The airport massacres in Rome and Vienna last Friday capped a year of heightened terrorist attacks in Latin America, the Middle East and Western Europe. This is a list of major international terrorist acts of 1985:
Jan. 25 — The leftwing terrorist group Direct Action claims responsibility for killing French Defense Ministry official Rene Audran outside his home in a Paris suburb.
Feb. 1 — Red Army Faction terrorists kill West German industrialist Ernst Zimmerman in his suburban Munich home.
March 2 — Terrorists bomb the West German Embassy and British Ambassador’s residence in Athens.
March 8 — Red Army Faction terrorists set off bombs in three West German cities in support of British coal miners who ended a year-long strike earlier in the week. In Beirut, 80 people are killed when a car bomb explodes outside an apartment building.
May 25 — An Iraqi terrorist crashes a car loaded with explosives into the Emir of Kuwait’s motorcade, killing himself and three others. The Kuwaiti ruler receives minor injuries.
June 14 — Two Arab gunmen hijack a TWA jetliner, kill U.S. Navy seaman Robert Stethem and demand that Israel release 700 Lebanese Shiite Moslem prisoners in exchange for 36 American hostages. Also that day, in Beirut, two men drive a car filled with explosives into a Lebanese army post, killing 23.
June 18 — A three-day series of explosions, apparently in support of a strike by Communist-controlled unions, begins in Bogota and at least three other Colombian cities.
June 19 — A suitcase bomb explodes at Frankfurt airport, killing three people and injuring 42. In Tripoli, Lebanon, a car bomb destroys a candy shop, killing at least 60 and wounding 100. In San Salvador, gunmen fire into crowded cafes, killing 13, including four off-duty U.S. Marines and two other Americans. The U.S. Embassy blames the attack on leftist guerrillas.
June 20 — Five bombs go off in Katmandu, Nepal, killing seven people, including a National Assembly leader, and injuring 23.
June 23 — Plastic explosives kill two baggage handlers at Tokyo’s airport. Sabotage is suspected in the crash of an Air India jet the same day in which 329 are killed.
Aug. 8 — Terrorists kill an American soldier and bomb the U.S. Rhein-Main Air Base near Frankfurt. Authorities blame the leftist Red Army faction.
Sept. 16 — Thirty-nine people are injured in a grenade attack at a fashionable cafe on Rome’s Via Veneto. A Palestinian is charged in connection with the incident.
Sept. 25 — Three Israelis are killed on a yacht in Cyprus.
Sept. 30 — Gunmen kidnap three Soviet diplomats and an Embassy doctor in Beirut. One of the diplomats is found dead Oct. 2.
Oct. 7 — New Yorker Leon Klinghoffer is killed during the hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro. They surrender Oct. 9.
Nov. 6 — Rebels seize Colombia’s federal court building in downtown Bogota, and army troops recapture the Palace of Justice in an assault after a 28-hour seige. The Justice Ministry says 95 people, including II Supreme Court justices, are killed.
Nov. 23 — An EgyptAir plane is hijacked on a flight from Athens to Malta. Egyptian commandos storm the plane the next day, and 60 people are killed.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
