The 50 Worst Terrorist Attacks

by Edward Mickolus

  On September 24, 2013, the government began its final push. An explosion went off at 6:30 A.M., and two more at noon. Three floors of the four-story mall collapsed, trapping people.

  At the end of the siege, the government said 61 civilians, 6 members of the security forces, and 5 terrorists—possibly including Lewthwaite— died during the four days. Eleven terrorists were detained. Another 65 people were reported missing. It was unclear whether any terrorists managed to escape by changing clothes and mingling with the fleeing hostages. Police said they were defusing booby traps. Local police identified one of the dead terrorists as Hassan Abdi Dhuhulow, 23, a Norwegian citizen of Somali extraction.

  On September 26, 2013, Interpol issued a “Red Notice”—an internationally wanted persons alert—for Lewthwaite (alias Sherafiya). Kenya wanted her on charges of being in possession of explosives and conspiracy to commit a felony in December 2011. As of late 2013, she remained at large.

  The Associated Press reported that on October 5, 2013, U.S. Navy SEALs conducted an operation in Barawe, southern Somalia, but were unable to locate the suspect in the Westgate case.

  On November 4, 2013, Kenyan authorities charged four Somali men— Mohamed Ahmed Abdi, Liban Abdullah Omar, Hussein Hassan Mustafah, and Adan Dheq—and ordered them imprisoned until a court hearing. They pleaded not guilty to charges that included illegally harboring a fugitive.

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  The Worst 51–68

  The criteria for inclusion in the Worst 50 can easily be argued. Some multicasualty events, such as the late 1970s arson against an Iranian theater that killed 347 people, did not make the list because they are virtually unknown outside the host country. Other campaigns—two series of 100 letter bombs mailed at the same time, but most of which were intercepted; the October 2001 anthrax attacks; the Unabomber bombings; the Hizballah kidnappings of Westerners in Beirut; and similar serial events—were not included because no single event or small group of events were lethal or newsworthy enough in their own right.

  These types of events, however, are still worth mention. Some broke new ground in the terrorist repertoire, introducing a new type of attack, an innovation in the use of an old tactic, an uptick in lethality, or the crossing of a heretofore silently agreed upon barrier against attacking a specific class of target.

  September 4, 1969

  Brazil U.S. Ambassador Burke Elbrick Kidnapping

  Overview: The Elbrick kidnapping established for Latin American terrorists a model for getting leverage against the United States and the local government—a low-risk hostage-taking of a prominent American (usually an ambassador, military figure, or corporate executive) to obtain multimillion dollar ransoms; release of scores, if not hundreds, of political prisoners; publication of the group’s manifesto to audiences in the millions; and publicity in general for the organization. The kidnapping was comparatively clean, meaning with little bloodshed, and the hostage was treated well throughout his captivity. The safe house–negotiation template, with an exit strategy for the kidnappers as part of their calculus, stood for several years as the standard for Latin American and Western European leftist revolutionary groups.

  Incident: On September 4, 1969, Charles Burke Elbrick, U.S. ambassador to Brazil and former deputy assistant secretary of state for European Affairs, was kidnapped from his car on his way to the embassy following lunch at home. Four armed members of the Revolutionary Movement of October 8 (MR-8) and the National Liberation Action blocked the path of his vehicle with their cars on a Rio de Janeiro street. The group left a ransom note demanding the release of 15 unidentified political prisoners who were to be flown to Chile, Mexico, or Algeria and the publication of a three-page manifesto. Elbrick’s chauffeur, an embassy employee for four years, was left behind unharmed. Elbrick suffered a scalp-type wound on his right forehead where he was hit by the butt of a .38 caliber revolver. The group warned that if their demands were not carried out within 48 hours, they would be “forced to carry out revolutionary justice” by killing Elbrick. An hour after his capture, he was questioned about the activities, membership, and contacts of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Brazil by two men who the ambassador believed were outside communists, “unlike the kidnappers themselves who did not claim to be communists.”

