Terrorist bombings occur all over the world, and a multitude of groups are responsible. The IRA in Northern Ireland has one of the longest records of bombings. They have been responsible for the death of one of the British royal family, Lord Mountbatten, and for an attempt on the life of the Prime Minister in 1984. There have been numerous civilian casualties as a result of indiscriminate bombing of public places, primarily in London.
Terror bombardment was used as a strategy during WWII by UK Air Marshall Harris, who eschewed attempts at precision bombing against strategic targets, such as oil, transportation and industrial centres. The result was the death of an estimated 600,000 German civilians, including more than 100,000 in the firebomb attack on Dresden. Subsequent firebombing of Tokyo by the USA killed more Japanese civilians that did the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The doctrine of terrorist mass destruction remained in the Vietnam War; head of the Strategic Air Command, General LeMay's prescription to end the war was: "Bomb them back into the Stone Age".