Timeline of School Terrorism Incidents

The following is a listing of the incidents of terrorism involving schools or students that we have found evidence of from around the world. Incidents from prolonged and severe conflicts (such as the civil war in Turkey with over 300 school attacks or the current operation in Iraq) are left out, since these would heavily skew the list. To the author's knowledge, this is the most comprehensive listing of incidents available.

Despite the thorough research of the authors, there are certain to be incidents that are not included in this list, and more incidents are occurring around the world as time goes on. If you are aware of an incident that is not included in this list, please contact us by e-mail or using our contact form here.

Observations from the Research

In our research we found that incidents of school terrorism follow the trend set by terrorism in general - roughly 40% of attacks focus on transportation systems as targets. As evidenced by the attacks on September 11th, 2001 in the United States, March 11th 2004 in Madrid, Spain, and July 7th 2005 in London, England, public transportation is a favored target for terrorists. While transportation systems do not make up a majority of attacks, they do account for a large portion of them, and thusly we should be prepared for such attacks on our school transportation systems in the United States. The School Transporation News website security page has a large collection of information involving school buses and terrorism.

The Timeline

• March 18, 1968 - Fatah terrorists in Israel set a land mine which later blew up a school bus, killing two children and injuring 28 others.
  
• May 8, 1970 - Palestinian terrorists attacked an Israeli School bus killing nine children and three adults. Nineteen others were also crippled for life. The terrorists apparently knew the bus schedule and planned their attack based on this knowledge.

• May, 1974 - Three Arab terrorists dressed as Israeli Defense Forces soldiers attacked a school in Ma’alot, Israel . They took hostages and killed twenty one school children along with several adults. Many of the casualties occurred when an elite unit of the Golani Brigade attempted a tactical response to rescue the hostages. This incident resulted in the formation of special tactical units within the Israel National Police.

• 1976 – French Foreign Legion troops and the French counterterrorism police unit GIGN executed a tactical assault to free twenty nine French children being held hostage in a school bus at the border of Djibouti and Somalia . One child and five terrorists were killed during the rescue operation.

• May, 1977 – A group of four Moluccan terrorists took more than 100 students and school employees hostage in an elementary school in Bovendsmille, Holland . After fourteen days of patient negotiations, Dutch Royal Marines performed a successful tactical rescue and captured all four terrorists.

• May, 1986 – In a bizarre incident, a man and his wife who both held extremist views and wished to create a “Brave New World” took students and teachers hostage at an elementary school in Cokeville , Wyoming using firearms and explosives. They shot a teacher in the back and accidentally detonated the device killing the wife and injuring some of the hostages.

• February, 1993 – Terrorists detonate a vehicle bomb in the parking deck of the World Trade Center in an attempt to collapse both towers. Six people were killed and more than a thousand injured in the attack. Schools in the immediate area were affected by the event, but no students or staff were injured.

• May, 1994 – four Chechens armed with grenades and firearms hijacked a bus filled with teachers, parents and children in Southern Russia . The hostages were released after a multi-million dollar ransom was paid.

• April, 1995 – Shortly after parents had dropped their children off at a day care center located in the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City , a large car bomb detonated and destroyed half of the structure. Among the 168 people who were killed were children at the day care center. Area schools also suffered structural damage.

• March, 1997 – Seven Israeli school girls were shot to death by a Jordanian soldier while on a field trip in Bakura , Jordan .

• January, 1998 – A bombing in Algiers on a crowded street packed with students returning home from school killed one person and wounded several others.

• March, 1998 – The American School in Amman , Jordan was rocked by an explosion believed to be the work of terrorists upset by the U.S. conflict with Iraq over U.N. arms inspections.

• October 29, 1998 - An Israeli soldier was killed after a terrorist drove a car bomb into an army jeep the soldier was driving. The jeep was escorting a bus of 40 elementary school children from Kfar Darom, a settlement in the Gaza strip.

• August, 1999 – An individual with extremist views opened fire in a childcare area of a Jewish community center in Los Angeles and killed several children. Police officers pursued the suspect who then shot and killed a Hispanic postal employee. The killings stem from the suspect’s anti-Semitic and racist views.