  The Brazilian National Security Council, composed of three military ministers acting during the convalescence of President Arthur da Costa e Silva, met in emergency session on September 4, 1969, and the next day authorized the newspapers to print the manifesto, which claimed that the kidnapping was:

  not an isolated act. It is another one of the innumerable revolutionary acts already carried out: bank holdups, where funds for the revolution are collected, returning what the bankers take from the people and their employees; raids on barracks and police stations, where arms and ammunition are obtained for the struggle to topple the dictatorship; invasions of jails when revolutionaries are freed to return them to the people’s struggle; the explosion of buildings that signify oppression; the execution of hangmen and torturers. With the kidnap of the ambassador we want to demonstrate that it is possible to defeat the dictatorship and the exploitation if we arm and organize ourselves. We show up where the enemy least expects us, and we disappear immediately, tearing out the dictatorship, bringing terror and fear to the exploiters, the hope and certainty of victory to the midst of the exploited. Mr. Elbrick represents in our country the interests of imperialism, which, allied to the great bosses, the big ranches and the big national bankers, maintain the regime of oppression and exploitation.

  Foreign Minister José de Migalhaes Pinto announced the same day that 15 political prisoners would be released. Mexico and Chile immediately offered political asylum, and two hours later, the names of the prisoners that the terrorists wanted released were placed in a suggestion box at a suburban supermarket. They were Gregorio Bezzera, a leading member of the clandestine communist party, who had been in prison since 1964; Wladimir Palmeira, former president of the Metropolitan Student Union in Rio, arrested in 1968 and sentenced in August to three years imprisonment for leading student demonstrations against the government; Flavio Tavares, a newspaperman charged in 1966 with organizing guerrilla activities and recently arrested on charges of membership in a terrorist group called the Revolutionary Movement of July 26; Ricardo Zarattini, former National Student Union officer, jailed for subversive activities among peasants; Luiz Travassos, former National Student Union president who was also active in the radical movement of the Roman Catholic Church; José Dirccu de Oliveira e Silva, also a former president of the National Student Union; Ricardo Villas Boas de Sarega and Maria Augusta Carneiro, both student leaders arrested on May 1, 1969, for allegedly firing at a policeman who was attempting to prevent them from distributing antigovernment literature; Onofre Pinto, a former air force sergeant, arrested and charged with killing U.S. Army Capt. Charles R. Chandler on October 12, 1968; Ivens Marchetti, a São Paulo architect, also charged with Chandler’s murder; José Ibrahim and Rolando Prattes, labor leaders in the São Paulo area; Argonauto Pacheco da Silva, labor leader and former São Paulo legislator; Joao Leonardo da Silva Rocha, a São Paulo lawyer; and Mario Galgardo Zanconato, a former medical student, who said in Mexico City on September 8, 1969, that he had organized eight bank robberies in Minas Gerais to raise funds for the revolutionary movement.

  On September 6, 1969, a member of the armed forces who disagreed with the government’s capitulation attempted to prevent the prisoners’ release. Two hundred navy men surrounded the airport but dispersed when they were ordered back to their barracks. The plane took off late with the 15 for Mexico City, where they were granted political asylum. Thirteen of the group turned up later in Cuba.

  Arrests soon followed. Police surrounded the house where Elbrick was being kept (it had been rented in the true name of one of the kidnappers), but allowed the group safe passage in return for his release. One member returned to his parents’ home for a change of clothes and was arrested.
From him, it was learned that the MR-8 approached guerrilla theorist Carlos Marighella and the National Liberation Action with their plan for the kidnapping.

  The Brazilian government had believed that it had previously crippled the terrorist movements. On July 27, 1969, it had arrested 29 MR-8 members, 7 more on August 7, 1969, and several dozen on August 10, 1969. This time a nationwide roundup was initiated, resulting in the arrests of more than 4,000 suspects. The government passed Institutional Act 14, which decreed the death penalty for subversion, the first time capital punishment was allowed in Brazil since 1891. Police powers of the military were also greatly expanded.

  The groups sent another manifesto after Elbrick’s release in which they argued that they had no personal hostility toward the ambassador, but had taken him as a symbol of “big North American capitalists.”

  In November 1969, the police announced the death of Marighella.

