This is a timeline of incidents in 1987 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 | Article | Details | Perpetrator | Part of | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 17 | Massacre | 127 | 64 | North Central Province, Sri Lanka | Aluth Oya massacre | 127 Sinhalese civilians, who were travelling in 3 buses and 2 trucks to Trincomalee were killed by cadres of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam organization, commonly known as LTTE.[1] [2] [3] The cadres clad in military uniforms stopped the vehicles and dragged out the passengers and shot them to death with automatic weapons after brutally assaulting them with clubs. The near the village of Aluth Oya, on the Habarana Trincomalle road in North Central Province of Sri Lanka. | LTTE | Sri Lankan Civil War | |
| April 21 | Car bombing | 110 | Unknown | Colombo Central Bus Station bombing | Car bomb at bus terminal kills 110 people.[4] This attack was carried by LTTE.[5] | LTTE | Sri Lankan Civil War | ||
| June 2 | Massacre | 34 | 4 | Ampara District, Sri Lanka | A bus carrying Buddhist monks was stopped and 30 Buddhist monks and four civilians were killed by LTTE. | LTTE | Sri Lankan Civil War | ||
| June 19 | Car bombing | 21 | 45 | Barcelona, Spain | 1987 Hipercor bombing | A car bomb at the Hipercor shopping centre placed by Basque separatist group ETA kills 21 people and injures 45 more. | ETA | Basque conflict | |
| June 20 | Massacre | 32 | Ömerli, Mardin, Turkey | Pınarcık massacre | The Pınarcık massacre was the killing of 24 Kurdish women and children and eight village guards in the village of Pınarcık, by units of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The dead consisted of 16 children, eight village guards, and eight women | Kurdistan Workers' Party | Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present) | ||
| July 7 | Massacre | 34 | 30+ | Haryana, India | 1987 Punjab killings | Sikh militants from the Khalistan Commando Force massacre 34 Hindu bus passengers after setting up a fake road block. | Khalistan Commando Force | Punjab insurgency | |
| August 18 | Grenade attack | 2 | 16 | Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, Sri Lanka | 1987 grenade attack in the Sri Lankan Parliament | A member of the communist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (People's Liberation Front) threw two hand grenades into the Parliament of Sri Lanka, narrowly missing president J. R. Jayewardene and prime minister Ranasinghe Premadasa and killing an MP and a Ministry secretary. | Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna | ||
| November 8 | Bombing | 12 | 63 | Enniskillen, Northern Ireland | Remembrance Day bombing | PIRA Bombing targeting a group of Ulster Defence Regiment soldiers at a remembrance service for those lost in conflict. Most of the deaths were civilians. | PIRA | The Troubles | |
| December 11 | Car bombing | 11 | 88 | Zaragoza, Spain | 1987 Zaragoza Barracks bombing | ETA car bombing targeting a Civil Guard barracks. 11 people, five of them children, were killed and 88 people, mostly civilians, wounded. | ETA | Basque conflict |