A synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh on Saturday, which left 11 people dead, is “likely the deadliest” such attack in US history, an American civil rights group said.

Here is a list of major attacks on synagogues around the world over recent years, and of attacks on other places of Jewish community life.

Tunisia

On April 11, 2002, 21 people died in a suicide attack on the Ghriba synagogue, on the island of Djerba, in the south of the country. Among the dead were 14 Germans, five Tunisians and two French citizens. A tank truck driven by a Tunisian and filled with inflammable gas blew up outside the synagogue, which is the oldest place of Jewish worship in Africa. The attack was claimed by al-Qaida.

Turkey

On Nov. 15, 2003, vehicles filled with explosives were used against two synagogues in Istanbul, Neve Shalom and Beth Israel, killing 30 and injuring 300. Five days later, the British consulate and an HSBC building came under attack. A Turkish cell of al-Qaida claimed responsibility for the four attacks, which claimed a total of 63 lives.

Israel

On Nov. 18, 2014, an attack by two Palestinians against a synagogue in western Jerusalem claimed five: three Israeli-Americans, one Israeli-Briton and a Druze policeman. The Har Nof neighborhood, where the attack took place, is considered to be a bastion of the ultra-orthodox Shas party. The attack was the first against a Jewish place of worship in Jerusalem. Both attackers were shot dead by police.

Denmark

On Feb. 14, 2015, a Danish citizen of Palestinian origin, having pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, opened fire on a cultural center in Copenhagen, which was hosting a freedom of speech conference, and killed a filmmaker.

Later that night, he also killed a 37-year-old Jewish man who was standing guard outside a synagogue where a bar mitzvah was being held.

The attacker was then killed in a shootout with police.

Not just synagogues

In addition to synagogues, many other places of Jewish community life have been attacked over the years.

In France, on March 19, 2012, a 23-year-old French-Algerian Islamist killed three children and a teacher in a Jewish school in the southwest of the country.

In the U.S., on April 13, 2014, a white supremacist known for his anti-Semitic views attacked a Jewish community center and retirement home in Kansas, killing three people, none of whom were actually Jewish.

In Belgium, on May 24, 2014, a man opened fire in the lobby of the Jewish Museum in Brussels, killing four. The alleged killer, French-Algerian Mehdi Nemmouche, was arrested in France in June of this year and extradited to Belgium for trial.

In France, on Jan. 9, 2015, four Jews were killed during a hostage-taking in a Jewish supermarket in Paris by a Jihadist.
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There have been at least three other significant anti-Semitic shootings in the United States in the past 20 years, and the Anti-Defamation League reports that anti-Semitic attacks, particularly vandalism, are on the rise. 

On Aug. 10, 1999, five people were wounded at the Los Angeles Jewish Community Center when white supremacist Buford Furrow fired 70 shots in the lobby of the building. Furrow later killed a mail carrier, fled in a taxi to Las Vegas, and there surrendered to authorities. He told the FBI he wanted the shooting to be “a wake-up call to America to kill Jews.” 

Furrow was found guilty of murder and civil rights violations. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole. 

On July 28, 2006, one person died and five others were injured in Seattle, Wash., when a gunman opened fire at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle. 

The gunman, Naveed Haq, a U.S. citizen of Pakistani origin, was convicted of aggravated murder under Washington’s hate-crime statute and sentenced to life in prison without parole, plus 120 years. 

On April 13, 2014, three people were killed in Overland Park, Kan., in shootings at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and in Village Shalom, a Jewish retirement center. 

The gunman, white supremacist Frazier Glenn Miller Jr., 73, of North Carolina, was convicted of murder and other crimes and sentenced to death in 2015. 

In its 2017 audit of anti-Semitic events, the Anti-Defamation League said it logged 1,986 incidents, an increase of 57 percent over the findings of a year earlier. Notable was a spree of 163 bomb threats made against Jewish institutions in the first three months of 2017. An additional six bomb threats against Jewish groups took place later in the year.  

The largest increase in types of incidents in 2017 — 86 percent over 2016 — was vandalism. The ADL recorded 952 incidents of anti-Jewish vandalism in 2017, many of them cemetery vandalisms or schoolyard incidents. 
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The suspect in Saturday’s deadly shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue, identified by officials as local resident Robert Bowers, is to face federal charges that carry the death penalty. 

Here is what is known so far about the suspect, who reportedly yelled “all these Jews must die!” as he launched his attack, killing 11 people and wounding six more. 

