10 deadliest terror attacks on religious places globally

Religious places have frequently been targets of terror attacks due to their symbolic importance, high visibility and the concentration of people during worship. These attacks often aim to incite fear, provoke sectarian conflict and garner widespread attention. Here are some of the deadliest terror attacks on religious places in the world:

4 March, 2022: A bomb tore through a Shiite mosque in Peshawar in Pakistan killing at least 57 people and wounding more than 100 in one of the worst terrorist attacks in Pakistan in several years.

21 April 2019: In coordinated suicide bombings in Sri Lanka. the St Sebastian’s Church in Negombo, St Anthony’s Shrine in Colombo and Zion Church in Batticaloa were targetted killing 259 people and injuring more than 500.

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15 March, 2019: In Christchurch, New Zealand, a gunman opened fire on worshippers during Friday prayers at Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre, killing 51 people and injuring 40.

17 January, 2019: Two suicide attackers detonate two bombs during a Mass in a Roman Catholic cathedral on the largely Muslim island of Jolo in the southern Philippines, killing 23 and wounding about 100 others. Three days later, an attacker hurls a grenade in a mosque in nearby Zamboanga city, killing two religious teachers.

27 October, 2018: A truck driver who spewed hatred of Jews stormed the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and shot everyone he could find on a Sabbath morning, killing 11 congregants in an act of antisemitic terror for which he could be sentenced to die.

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24 November, 2017: In one of the deadliest attacks in Egypt, militants attacked the Al-Rawda Mosque in Bir al-Abed, Sinai Peninsula, killing over 300 worshippers and injuring more than 100..

1 August, 2017: A suicide bomber stormed into the largest Shiite mosque in Afghanistan’s western Herat province, opening fire on worshippers before blowing himself up, killing at least 90 people. Hundreds more were wounded in the attack, which happened during evening prayers.

16 February, 2017: Suicide bomber detonates his explosives vest among the devotees at the shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Pakistan’s Sindh province, killing 98.

24 September, 2002: As many as 30 people were killed and more than 80 injured, after two armed terrorists belonging to the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terror outfits attacked the Akshardham Temple complex at Gandhinagar in Gujarat.

12 April, 1994: The Musha Church Massacre was a tragic event that took place during the Rwandan Genocide in April 1994. It occurred at the Musha Church in Musha, a town in the Kigali Province of Rwanda. This massacre was one of the many brutal attacks during the genocide, which saw the systematic slaughter of the Tutsi population by the Hutu majority killing 1,180 people.