Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated on Friday by a gunman while delivering a campaign speech on a street in western Japan, a shocking event for the country.
Here's a global look at other high-profile political assassinations in the 21st century:
October 15, 2021: British lawmaker David Amess is stabbed to death by an Islamic State supporter while meeting with voters.
July 7, 2021: Haitian President Jovenel Moïse is assassinated by gunmen who also wound his wife, Martine, in an overnight raid on their Port-au-Prince home. More than 40 people have been arrested in connection with the attack, including high-ranking police officers and a group of former Colombian soldiers.
April 20, 2021: Chad President Idriss Deby Itno is killed while battling rebels in the north. Hours earlier, he had been declared the winner of an election that would have given him another six years in power.
December 19, 2016: Russia’s ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov, is shot dead by a Turkish police officer condemning Russia’s military role in Syria at a photo exhibit. The gunman was later killed in a shootout with police.
June 16, 2016: British lawmaker Jo Cox is shot and stabbed to death by a far-right supporter in the English village of Birstall, part of her constituency.
February 6, 2013: Tunisian left-wing opposition leader Chokri Belaid is fatally shot outside his Tunis home. His killing, followed six months later by that of another left-wing leader, Mohammed Brahmi, plunged Tunisia into political chaos with effects reverberating to this day. No one has been convicted in either case.
September 11, 2012: U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens is killed when militants storm the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. Another three Americans died in the attack.
October 20, 2011: Longtime Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi is hunted and summarily killed by insurgents after being toppled in a NATO-backed uprising.
March 2, 2009: Guinea-Bissau President Joao Bernardo Vieira is killed by renegade soldiers in his palace, hours after a bomb blast killed his rival in the West African nation.
December 27, 2007: Benazir Bhutto, the first female prime minister in a Muslim-majority country and Pakistan’s second nationally elected prime minister, is shot at and then attacked by a suicide bomber at a political rally in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
February 14, 2005: Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is killed by a suicide truck bomb on a seaside boulevard in Beirut. Another 21 people died and 226 were wounded in the attack, which many in Lebanon see as the work of neighboring Syria.
December 29, 2003: Archbishop Michael Courtney, the pope’s ambassador in Burundi, is shot by gunmen as he was returning from a funeral and died during surgery.
March 12, 2003: Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic is shot dead in front of the Serbian government headquarters in Belgrade. He was a key leader of the revolt that toppled former President Slobodan Milosevic in October 2000. Twelve people were convicted in connection with the killing, which was carried out to halt his pro-Western reforms, according to a Serbian court ruling.
May 6, 2002: Populist Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn is gunned down in a northern Netherlands city, days before a general election in which he was a candidate, by an animal welfare activist.
June 1, 2001: Nepal’s King Birendra is killed when his son, Crown Prince Dipendra, opens fire on his family in the royal palace. The dead include Queen Aiswarya, a prince, and five others. Officials said the shooting followed a dispute over the prince's marriage.
January 18, 2001: Congo President Laurent Kabila is assassinated in the presidential palace in the capital, Kinshasa, by one of his bodyguards, who was killed minutes later by security forces.
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