The suspect was in fair condition with multiple gunshot wounds at Allegheny General Hospital, according to Pittsburgh’s public safety director. 

Bowers, 46, appeared not to have a previous criminal record, and an FBI official said he was not previously known to law enforcement. 

Bob Jones, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh office, said law enforcement authorities thought the suspect acted alone, but they had not identified his full motive. 

Bowers has a license to carry a firearm and has made at least six firearm purchases since 1996, CNN reported, quoting a law enforcement official. 

Authorities said Bowers was armed with an assault rifle and at least three handguns when he burst into the Tree of Life Synagogue. 

The U.S. Department of Justice said it would file hate crime and other criminal charges against Bowers, who could face the death penalty if convicted. 

Social media posts

Bowers appeared to be the author of a recent rash of violently anti-Semitic posts on social media, notably on the Gab.com social networking website, where conspiracy theories — like a discredited report linking Hillary Clinton to pedophiles — are common. 

A quote atop the Bowers page said “Jews are the children of Satan,” according to screenshots of the now-suspended account released by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist movements. 

Bowers posted on Gab just hours before the shooting: “HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.” 

HIAS is the acronym for the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, which has offices in New York and Maryland. 

Another missive posted 17 days before Saturday’s attack accused HIAS of bringing “in hostile invaders to dwell among us” — and appeared to threaten one of the organization’s projects. 

“We appreciate the list of friends you have provided,” the poster wrote, while linking to an event page for a “National Refugee Shabbat.” 

HIAS called the attack a “horrifying tragedy,” saying “this loss is our loss.” 

In another post reported by The New York Times, Bowers said he did not care for President Donald Trump because Trump was “a globalist, not a nationalist.” 

Using a slur for Jews, he said, “There is no #MAGA, as long as there is a k— infestation.” MAGA refers to Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan. 

Gab responds

Gab, a popular site with white nationalists and members of the so-called alt-right, released a statement saying it had “zero tolerance” for violence or terrorism and was “saddened and disgusted by the news” from Pittsburgh. 

Gab said in a post that after learning of the attack, it matched the name of the alleged shooter to the holder of his account. 

It then took down the Bowers account and immediately contacted the FBI, adding, “We will do everything in our power to work with law enforcement to see that justice is served.”
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A little more than 20 years after he was murdered in Laramie, Wyoming, the remains of Matthew Shepard were laid to rest Friday at Washington’s National Cathedral. Shepard was openly gay, and the aftermath of his brutal killing helped drive change in the United States to include sexual orientation when prosecutors press hate crime charges. Arash Arabasadi reports from Washington.
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The top U.S. general says diplomatic efforts on the Korean Peninsula will lead to military “discomfort” in the coming months, as leaders try to strike a “very difficult balance” between military risk and political progress.

“The more successful we are in the diplomatic space, the more uncomfortable military leaders are going to be,” General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a group of reporters at a conference at the Navy League Building just outside Washington Friday.

The general’s comments came a week after the U.S. and South Korean militaries suspended another large-scale joint military exercise.

Give diplomacy a chance

Chief Pentagon spokesperson Dana White said last Friday the two militaries were suspending their joint air exercise, dubbed Vigilant Ace, in order to “give the diplomatic process every opportunity to continue.”

Before that, the United States and South Korea canceled annual Ulchi-Freedom Guardian exercises that had been scheduled for August.

Dunford told reporters the decision to suspend these exercises was informed by the fact that the general in command of the peninsula, General Vincent Brooks, is an experienced commander who has been in the Korean theater for three years. He added that staff turnover for the South Korean forces is typically not until around January.

“So we felt like we had sufficient staff training and exercises that had been conducted where we could look at tasks,” Dunford said. “You’ve either demonstrated proficiency to perform that task or you haven’t.”

Many smaller-scale military exercises have continued on the peninsula and across the region, but the U.S. general nominated to be the next commander of American forces in South Korea pointed out during his confirmation hearing last month that the Ulchi-Freedom Guardian suspension had caused “slight degradation” to military readiness on the peninsula.

When asked how many large-scale exercises could be skipped before a “significant decline in readiness,” Army Gen. Robert Abrams told Senate members it was “hard to judge.”

Officer rotation

As U.S. and South Korean leaders rotate out to make way for new leaders, their untested forces will need to find ways to practice successfully operating together.

Dunford said Friday it was incumbent to find ways “to mitigate training in a different way” in the absence of some of these major exercises on the peninsula.

