Previous attacks on sports events

Previous attacks on sports events, and failed plots, in recent decades, after Monday’s bomb blasts at the Boston Marathon

September 5, 1972 – Eight members of the Palestine Liberation Organisation splinter group Black September raided the Israeli team’s quarters in the Olympic village in Munich.

They took nine athletes and officials hostage and demanded the release of more than 200 prisoners held in Israel. Later, at Munich’s military airport, from where the guerrillas were hoping to leave Germany, police opened fire and a gunfight erupted. All the hostages were killed and five of the gunmen and a policeman also died.

July 1996 – A powerful nail bomb exploded in Centennial Olympic Park on July 27 during the Atlanta Olympics. One person died and more than 100 were hurt. Eric Rudolph, who was sentenced to three life terms without parole in 2005 for Atlanta and other bombings, said the Olympic attack was designed to “confound, anger and embarrass the Washington government in the eyes of the world for its abominable sanctioning of abortion on demand”.

June 1998 – An Algerian cell funded by Osama bin Laden planned to attack the World Cup finals in France, targeting the US Embassy in Paris and the US soccer team. The cell also planned a pitch assault on the England team during their group match against Tunisia in Marseilles. Individuals were arrested by French intelligence, foiling the plot.

May 2002 – A car bomb exploded in the Pakistani city of Karachi near the hotel where the New Zealand cricket team were staying, killing 13 people including 11 French navy experts. New Zealand called off the tour after the attack.

2002 – Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al Qaeda’s operational leader who was arrested in 2003, revealed that the group had intended to carry out attacks in Japan during the soccer World Cup jointly hosted with South Korea. The attacks did not go ahead as the group failed to establish a network there.

May 17, 2006 – Some 15 athletes and officials from a taekwondo squad were kidnapped from a highway in western Iraq as they travelled to a training course in Jordan. The decomposed bodies of at least 13 of the squad were found in the desert in June 2007.

July 16, 2006 – Up to 50 gunmen seized some 30 Iraqi sports officials, including the national Olympic chief Ahmed al-Hadjiya, and their bodyguards, in a brazen daytime raid on a central Baghdad hall. They are still missing.

July 31, 2006 - Two suitcases filled with explosives were placed on trains near Hamm and Koblenz and would have killed hundreds during the soccer World Cup in Germany. The detonators were faulty and did not ignite the explosives.

March 3, 2009 - Gunmen attacked a bus carrying Sri Lanka’s cricket team outside a Lahore stadium in Pakistan, killing seven people, including six policemen and a driver.

Jan. 8, 2010 - A Togo soccer team bus, travelling from the Republic of Congo to the African Nations Cup in Angola, had just entered Cabinda province when it came under heavy gunfire from separatists. Team media officer Stanislas Ocloo and assistant coach Amalete Abalo were killed. Seven people were wounded.