The 5 Most Embarrassing Failures in the History of Terrorism

Terrorism isn't exactly rocket science. It's something pretty much anyone can do. You wake up one day and decide that you'd rather like to explode in the middle of a crowded shopping center, and BAM! There you go. You're a certified terrorist.

But, incredibly, people manage to fuck up even that. And if we can't laugh at terrorists, who can we laugh at?

Terrorists are basically camwhores with guns instead of tits: they're always videotaping themselves, they desperately crave attention and rarely have anything interesting to say.

If you need proof look back to 2007, when six would-be terrorists embarked on a plan to attack the Fort Dix military base in New Jersey. Rather than practicing their covert plot, you know, covertly, they got a bunch of guns together and went down to a public shooting range with a video camera, where they proceeded to shoot at targets while screaming about their radical agenda. So now they've got their damning footage of them screaming, "WE'RE GOING TO DO TERROR! WOOOO!!!!"--but they weren't sure what to do with it (they didn't know how to get it off the camera). So to get it converted to DVD, they took it down to... oh God, really?

They took it to Circuit City.

How It Went Wrong:

Despite what Best Buy would have you believe, not all Circuit City employees are terrorist sympathizers. The "DVD Converting Guy" did some ace detective work and happened to notice that the entire videotape was chock-full of guns, rage, anti-American tirades and dudes talking about how they were totally going to charge the Fort Dix military base and knock it over. He quickly notified the authorities.

The FBI investigated and the terrorists were promptly arrested, easily convicted and taught the same lesson inadvertent amateur pornstars have been learning since the invention of the internet - whether it's you dancing around in women's underwear or just pinky-swearing to blow up America, don't film it unless you want people to watch it.

The Thomas Jefferson Cultural Center was almost the victim of the Sistine Chapel of retarded terrorist attacks. Located in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, the cultural center seemed a prime target of U.S. authority abroad, and so in January of 1991, two terrorists, part of an as yet identified terrorist cell with loose ties to Saddam Hussein, plotted their attack on the building.

The center is in there somewhere.

Most terrorists aren't exactly artists. There's no Dennis Hopper-esque elaborate clockwork devices and multistage plans, they usually just put something that explodes on top of something that doesn't want to explode and then clap their hands together in expectant glee.

This case was no different: they attached explosives to a timer, loaded it in a canvas bag and set it next to the cultural center. The simple plans are the hardest to screw up, right?

How It Went Wrong:

Ahmed, the bomber, who apparently got most of his training from Terror at the Improv, decides to actually arm the bomb at the center. At night. In the dark.

Not thinking to even bring so much as a flashlight, he starts wiring up the explosives by...

Wait, really?

...the dim flame of a pocket lighter.

His partner, Sa'ad, probably nagging him like an irritated housewife, stands a few feet away nervously watching. Ahmed finally gets the timer working, somehow not igniting the thing with his Zippo, and settles back with pride. He's got 5:00 minutes to get out of there.

Wait, now it's... h:00 minutes? H isn't a measure of time, is it? Now it's E:00 minutes. Did he... did he somehow set the timer to the alphabet? How is that even possible? Suddenly, it starts to dawn on him. Ahmed, whose last name is presumably "E. Coyote," has set the timer... upside down.

The bomb explodes, disintegrating Ahmed and showering his partner Sa'ad with retard bits. A few minutes later, a passing taxi driver notices a dazed and confused man covered in blood wandering the empty streets. Being a Good Samaritan, he takes the shocked man to the local hospital, where the police coax and comfort him for a while, assuming him to be a victim, until they put the pieces together and arrest him.

Authorities report that Sa'ad had apparently tried to escape but somehow inadvertently ran out into thin air, where he mysteriously stood suspended, defying gravity. After looking about curiously for a while, Sa'ad ultimately glanced down and realized there was no ground beneath him, at which point he plummeted to earth holding a handwritten sign that simply "uh oh."

Just kidding! No but seriously he went to prison and probably got raped forever.

In the year 2000, Al-Qaeda operatives found a tempting target in a port city of Yemen: the most awkwardly named boat in the world, The USS The Sullivans.

The second Al-Qaeda saw that naughty ship, they just knew she wanted it. Wanted it hard. So they licked their lips with anticipation, maybe high-fived a little bit, or listened to some "Eye of the Tiger"--whatever terrorists do to get revved up--and started loading bombs onto a life-raft.

It was a simple plan: small boat explode, big boat fall in water. Chaos would ensue, people would die, Al-Qaeda would get a boner, yadda yadda yadda.

They've got all the equipment, they've got plenty of well-made bombs and they're ready to go.

How It Went Wrong:

The boat took off on its journey toward destiny. The driver was reconciled with his own impending death, and his comrades bade him sad farewell from the docks - saluting his noble sacrifice. But the severity of the moment (along with everything else) was somewhat dampened when the boat immediately sunk into the bay.

The explosives were too heavy.

In their haste to initiate plan "Explosives + Boat," they failed to take the whole "Boat" factor into consideration, opting to just really focus in on the "Explosives" part. Sure, elaborate plans can fail and the random nature of the universe will throw a wrench into the most well-laid of plots, but your entire plan consisted of two points and you immediately, horribly failed at one of them. You missed 50 percent of a two question test. That's an F.