Terrorism in five headlines

1972

On 5 September 1972, members of the Palestinian Black September group took eleven Israeli Olympic team members hostage at the Munich Games. All eleven hostages were killed along with a West German police officer and five of the eight attackers during a failed rescue attempt. The Games were briefly suspended and a memorial service was held before competition resumed.

1980

On 5 May 1980, Britain's Special Air Service stormed the Iranian Embassy at Princes Gate in London, ending a six-day siege by Arab separatists who had taken 26 hostages. The assault, codenamed Operation Nimrod, was broadcast live on British television and lasted just seventeen minutes. Five of the six gunmen were killed; one hostage died during the rescue and one was murdered by the hostage-takers on the fifth day.

1995

On April 19, 1995, a truck bomb destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people including 19 children in a daycare centre. Timothy McVeigh, a far-right domestic terrorist motivated by anti-government ideology, was convicted and later executed for the attack. It was the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in US history at that time.

2005

On 7 July 2005, four British Muslims detonated bombs on three London Underground trains and a bus, killing 52 people and injuring more than 700. It was the deadliest terrorist attack in London since the Second World War. The bombings occurred the day after London was announced as the host city for the 2012 Olympics.

2018

On 4 March 2018, former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found critically ill on a bench in Salisbury, England, having been poisoned with the military-grade nerve agent Novichok. British investigators identified two Russian GRU officers as suspects, and the UK government formally blamed the Russian state, triggering a major diplomatic crisis and the expulsion of dozens of diplomats on both sides.