• November, 2000 – A bomb targeting a school bus exploded in the Gaza Strip settlement of Kfar Darom killing two passengers and wounding twelve others, including five school children.

• April, 2001 – A car bomb targeting a school bus exploded near the town of Nablus in the West Bank . One Palestinian was killed and another injured.

• May 30, 2001 – A car bomb exploded outside a school where students were studying for exams. Injuries were lessened by the time of the incident, which was after most people had gone home. Eight people were injured in the attack .

• September, 2001 – Two people died and three more were injured in a terrorist attack on a minibus loaded with school and kindergarten teachers near the Adam Junction in Israel .

• September, 2001 – A terrorist bomber’s head rolled into a French-language school in Jerusalem as children were arriving to start their school day. The bomber, who was disguised as an Orthodox Jew, blew himself up and injured eleven people next to the school.

• September, 2001 – A bomb thrown at Catholic school girls walking to class through a Protestant neighborhood in Ireland exploded. Four police officers who were escorting the children were injured.

• November, 2001 – A Palestinian gunman killed two students and wounded more than forty other passengers when he attacked their bus with an M-16 rifle at a bus stop in Jerusalem . An armed bystander and members of the Israel Border Police stopped the attack when they killed the gunman.

• March, 2002 – A terrorist homicide bomber killed seven and wounded dozens more when he blew himself up on a bus frequently used by Arab and Jewish school children, many of whom were injured.

• March, 2002 – Five students were shot to death and twenty - three other people wounded in an attack by Palestinian terrorists on a pre-military high school in Atzmona , Israel .

• May, 2002 – Twelve school children were among the victims killed in Dagestan when a large remote-controlled explosive device detonated as they passed it. Russian President Vladimir Putin compared the terrorists who carried out the attack to the Nazis.

• June, 2002 – Two students were murdered and fifteen wounded by a gunman believed to be from an ethnic minority Karen rebel group in an attack on a school bus in Thailand .

• June 18, 2002 – A homicide bomber detonated himself on a bus headed towards Jersusalem. The bus, which was carrying many students on their way to school, was destroyed, leaving nineteen dead and seventy-four others wounded.

• August, 2002 – Three school employees and two school security personnel were killed by gunman in an attack on the Murree Christian School in Pakistan .

• September 5, 2002 – Fatah terrorists fired shots from a crowded school towards a patrol of Israeli soldiers. One soldier was killed and another wounded.

• October, 2002- During a series of sniper attacks in the Washington , D.C. area, the Beltway snipers killed ten people and wounded three others, causing significant panic in the region. On October, seventh, 2002, a thirteen year old boy was shot and wounded as he arrived at Benjamin Tasker Middle School in Bowie, Maryland. The shooting rampage ended when John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo were arrested and charged with some of the attacks. In March, 2004, Muhammad was sentenced to death after his conviction on terrorism statutes. Malvo was sentenced to life in prison.

• November, 21, 2002 – A terrorist bomber killed eleven people and injured almost fifty others in Israel when he blew himself up on a bus crowded with school children. The terrorist group Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.

• April, 2003 – An explosion at a high school in Jennin, West Bank injured nearly thirty students. A radical Jewish group - Nikmat Olelim or “Revenge of the Infants” claimed responsibility for the incident saying the bomb was placed to avenge the murders of Jewish children by Palestinian terrorists.

• February 22, 2004 - A Fatah attack on a bus in Jerusalem killed eight and wounded sixty more. Eleven of those wounded were school children.

• June 28, 2004 – One adult and one child were killed when a rocket fired by Hamas terrorists in the Gaza strip detonated in a nursery school in Sderot.

• September, 2004 – An attack by Chechen terrorists on a school in Belsan , Russia leaves hundreds dead and appears to be the largest terrorist attack on a school related target to date.

• November 8, 2004 – A bomb went off damaging a Muslim elementary school in Eindhoven . No one was injured in the attack. Police feel that attack is related to a series of terrorist incidents in the region.