He then added, “Where we cannot mitigate those impacts on readiness, (we must) communicate it to our political leadership so they can then say, ‘Is the risk that we’re occurring in the readiness of the force actually justified by the reason we’re taking that risk in the political space?’”

Dunford, Brooks and Admiral Philip Davidson, the commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, spent hours in talks Thursday.

Dunford said the leaders started defining what “mission-essential tasks” in which U.S. Forces Korea and Republic of Korea Armed Forces must demonstrate proficiency over the next several months.
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The federal government sent supplies to a U.S. territory in the Pacific that was ravaged by a super typhoon as residents of the Northern Mariana Islands dug through crumbled houses, smashed cars and fallen utility poles two days after the deadly storm.

A military plane brought in food, water, tarps and other supplies, U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency spokesman David Gervino said. The agency is focused on helping restore power, opening sea and air ports, and ensuring cell towers can operate on emergency power until electricity returns, he said.

Super Typhoon Yutu packed maximum sustained winds of 180 mph (290 kph) as it passed over the islands of Tinian and Saipan early Thursday, the National Weather Service said. By Saturday, power was still out across Saipan, the largest island with 50,000 residents, and Tinian, with 3,000, local officials said.

The strongest storm to hit any part of the United States this year overturned cars, crushed small planes, ripped off roofs and killed a woman who took shelter in an abandoned building that collapsed. Others were injured, including three people who needed surgery.

Jan Reyes and her family lost everything.

“Everything my family and I have bought and added to our home over 13 years laid on the flooded floor as every window in our house shattered,” the Saipan resident wrote in an email to The Associated Press.

The ceiling of a bedroom collapsed, destroying all the furniture. A cousin was trapped under debris for seven hours, Reyes said.

Her family rode out the storm in a hotel room, overturning a bed to create a barricade against the wind, rain and debris. When the worst passed, she said it took half an hour to navigate fallen poles and trees for what would normally be a five-minute drive to their home.

“However, as islanders, we value family more than anything else in this world and we are more joyful and relieved that we are still complete and safe,” she said, adding that those in the U.S. territory are “resilient people.”

Michelle Francis hid in a closet while the storm destroyed her Saipan house, saying in a Facebook message that “many people lost their homes and their belongings. Now everyone is trying to stand strong, have faith.”

People in the islands are used to riding out monster storms, but Yutu was the worst that many said they have experienced.

“One of the things that’s unique and great about the Northern Mariana Islands is because they do often have severe weather, the residents here are very resilient,” said Gervino, the FEMA spokesman. “They listen to warnings from local officials, they take shelter when directed to do so, they stock up on supplies in advance of the storm.”

He said he’s convinced that’s why there weren’t large amounts of injuries.

The territory’s only hospital, in Saipan, said it received 133 people in the emergency room Thursday, and three patients had severe injuries that needed surgery.

Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, the territory’s delegate to Congress, said residents will need major help to recover.

FEMA has a significant amount of food and water stored on nearby Guam, which was preparing for Typhoon Mangkhut last month. The damage wasn’t as bad as expected, so more than 220,000 liters of water and 260,000 meals are still available for the Northern Marianas, a half-hour plane ride away.

The agency is constantly communicating with local officials on transportation, communications, food and water, and energy and fuel, Gervino said. FEMA made changes after Hurricane Maria, a Category 5 storm that struck Puerto Rico last year, creating task forces to tackle those areas.

Hurricanes are spawned east of the international dateline, while typhoons develop west of it. Yutu was a Category 5 storm when it hit.

Commercial flights won’t be operating for some time, said Nadine Deleon Guerrero, a spokeswoman for the territory’s emergency management department. Terminals, the tarmac, runway and equipment were damaged.

More than 800 people were in shelters across the islands, and space was running out, officials said.

Many homes were destroyed because some poor families can’t afford concrete homes that conform to building codes meant to withstand typhoon winds, said Edwin Propst, a member of the territory’s House of Representatives. Some build houses with concrete foundations and walls but that have wooden and tin roofs.

Even some concrete houses were reduced to rubble on the smaller island of Tinian, which took a direct hit, resident Juanita Mendiola said.

“We had to hide inside the bathroom because the house felt like it was going to blow apart,” she said. “It was literally shaking — a concrete house shaking.”

Rebuilding efforts can’t wait, Reyes said, though many expected the recovery to be lengthy.

“The foundation of our culture is selflessness and family values and this is what has always helped us get through hard times,” she wrote. “We will always remain hopeful and prepared for the worst. This is our way of life.” 
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