The War On Terrorism Started Before 9/11

TERRORIST ACTS AGAINST THE UNITED STATES

1979: Iranian students seize the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and hold captive approximately 70 Americans. Some are released, but 52 remain for 444 days.

1983: Sixty-three are killed when a bomb-laden truck crashes into the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon.

1983: A 12,000-pound truck bomb destroys a Marine barracks in Beirut,killing 241 American servicemen.

1984: A suicide bomb attack on the U.S. Embassy in East Beirut kills 23.

1985: A TWA fl ight is hijacked en route to Rome from Athens. Eight crew members and 145 passengers are held 17 days. A U.S. Navy diver is murdered.

1985: Palestinian Liberation Front terrorists seize Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro. American passenger Leon Klinghoffer, confi ned to a wheelchair, is killed and his body is thrown overboard. Terrorists escape days later. Ringleader Abu Abbas is captured in 2003 by U.S. forces in Iraq.

1986: Two U.S soldiers are killed and 79 servicemembers are injured in a Libyan bomb attack of a nightclub frequented by U.S. military members in West Berlin, West Germany.

1988: Marine Lt. Col. William Higgins is kidnapped and hanged by Hezbollah terrorists, while serving with the United Nations in Lebanon.

1988: A Pan Am Boeing 747 is blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland. A bomb is believed to have been placed on the plane by two Libyans at Frankfurt Airport in Germany. All 259 people on the aircraft, including 189 Americans, are killed.

1993: A massive truck bomb explodes in a World Trade Center garage in New York, killing six and injuring more than 1,000. Six Islamic extremists are later convicted of the crime.

1993: Iraqi intelligence service attempts to assassinate President George H.W. Bush during a visit to Kuwait.

1996: Terrorists detonate a truck bomb near a U.S. Air Force housing area in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 servicemembers and injuring 385.

1997: Four U.S. auditors from Union Texas Petroleum Corp. and their Paki Guide to Building Public Awareness 7 stani driver are shot to death in Karachi, Pakistan. Radical group Aimal Khufi a Action Committee claims responsibility.

1998: U.S. Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar-es-Salem, Tanzania, are heavily damaged in bomb attacks. Intelligence officials link Osama bin Laden to the attacks.

1998: Yemeni militants kidnap a group of Western tourists, including 12 Britons, two Americans and two Australians. Four victims are killed during the rescue attempt.

2000: A dinghy packed with explosives rams the USS Cole, killing 17 U.S. sailors in a Yemeni port. Supporters of Osama bin Laden are suspected.

2000: A bomb explodes at the U.S. Embassy in Manila, injuring nine. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front is believed responsible.

2001: Two hijacked airliners crash into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Shortly after, a third crashes into the Pentagon and a fourth in a field in Pennsylvania. Approximately 3,000 Americans and other nationals are killed, a death toll higher by nearly 600 than the attack on Pearl Harbor that sent the United States into World War II. Al Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden, is widely believed to be responsible and later claims responsibility.

2001: Richard Reid, a member of a radical mosque, is overpowered by passengers on an American Airlines flight to Miami for attempting to detonate a “shoe-bomb” that would have killed hundreds.

2002: Al Qaeda member José Padilla is arrested in Chicago, where authorities believe he was planning to detonate a nuclear “dirty” bomb.

Dozens of Americans have been taken hostage and some murdered, in separate kidnappings by Islamic radicals throughout the 1980s until the present day.