Recent jihadist attacks around the world

A presumed terrorist attack Saturday against a cultural centre in Copenhagen that was hosting a debate on Islam and free speech leaves one dead and three wounded.

Following is a chronology of jihadist attacks around the world over the past three years:

 

- In FRANCE on January 7, 2015, an attack on the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo's Paris offices kills 12, followed the next day by the shooting death of a policewoman just outside the city in a connected incident. On January 9, the gunman who killed the policewoman takes hostages at a kosher supermarket in Paris. Four are killed during a police commando raid.

The Charlie Hebdo assailants claim to be avenging the publication by the weekly of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

 

- In AUSTRALIA on December 15-16, 2014, two hostages and an extremist Iranian-born gunman, Man Haron Monis, are killed in a 16-hour siege involving 17 hostages that ends when police storm the Lindt Chocolate cafe in central Sydney.

Monis's supposed links to the Islamic State jihadist group come under scrutiny after he makes hostages at the cafe hold up a black flag commonly used by jihadist groups bearing the shahada, or profession of faith in Islam.

 

- In CANADA on October 23, 2014, a soldier is fatally shot near parliament in the capital Ottawa. His attacker, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, who is shot dead when he attempts to storm parliament itself, was on a terror watch list.

The incident comes a day after another attacker, Martin Rouleau Couture, ran over a soldier in Montreal, killing him before being shot dead by police.

Ottawa has sent troops and jets as part of a US-led coalition to fight jihadists in Iraq. Both perpetrators in the Canadian attacks had recently joined the jihadist cause and planned to go and fight in Syria.

 

- In BELGIUM on May 24, 2014, four people, including two Israeli tourists, are killed when a gunman attacks the Jewish Museum in Brussels. French police arrest Franco-Algerian Mehdi Nemmouche in Marseille, southern France, six days later and hand him over to Belgian officials in late July.

Nemmouche, 29, has been charged with "murder in a terrorist context".

 

- In BRITAIN on May 22, 2013, soldier Lee Rigby, 25, is hacked to death by two Britons of Nigerian descent near an army barracks in the southeast of the capital.

Witnesses say the attackers encouraged them to film the scene as they shouted "Allahu Akbar" ("God is greatest") before being injured and arrested by the police. Footage shows one of the murderers saying he wants to avenge Muslims killed by British soldiers.

In February 2014, Michael Adebolajo, 29, is sentenced to life in prison over the murder while Michael Adebowale, 22, receives a minimum of 45 years behind bars.

 

- In the UNITED STATES on April 15, 2013, two handmade bombs placed near the finish line of the Boston marathon and detonated 12 seconds apart kill three people and wound 264.

A young Muslim of Chechen descent, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a naturalised American since 2012, is accused of carrying out an act of terrorism with a weapon of mass destruction. His brother, also accused of perpetrating the attacks, is killed in a police shootout.

 

- In FRANCE on March 11 and 19, 2012, Mohamed Merah, 23, shoots three soldiers dead in Toulouse and Montauban, southern France, before killing three students and a teacher at a Jewish school in Toulouse.

Merah is killed on March 22 in a shootout following a long siege of his apartment by French police.


AFP