Pre-2000s • On 6 March 1970, in the
Greenwich Village townhouse explosion, three members of the
Weather Underground were killed in the accidental explosion of a nail bomb intended to be set off at a non-commissioned officers dance at the
Fort Dix,
New Jersey Army base. • Several nail bombings occurred during
The Troubles in
Northern Ireland, both by
Republicans and
Loyalists. •
American Mafia figure
Philip Testa was killed by a nail bomb in
Philadelphia in 1981. •
Mark Hofmann, convicted of murdering two people with a nail bomb in 1985. •
In 1989, football hooligans threw nail bombs at supporters of a rival club in the
Netherlands. •
A number of nail-bombings occurred in 1999 when the
neo-Nazi David Copeland planted several devices in
London targeted against ethnic minorities and LGBT people.
2000s • On 11 October 2002 in
Myyrmäki,
Finland, a 19-year-old named
Petri Gerdt committed a nail bombing in a local mall. Seven people died including Gerdt, and 159 were injured. • On 9 June 2004, a nail bomb was detonated in Cologne, Germany, by the Nazi terrorist group National Socialist Underground (
Nationalsozialistischer Untergrund) in a popular Turkish shopping quarter called "Little Istanbul", wounding 22 people and damaging several shops and parked cars. According to the magazine
Der Spiegel, the Nazi group claimed responsibility for the attack in a DVD found in the ruins of a house in Zwickau (D) that exploded on 4 November 2011. • On 31 December 2005, an Indonesian marketplace was
nail-bombed, and a second undetonated bomb was found nearby. • On
29 June 2007, a nail bomb that was assumed to be a part of a terror plot was discovered in a car and was consequently defused by police in the
West End of London. There was a second car bomb, further down the street that was apparently scheduled to detonate as evacuees and survivors fled down the street, to a nearby tube station. • On
21 December 2007, a nail bomb was detonated in
Sherpao,
Pakistan by a suicide bomber. Detonation occurred inside a tightly packed
mosque, filled with holiday worshippers. At least 50 people were killed, with over 100 injured. • In the
22 May 2008 Exeter bombing, a nail bomb explosive was detonated in the toilets of Giraffe café in the
Princesshay Shopping Centre in
Exeter,
Devon. The homemade bomb exploded in the attacker's face as he was trying to arm it in the café toilet. Police then found another nail bomb inside the café after everybody had been evacuated.
2010s • On
11 April 2011, a nail bomb was detonated in the
Minsk Metro,
Belarus. 15 people were killed and 204 people were injured. • During the
2011 Syrian uprising, security forces were reported to have used nail bombs against crowds of protesters. • On 15 April 2013,
pressure cooker bombs filled with bits of metal, nails, and ball bearings were used in the
Boston Marathon bombing. • On 22 March 2016, nail bombs were used by
ISIL during
the terrorist attacks on Brussels Airport, Zaventem and the metro station in Maalbeek. • On 24 September 2016, a nail bomb was detonated in
Budapest,
Hungary. Two policemen and a taxi driver were injured in the
attack. • On 22 May 2017, a nail-bomb
attack occurred at the
Manchester Arena where American singer
Ariana Grande was performing. The total number of people killed was 22 and 1,017 were injured. Among the 22 dead were children, including one who was 8 years old. • On 17 October 2018, Vladislav Roslyakov killed 20 people using a nail bomb and a pump-action shotgun during an
attack on
Kerch Polytechnic College. == Use by special forces ==