Vietnam War
North Vietnamese and Viet Cong

Ami Pedahzur has written that "the overall volume and lethality of Viet Cong terrorism rivals or exceeds all but a handful of terrorist campaigns waged over the last third of the twentieth century", based on the definition of terrorists as a non-state actor, and examining targeted killings and civilian deaths which are estimated at over 18,000 from 1966 to 1969. The US Department of Defense estimates the VC/PAVN had conducted 36,000 murders and 58,000 kidnappings from 1967 to 1972, c. 1973. Benjamin Valentino attributes 45,000–80,000 "terrorist mass killings" to the Viet Cong. Statistics for 1968–1972 suggest "about 80 percent of the terrorist victims were ordinary civilians and only about 20 percent were government officials, policemen, members of the self-defence forces or pacification cadres." Viet Cong tactics included frequent mortaring of civilians in refugee camps, and placing of mines on highways frequented by villagers taking goods to urban markets. Some mines were set only to go off after heavy vehicle passage, causing slaughter aboard packed civilian buses.

Notable Viet Cong atrocities include the massacre of over 3,000 unarmed civilians at Huế during the Tet Offensive and the killing of 252 civilians during the Đắk Sơn massacre. 155,000 refugees fleeing the final North Vietnamese Spring Offensive were reported to have been killed, or abducted, on the road to Tuy Hòa in 1975. PAVN and Viet Cong troops killed 164,000 civilians in democide between 1954 and 1975 in South Vietnam. North Vietnam was known for its abusive treatment of American POWs, most notably in Hỏa Lò Prison (the Hanoi Hilton), where torture was employed to extract confessions.
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