This is a timeline of incidents in 1979 that have been labelled as "terrorism" and are not believed to have been carried out by a government or its forces (see state terrorism and state-sponsored terrorism).
| Date | Type | Dead | Injured | Location | Details | Perpetrator | Part of |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| February 12 | Aircraft shootdown | 59 | 0 | Vuti African Purchase Area, Rhodesia | ZIPRA guerillas shot down Air Rhodesia Flight 827, a civilian flight from Kariba to Salisbury using a Strela 2 missile. | ZIPRA | Rhodesian Bush War |
| March 30 | Assassination, bombing | 1 | 0 | London, England | Abingdon MP Airey Neave is killed by a bomb in his car planted by the Irish National Liberation Army | INLA | The Troubles |
| April 22 | Massacre | 4 (+2) | 0 | Nahariya, Israel | Nahariya massacre: Four Palestine Liberation Front militants kill four Israeli civilians, including two children. | Palestine Liberation Front | Israeli–Palestinian conflict |
| May 1 | Bombing | 0 | 0 | Oslo, Norway | Petter Kristian Kyvik threw a bomb at a train during a May Day parade, when it passed the corner of University Street and Stortingsgaten. Erik Blücher was screened for participating, but the charges was later. | Petter Kristian Kyvik | |
| May 11 | Shooting | 5 (+2) | 5 | Colombia | M-19 militants assault the town of Belen de Los Andaquies in Caqueta. The commander of the police post, the local judge and two rebels were killed. In other attack the same day FARC militants killed at least 3 soldiers and wounded other 5, And in Cauca, a landowner and his son were executed by FARC.[1] | M-19 and FARC | Colombian conflict |
| June 3 | Shooting | 4 | 0 | Santander Department, Colombia | FARC guerrillas kill a councilman and three leaders of the Liberal Party in the village of Las Trochas, municipality of La Paz.[2] | FARC | Colombian conflict |
| June 16 | Massacre | 50+ | Aleppo, Syria | The Aleppo Artillery School massacre was a massacre of Syrian Army cadets by members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria. | Muslim Brotherhood in Syria | Islamist uprising in Syria | |
| June 20 | Hijacking | 0 | 0 | Chicago, United States | Serbian nationalist Nikola Kavaja hijacks American Airlines Flight 293 with the intention of crashing it into the headquarters of the Yugoslav Communist Party, but was persuaded out of doing so by his lawyer. | Nikola Kavaja | |
| July 28 | Bombings | 7 | 100+ | Madrid, Spain | ETA-pm carries out a series of coordinated bombings targeting Barajas Airport, Atocha station and Chamartín station. | ETA-pm | Basque conflict |
| August 27 | Bombing, assassination | 4 | 6 | Mullaghmore, Ireland | Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma and three others are killed by a bomb that was planted on his boat. | PIRA | The Troubles |
| August 27 | Bombings, shooting | 19 | 7 | Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland | The Provisional IRA ambushes a British Army convoy, detonating two roadside bombs and firing on the soldiers after the blasts. The attack was the deadliest on the British Army during The Troubles | PIRA | The Troubles |
| October 12 | Assassination | 1 | The Hague, Netherlands | Ahmet Benler, the son of Özdemir Benler, the Turkish ambassador to the Netherlands, was assassinated. The responsibility for this was claimed separately by ASALA and JCAG. | Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia and Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide | ||
| November 15 | Attempted bombing | 0 | 12 | United States | A bomb that was planted on American Airlines Flight 444 only partially explodes and filled the passenger's cabin with smoke, injuring 12 people through smoke inhalation. Had the bomb properly detonated, it would have destroyed the plane. The attack was the catalyst for the Unabomber case, though it was not the Unabomber's first attack. | Unabomber | |
| November 20 – December 4 | Hostage-taking | 127 (+117) | 450+ | Mecca, Saudi Arabia | Hundreds of militants from Wahabi group Ikhwan seized the Masjid al-Haram, Islam's holiest site, and demanded the overthrow of the House of Saud and institution of an Islamic state. The two-week siege resulted in the deaths of about 250 people and injury of hundreds more. | Ikhwan | |
| December 28 | Shooting, Raid | 0? (+10) | Unknown | Tolima, Colombia | An attack in the by FARC guerrillas in the boundary of the municipalities of the Victoria in Caldas and Mariquita (Tolima).[3] | FARC | Colombian conflict |