moving the hostages out of the embassy to other locations, including Mashad, Tabriz, Isfahan, Shiraz, Qom, Qazvin, Najafabad, Jahrom, Arak, Mahallat, Yazd, Gorgan, Zanjan, and Hamedan.

  On May 24, 1980, the ICJ unanimously ordered Iran to release the hostages and said in a 12–3 decision that Iran must pay damages to the United States.

  On January 20, 1981, with the release of frozen Iranian bank assets and the help of Algeria negotiators, the 52 remaining Americans gained their freedom. They flew home by way of Algeria and Germany and 10 days later were honored with a New York City ticker tape parade.

  On February 4, 1998, Vice President Massoumeh Ebtekar, the seniormost woman in the Iranian government, admitted that she was the interpreter and spokeswoman for the hostage-takers.

  On April 18, 2002, U.S. district court judge Emmet G. Sullivan ruled that the Algiers Accords meant that the hostages could not sue Iran. Hostages’ attorney Thomas V. Lankford said they would appeal, which he did on May 12, 2003, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Washington, D.C. Circuit. Various groups of hostage families pursued judicial remedies; to date, Tehran has not paid a dime in compensation.

  On November 4, 2002, an Iranian court jailed Abbas Abdi, one of the hostage-takers, for activities of a polling institute he founded. He asked the elected president, Mohammad Khatami, to resign in protest if conservatives blocked two reform bills.

  November 20, 1979

  Mecca Grand Mosque Takeover

  Overview: While the primacy of the sacred places of Islam is not disputed among Muslims, disputes regarding the appropriateness of what governmental authority and sect should have sway over the sites has pockmarked Islamic history. The sanctity of the sites has been a centerpiece of Saudi policy since the Wahhabi-dominated kingdom’s inception. One of the King’s most cherished titles is Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques (referring to Mecca and Medina). Disagreements with Riyadh’s royal family’s Western connections on occasion bubble to the surface in the form of terrorist attacks. The most noteworthy attack came on the heels of the Iranian students’ attack on what they termed the Great Satan days earlier. While the Saudis were successful in putting down the insurrection, the attack rattled Muslim notions of the safety of the sites for years to come.

  Incident: On November 20, 1979, between 200 and 500 heavily armed rebels raided the Grand Mosque at Mecca, Saudi Arabia, during dawn prayers, seizing hundreds and perhaps thousands of worshippers of 30 nationalities. The attackers said that they sought reversal of Saudi modernization and the abolition of television, professional soccer, and the employment of Saudi women outside the home, in favor of a fundamentalist society based upon conservative Shia tenets.

  The raiders closed the doors leading out of the courtyard and presented Mohammed ibn-Abdullah Qahtani as the Mahdi, the enlightened one long awaited as the final prophet. An Islamic prophecy says that the Mahdi will be proclaimed at dawn prayers at the Grand Mosque and that fighting in the streets of Mecca will accompany his coming. The attack took place on the Muslim year 1400’s first day.

  Saudi Arabia initially clamped down on all reports of the takeover, leading to the spread of numerous rumors. Several sources blamed the Iranian regime for the attack. Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran claimed that the United States was behind the sacrilege, leading to anti-U.S. riots in several Muslim countries. Responding to a request from Washington, D.C., Saudi interior minister Nayef bin Abdulaziz declared that the United States was not involved.

  Saudi National Guardsmen blew up the mosque gates and fought their way inside against the rebels, who were armed with submachine guns, rifles, and pistols. The commander leading the Saudi assault was killed. Most of the hostages escaped or were freed by the Saudis several hours after the takeover, but the rebels held out for two weeks. Saudi troops used tanks, heavy artillery, snipers, and tear and asphyxiating gases against the attackers, who had taken up sniper positions in the mosque’s minarets. Frequent Saudi claims of victory were proven premature, and it was not until December 3, 1979, that Saudi troops routed the last of the rebels occupying the mosque’s basement.

  Casualty figures vary. Some accounts indicated that 300 rebels, 65 soldiers, and 20 pilgrims were killed, and that at least 200 people were wounded. The Saudis announced that they had captured 170 rebels, most of whom were expected to be beheaded after questioning. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Sebil, a Grand Mosque imam, said a guard was killed and two were seriously injured in the takeover. The self-appointed Mahdi was killed in the final battle. He was identified as a 27-year-old dropout Islamic law student previously known to police as a religious agitator.

  In questioning the surviving terrorists, the Saudis learned that the attack was to be part of a general uprising against the Saudi regime. A simultaneous attack on a shrine in Medina was aborted when the raiders discovered that troops were coincidentally praying there. A large demonstration of foreign workers in the oil fields was also to take place. The raiders had hoped to take hostage King Khalid, who cancelled a
planned appearance at the mosque due to illness. The intruders fanned out at the mosque, searching the faces of the faithful in hope of finding the king. One of the captured rebels was a National Guard colonel. Most were Saudi nationals, with the rest coming from Pakistan, North and South Yemen, Morocco, and Kuwait. Some prisoners admitted that they had been trained in South Yemen.

  The previously unknown Union of the Peoples of the Arabian Peninsula (UPAP) later claimed credit, saying the attack was part of a “national progressive Islamic Arab revolution.”

  In the early morning of January 9, 1980, 63 of the 170 militants arrested in the mosque were beheaded. The locations of the executions and nationalities of those executed were

  Mecca: nine Saudis, two South Yemenis, one Egyptian, one Kuwaiti, one Sudanese, one Iraqi

  Riyadh: seven Saudis, two Egyptians, one Kuwaiti

  Medina: one South Yemeni, two Egyptians, four Saudis

  Damman: three Saudis, one Kuwaiti, one Egyptian, one South Yemeni, one North Yemeni

  Buraydah: five Saudis, one South Yemeni, one Egyptian

  Tabuk: three Saudis, one South Yemeni, one Egyptian

  As the executions were held in the early morning, few Saudis witnessed the carrying out of the Koranic sentences, which were not televised. Juhaiman Bin Seif, the military commander of the group, was among those executed. The 107 other individuals, including 23 women and boys, were given various prison and reeducation center terms. Another 38 people were found not guilty and were released.

  The Saudis reported that 12 officers and 115 noncommissioned officers were killed in the mosque battle. Another 49 officers and 402 noncommissioned officers and soldiers were injured. Officials reported 75 terrorists were killed during the siege; another 27 later died from their injuries. Fifteen bodies were found when the mosque vaults were cleared. The final government tallies indicated that 270 people were killed and more than 550 wounded. At least 117 rebels and 26 pilgrims were among the dead.