Deadliest terrorist attack worldwide

Deadliest terrorist attacks worldwide from 1970 to January 2024, by number of fatalities and perpetrator

Characteristic	Number of fatalities
9/11 attacks, USA (Al-Qaeda, 2001)	2,960
Tikrit attack, Iraq (ISIL, 2014)	1,700
Musha Church massacre, Rwanda (Hutu extremists, 1994)	1,180
Hamas attack, Israel (Hamas, 2023)**	1,139
Sinjar massacre, Iraq (ISIL, 2014)	953
Mai Kadra massacre, Ethiopia (Samri militia and TPLF*, 2020)	766
Badush prison massacre, Iraq (ISIL, 2014)	670
Mogadishu bombings, Somalia (Al-Shaabab, 2017)	588
Dhading attack, Nepal (Maoist Communist Party of Nepal, 2004)	518
Tabqa Air Base attack, Syria (ISIL, 2014)	517
Ghazni offensive, Afghanistan (Haqqani-network, Lashkar e-Taiba, Taliban, 2018)	466

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Release date

January 2024

More information

Region

Worldwide

Survey time period

1970 to January 2024

Supplementary notes

*Only a suspect.

**As of January 21, 2024. The death toll may be slightly higher. Additionally, 240 people were taken hostage.

Numbers on the 2023 attack in Israel were taken from .

Citation formats

Since 1970, the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington D.C., is the deadliest terrorist attack worldwide, claiming almost 3,000 lives. Moreover, except for the Musha Church massacre during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, all of the 10 most lethal terrorist attacks between 1970 and January 2024 happened after 2001. ISIL stood behind four of these.

Afghanistan was the country most ridden by terrorism

In 2022, Afghanistan topped the Global Terrorism Index, which ranks terrorist activity across the world. While the rise and fall of the Islamic State and its caliphate in Syria and Iraq received much attention during the 2010s, there has been increased terrorist activity in other parts of the world in recent years, particularly in some African countries such as Burkina Faso, Somalia, and Mali.

Taliban was the most active terrorist organization

In 2021, Taliban, which mainly operates in Afghanistan, was the most active terrorist organization that year, being responsible for nearly 800 attacks. The attacks resulted in nearly 4,500 fatalities. Taliban regained control of Afghanistan in 2021 after the NATO-mission in the country ended that year.