  In December 1969, student Claudio Torres de Silva received a 10-year sentence for his part in the kidnapping, while three others were being held on related charges. In February 1970, the army announced that 18 people had been in on the planning and execution of the kidnapping and that 4 had been apprehended; the others had fled to Cuba.

  Members of the attack squad were interviewed in places of safety months after the incident. An MR-8 member in Algiers, Fernando Gabeira, claimed that he had been in on the two-month planning period, during which the group had infiltrated a woman into the military intelligence agency, DOPS, where she collected information about the ambassador’s travel habits. Twelve terrorists who had previously engaged in bank robberies used a rented villa on Marques Street, near Elbrick’s home, as their headquarters. In late June 1970, Silvia de Araujo Magalhaes gave a similar interview in Algiers. She recounted that Elbrick was held in an apartment on the Barau de Petropolis in the Santa Teresa district. Elbrick had a bathroom with a shower, but the windows were sealed. His cook was Gabeira, a former editor of the Journel do Brasil. Elbrick was allowed to write three letters to his wife. The group felt compassion for him, giving him a book by Ho Chi Minh inscribed, “To our first political prisoner, with the expression of our respect for his calm behavior in action.”

  March 1, 1973

  Sudan U.S. Ambassador Cleo Noel Assassination

  Overview: The Black September Organization (BSO) of Palestinian terrorists had already established a reputation for being willing to kill hostages during negotiations. Their barricade-and-hostage method established in the 1972 Munich Olympics attack appeared to other terrorists who watched the siege play out to be a success, with the terrorists attacking a symbolic American target, killing prominent Americans, yet getting only a legal wrist-slap and quick freedom. American diplomats, on the other hand, worried about the potential unintended consequences of a declared preemptive no-negotiations policy.

  Incident: On March 1, 1973, eight Black Septembrists, driven in a Land Rover with Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) diplomatic plates, seized the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan. After unsuccessfully bargaining for the release of imprisoned terrorists, they murdered two American members and one Belgian member of the diplomatic corps—U.S. ambassador Cleo A. Noel Jr.; George C. Moore, the departing U.S. chargé (for whom the diplomatic reception was being held); and Guy Eid, the Egyptian-born chargé at the Belgian Embassy.

  The attack began at 7:00 P.M., when a Land Rover, driven by Abu Salem, deputy chief of Fatah’s Khartoum office, crashed through the embassy’s unguarded gate. The terrorists fired machine guns and revolvers while some guests escaped by jumping over the embassy wall. Others hid and fled. Noel sustained an ankle wound from a ricochet, and Eid was shot in the leg. Noel and Moore were bound with ropes, punched, and kicked, according to Japanese chargé d’affaires Shigeru Nomoto. The terrorists also held Sheikh Abdullah el-Malhouk, the Saudi ambassador and party host, his wife, and four children, and Jordanian chargé d’affaires Adli el-Nazir. Later the children were allowed to leave. Some diplomats identified themselves as representatives of Arab or Eastern Bloc states and were also immediately released. The terrorists had hoped to seize the West German ambassador, but he had left earlier in the evening. Also on the group’s assassination list was U.K. ambassador Raymond EtheringtonSmith, who left the party earlier to greet at the airport British under secretary of state Anthony Kershaw, who was arriving for an official visit.

  The group set a 24-hour deadline for their demands for the release of prisoners to be met. They demanded that the United States release Sirhan Sirhan, who had assassinated Senator Robert Kennedy on June 5, 1968; that Israel release all women detained in Israeli jails, including the two surviving hijackers of the Sabena plane hijacking on May 8, 1972, in Austria; that West Germany release imprisoned members of the BaaderMeinhof Gang responsible for an incident on May 11, 1972; and that Jordan release Abu Daoud and the 16 Black Septembrists accompanying him on February 15, 1973, as well as Maj. Rafreh Hindawi, a Jordanian officer who had been sentenced to life imprisonment for plotting against the Amman government. To underlie the group’s determination, one of the terrorists appeared on a balcony and tossed a grenade from one hand to another. The group’s leader allowed a doctor to enter the embassy to treat Moore’s wounds.

