RAGHUNATH TEMPLE, INDIA – Some targets appear so lucrative to terrorists that they go back for seconds.
When you look at terrorism across time and space two main things stand out:
a) most attacks either fail or are rarely very lethal (9/11 was indeed a once in a lifetime event), and;
b) most groups are very ad hoc in their target selection (again, 9/11 was an exception).
It is rare for a group to go to great lengths in planning to do something: it is even rarer for that same group to go back to the same site more than once over a period of time.
The reasons are not that complicated. After the first attack one would assume security at the site would be increased, making a second attack harder. The venue would have to be pretty special to want to hit twice.
An Islamist group did just this two decades ago.
On this day in 2002
An attack on Jammu’s Raghunath temple killed a dozen people and wounded another 20. A half-year later another attack killed ten and wounded 40. The attackers were Islamist terrorists.
It was a response to Chief Minister Mufti Muhammad Syed’s assertion that militancy was on its last legs.
Jamiat-ul-Mujahedeen and Harkat-e-Jihad statement
Unfortunately, the police investigation was bungled and many suspects went free. The jihadis had won, not once but twice.
Read More Today in Terrorism
May 31, 1906: Spanish anarchist bombs royal wedding
On May 31, 1906 a Spanish anarchist threw a bomb hoping to hit King Alfonso XIII, killing 24 and wounding more than 100.
May 30, 2009: Anti-government group bombs TV station in Ecuador
On May 30, 2009 two pamphlet-bombs exploded outside an Ecuadorian TV station and ministry: no victims or significant damage ensued.
May 29, 2016: ISIS uses chlorine gas in terrorist attack
On May 29, 2016 35 civilians were wounded in an ISIS attack using rockets containing chlorine gas in Iraq’s Nineveh Province.
