6 notable terrorist attacks by right-wing extremists
The rise of right-wing sentiments resulted in a number of terrorist attacks by individuals influenced by these ideologies. Here are six attacks that made global headlines
2011 Norway attacks
On 22 July 2011, far-right Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik killed detonated a car bomb in Oslo, killing eight two hours later he shot dead 69 at island youth camp. It is the deadliest mass shooting by a lone individual in modern history.
Nearly 90 minutes before the deadly bomb went off, the self-anointed knight dedicated to stemming Muslim immigration into Europe emailed a compendium of texts entitled "2083: A European Declaration of Independence" to over 1,000 addresses.
The compendium contains his militant far-right ideology and xenophobic worldview, which espouses an array of political concepts, including support for varying degrees of cultural conservatism, right-wing populism, ultranationalism, Islamophobia and far-right Zionism.
2016 Munich shooting
On the fifth anniversary of the attack by Breivik, 18-year-old David Sonboly shot nine people dead at Olympia shopping mall in Munich. Most of his victims were young, the youngest being just 14 years old. More than 30 other people were injured as well.
David had a history of voicing xenophobic views and support for the far-right. His fellow online video gamers said that Sonboly wrote anti-Turkish messages, admired Germany's right-wing AD party.
He considered himself part of the Aryan race, and boasted about sharing the same birthday as Adolf Hitler. David, signalled his sympathy for the Nazis when he underwent treatment for mental issues.
2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting
On 27 October 2018 Robert Gregory Bowers attacked the Tree of Life – Or L'Simcha Congregation, a synagogue in Pennsylvania, USA during Shabbat morning services. The shooter killed eleven and wounded six, including several Holocaust survivors. It was the deadliest attack ever on the Jewish community in the United States.
Bowers had earlier posted antisemitic comments on the twitter alternative social network Gab. In one post, Bowers claimed Jews were helping transport members of the migrant caravans. He believed that those in the migrant caravans were violent because they were attempting to leave countries that had high levels of violence. And Bowers repeatedly called them "invaders."
His cover picture in Gab was a photo with the number 1488, which is used by neo-Nazis and white supremacists to evoke David Lane's "Fourteen Words" and the Nazi slogan Heil Hitler.
2019 Christchurch mosque shootings
On 15 March 2019, two consecutive mass shootings occurred in a terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. The attacks, carried out by a lone gunman named Brenton Harrison Tarrant, who entered both mosques during the Friday prayer, began at the Al Noor Mosque and continued at the Linwood Islamic Centre. 51 people were killed and 40 were injured. He had live-streamed the first shooting on Facebook and prior to the attack, had published an online manifesto.
His 74-page anti-immigrant manifesto, called 'The Great Replacement', is a reference to the "Great Replacement" and "white genocide" conspiracy theories. In it, he advocates for "an atmosphere of fear" against Muslims. Several anti-immigrant views are conveyed in the manifesto, including hate speech against migrants, white supremacist rhetoric, and calls for the removal of all non-European immigrants in Europe who he claims are "invading his land."
He also claimed to get the blessing of Anders Breivik for the attack, which is unlikely as Anders Breivik has very little interaction with the outside world.
2019 El Paso shooting
On 3 August 2019, a mass shooting occurred at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, United States. In the terrorist attack, a far-right individual named Patrick Wood Crusius killed 23 people and injured 23 others. The shooting has been described as the deadliest attack on Latinos in modern American history.
Authorities believe that shortly before launching the assault, Crusius posted a manifesto online named 'The Inconvenient Truth'. Claiming to have been inspired by the Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand that killed 51 people earlier the same year, the author expresses support for the perpetrator of the Christchurch shootings and rants about things such as environmental degradation, "cultural and ethnic replacement", and a "Hispanic invasion".
The anti-Hispanic, anti-immigrant manifesto also promotes the white nationalist and far-right conspiracy theory 'The Great Replacement'.
2022 US Capitol attack
Following then-US President Donald Trump's defeat in the 2020 presidential election, a mob of his supporters besieged the Capitol Building in Washington, DC on 6 January 2021.
The idea was to keep Trump in power by stopping a joint session of Congress from counting electoral college votes to legitimise President-elect Joe Biden's victory.
The attack was the finale of Trump's seven-part strategy to overturn the election. Five persons died shortly before, during, or after the event: one was shot by Capitol Police, another died of a heroin overdose, and three died of natural causes. Several individuals were hurt, including 138 police officers.
Within seven months, four officers who responded to the attack died by suicide. The monetary damages inflicted by attackers exceeded $2.7 million as of 7 July 2022.
More than 30 members of far right anti-government groups, including the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and Three Percenters, were charged with conspiracy for allegedly planning their attacks on the Capitol.