  On March 2, 1973, Sudanese interior minister Mohammed el Bahir told the terrorists by telephone that Jordan had refused their demands for Daoud, Hindawi, and others. The terrorists then dropped their demand for release of prisoners in Israel “since Sudan cannot contact the Zionist enemy,” as well as for those held in West Germany, since they were unable to capture the West German ambassador, but “we insist and reconfirm that we will not leave the embassy or release the hostages or even guarantee their lives except if the Palestinian prisoners held in the prisons of the reactionary regime of Jordan are freed.” The group also held firm on their demand for Sirhan’s release.

  U.S. president Richard Nixon sent Deputy Under Secretary of State William Macomber Jr. to Khartoum to advise the Sudanese on their negotiations. Macomber and his group initially landed at Cairo. The attendant publicity of his visit appeared to please the terrorists, and officials got the impression that the group was willing to fly to Cairo to continue the negotiations. Unfortunately Macomber’s flight to Khartoum was unable to take off because of an ongoing sandstorm. In addition, President Nixon refused the demand for the release of Sirhan, claiming that the United States could not give in to political blackmail. He told the nation:

  We cannot do so and we will not do so. Now, as to what can be done to get these people released, Mr. Macomber is on his way there for discussions; the Sudanese Government is working on the problem . . . but we will not pay blackmail.

  Many Foreign Service officers later criticized Nixon’s statements, claiming that these had deleterious effects upon the negotiations.

  Egyptian president Sadat had attempted to defuse the situation by sending an Egyptian plane to Khartoum to pick up the terrorists and their hostages and fly them back to Cairo. At the time the trio was murdered, senior members of Fatah were waiting at Cairo airport. Sadat hoped that the Fatah members would be able to persuade the group to surrender.

  Members of Israeli intelligence managed to monitor the ultrahighfrequency shortwave that the terrorists were using to keep in touch with their leaders at headquarters. At one point, someone at their headquarters in Beirut said, “Remember the blood, Nahr el-Badawi,” a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon that had been attacked a few days previously by the Israelis. Many took this to mean that the group had been instructed to execute their hostages. (Other reports claim that the message was “Cold River” or “The organization orders, repeat orders, you to carry out Operation Cold Water on number one, two, and three.”) At around 9:30 P.M., on March 2, 1973, the group took the trio to the basement and emptied 40 rounds, beginning by firing at their legs after the ambassador and chargés had been allowed to make out their wills and had thanked the Saudi ambassador for the party, saying “I’m very sorry it has turned out
this way, but I want you to know it is not your fault.” The terrorists phoned the U.S. Embassy, announcing “We have executed the two Americans and the Belgian.” The terrorists were informed that they would not be allowed a flight out of the country, and a few hours later, they ended the 60-hour siege by releasing their remaining hostages and surrendering to Sudanese authorities.

  BSO soon released a statement in Beirut vowing to continue attacks against “Zionist and American imperialism and their agents in the Arab world.” The Khartoum operation was characterized as:

  not at all aimed at bloodshed but had sought the release of our imprisoned heroes . . . as a result of the arrogance and the obstinacy of American imperialism, represented by Nixon’s statements and by the attitude of hireling tools in Jordan, our revolutionaries carried out the death sentences on three hostages. . . . The United States shared in plotting to slaughter our people, conspiring against our Arab nation and our national struggle. . . . [Moore was seen as] the plotting brain of the American Central Intelligence Agency and one of those directly responsible for the September massacres. . . . We wish to affirm to the world that the Black September militants have never known fear and will not know it. . . . Its members would not be intimidated by the hypocritical cries of condemnation or the tears of those whom we have never seen shed a tear throughout a quarter of a century during which this people has been subjected to all kinds of torture and persecution. Those who ostensibly weep today over the execution of three enemies of the Arab nation, for which the United States has been directly responsible, realize that thousands of the sons of this people have been atrociously slaughtered and that thousands of others are suffering all kinds of torture in Jordanian and Israeli jails. . . . War against Zionist and American imperialism and their agents in the Arab world will continue. Our rifles will remain brandished against both the substance and the shadow.