Delete statement in SQL is very slow

Question

I have statements like this that are timing out:

DELETE FROM [table] WHERE [COL] IN ( \'1\', \'2\', \'6\', \'12\', \'24\', \'7\', \'3\', \'5\')

Answer 1

Older topic but one still relevant. Another issue occurs when an index has become fragmented to the extent of becoming more of a problem than a help. In such a case, the answer would be to rebuild or drop and recreate the index and issuing the delete statement again.