The world’s most infamous terrorists and the ends they met

 The notorious founder of Islamist militant Al-Qaeda is also synonymous to modern terrorism. The militant enjoys celebrity status among young Jihadis and is the emblem of terrorism to billions across the globe. Osama is best known for leading the 9/11 attacks on the World trade towers that killed nearly 3000 innocent civilians and shook the world.

Osama introduced the world to a genre of terrorism that was light years ahead of the medieval idea of an illiterate man with a gun in one hand and a holy book in the other. He and his bunch of militants were highly educated and well versed in several languages. Laden tops the charts here as US and NATO announced a whopping $25 million on his head. He was finally shot dead in his safe house in Abbotabad on May 2^nd, 2011 by an elite team of US Navy Seals.

While he might not have been the top ranks, this Lashkar-e-Taiba militant was among the tiny group of LeT foot soldiers that waged war on the city of Mumbai on 26/11. The terrorist from Faridkot, Pakistan was the only attacker captured alive by the police.

On 6^th May, 2010 a trail court sentenced Kasab to death and after the verdict was upheld by the Supreme Court of India, Kasab was hanged on 21^st November, 2012 and reportedly buried at Yerwada Jail in Pune.

Widely accepted as ‘the chief architect’ of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or KSM is accused of multiple extreme acts of terrorism that has lead to the death of hundreds.

He is accused for a range of crimes including the execution of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl. He is currently in U.S. custody in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. We say the severe torture he has been facing there is worse than death.

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Shekau is the leader of the infamous Boko Haram that was branded a terrorist organization in 2013.

Shekau claimed the ‘credit’ for kidnapping around 300 schoolgirls in April 2014. After nearly six months he claimed the girls would be released as a part of the cease-fire agreement with the Nigerian government. Later he declared the girls were converted to Muslims and that the militant organization had apparently "married them off."

There have been rumours about his death since 2009. The Nigerian army claimed he was killed in the 2014 Battle of Kodunga. There are also theories of the militant using body doubles. Security analyst Ryan Cummings once commented, "Is this his fourth or fifth death? He dies more often than an iPhone battery."

The Boston Bomber belongs to a family that emigrated from the erstwhile Soviet Union in 2002. On April 15, 2013 Dzhokhar and his brother detonated two pressure cooker bombs near the finishing line of the Boston Marathon.

The attack killed three people and injured 264 others. They also allegedly killed a policeman. While the elder brother was killed in the ensuing manhunt, the younger was convicted on April 8^th, 2015 and was sentenced to death on May 15^th of the same year.

Hasib Hussain, Shahzad Tanweer, Germaine Lindsay and Mohammed Sidique Khan were part of a suicide squad that caused explosions that shook three subway trains of the London Underground. Just an hour after these men blasted themselves into pieces, another bomb exploded on a bus in Tavistock Square.

Together, the attacks injured more than 700 people and killed several others.

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The primary al-Qaeda explosives expert, al-Asiri is suspected to be behind several major terror attacks.

There have been unconfirmed reports of him being critically wounded from US drone strikes in 2013, or being killed in combat in 2014. However, none of these conjectures were ever confirmed.

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The man behind the January's hostage crisis in Algeria was killed in Mali according to Libyan forces. The U.S. government declared a $5 million bounty on his head.

Belmokhtar is believed to have ordered a hit on the Algerian gas plant where 37 hostages were killed. He is one of the top-most figures in the war-torn Libya. Branded as ‘the uncatchable’ and Mr. Marlboro for his cigarette smuggling, there have been rumours about the one-eyed jihadist being still alive.

Touted as the most infamous terrorists in the history of Australia, Khaled Sharrouf and Mohamed Elomar were reportedly killed while fighting for the ISIS in Iraq.

However, some sources close to the families said the duo was killed by drone strikes. While Elomar's body was recovered, Sharrouf’s was missing.

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Otaybi was among the insurgents who forcefully seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca during the 1979 Hajj season. The militants took hundreds of pilgrims as hostage and several hostages and security personnel were killed in a bid to regain control.

The infamous siege lasted around two weeks before Saudi forces invaded and captured the mosque and Otaybi was killed in the raid.

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This Palestinian terrorist outfit kidnapped and murdered eleven Israeli athletes and officials and shot a West German police officer during the 1972 Summer Olympic Games in Munich, Germany.

As a reply for the atrocities Israel launched a special-ops mission called ‘Wrath of God’ that located and killed those involved in the attack. It is believed that the operation continued for around 20 years.

This proves that all terrorists are not Islam extremists. Timothy McVeigh was America’s home-grown terrorist who blasted a huge truck bomb near the Federal Building in Oklahoma on April 19, 1995. Widely recognized as the deadliest attack on American soil prior to 9/11, this gulf war vet claimed this was his way to avenge the Waco Seige. His attack claimed 168 lives and left more than 600 wounded.

McVeigh met his death on 21^st June, 2001 when he was executed by the poison injection at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana.

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