Is this world Really Peaceful? Data Mining Reveal the Trend of Terrorist Attacks Worldwide
By: The Group
Tags: Data, 911, Storytelling, Terrorism

Nowadays Situation：

After 20 years passing the new century，19 years passing the 9/11 events， has ours word become more peaceful and safer？

We are trying to look at this question into two perspectives: from a macro perspective like country, to see as different countries, what is the terrorist attacks numbers and damage distribution；from a more micro perspective, to see as the individuals, which occupations are more be harmed and the damage degree of the weapons.

What’s the trend of terrorist attacks according to time and region?

Line chart 1. Times of Terrorism Events across Year around the World

Between 2001 and 2018, there were 118,361 terrorist attacks times worldwide, resulting in 208,589 deaths, 378227 injuries in total. It seems that the number of terrorist attacks has not decreased with the new century, but has a growing trend, especially accelerating from 2011 and reaching a peak of 16,908 times in 2014.

Map 1. Global Terrorist Incidents in Different Countries

To explore the spatial distribution of terrorist attacks, we developed a global bubble map, which shows that most cases concentrate in areas like Western Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and displaying banded or block distribution characteristics.

Bar Chart 1. Ten Countries with the Highest Incidences of Terrorism after 9/11 Event

Then, we select the top 10 frequency countries as research targets, which also could be divided into three Tiers:

Tier1 is Iran, whose total number is nearly a half more than the second country;

Tier2 includes three countries as Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, which is also more than half ahead of Tier3;

Tier3 is consisted with six countries like Philippines and Libya.

To study the trend of global terrorist attacks times, is it the common global trend, or a few countries’ s particular influences? Thus, the top 10 frequency of countries have been drawn their annual change lines, compared with the general trend map (1), and we are announced that:

Line Chart 2. Tendency Amount of Terrorist Attacks in Top-10 Frequency Countries

Overall: Countries have an increasing tendency with the year, which is consistent with the entire global line (1). However, the third echelon countries just changed in a limited average. Hence, the global tendency is more consistent with the first and second echelons countries’ (Iraq \Afghanistan\Pakistan\India) trend lines. That is, the apparent growth and decline of global trends are mainly related to the impact of the above four countries.

India: A particular trend among the four countries is India, which carried the first small increase in global tendency since the new century in 2002, when other countries’ changes were not apparent. India’s line can be inferred that the global amount of growth in the first three years was mainly related to India.

According to references, we know, “Because of border conflicts and religious conflicts, India has long in trouble of international terrorism. Bombay has suffered many terrorist attacks and explosions in 1993, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2008 and 2011, including star hotels, railway stations, religious sites, and other crowd gathering places. According to the survey, 7 of the 34 terrorist organizations currently in India are “transnational terrorist organizations. ”（Wang.2019）

Moreover, unlike the other countries’ dramatic increases and down as Tier1 and Tier2, India’s rate continues to increase instantly. Its number and change are closer to the third echelon’s national trend. Therefore, we speculate that the reasons for the terrorist attacks in India are different from those in the other three countries. For example, India is not the Islamic State (IS) factor, an extremist group that the other three countries were involved in.

Iraq: The highest number of terrorist attacks in the world is Iraq. Since 2003, the number of Iran cases has grown rapidly and has been the world’s largest one all year round.

The year 2003–2008 was the second wave of growth in global terrorist attacks. Considering the trends and scales are very limited and small in other countries, the global increase may mainly reflect in Iraq. We suspect that it is related to the breakout of the Iraq war, which the United States military aroused in 2003.

Bar Video 1. Top Ten Countries with the Highest Incidences of Terrorism after 9/11 Event

Increase: What’s more, from the beginning of 2008 to 2011, the number of terrorist attacks in the world was stable and high, related to the four countries of Tier1 and Tier2.

Peak: From 2011 to 2014, the third wave of global terror growth was also the most intense and peak period: the events in three echelon countries all increased, indicating that this was not a case of a few countries, but related to regional fluctuations and even global fluctuations.

The number of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan increased sharply from 2011 to 2014 and became the top three in the world. The number of three countries significantly represented the global terrorist attacks increase and dominated the apparent decline in the number of global terrorist attacks after 2014. We suspect that was related to some reasons, such as the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq in 2011, the killing of bin Laden so the start of the U.S military withdrawal in the Afghan war in 2011.(Wang.2017)

Drop: And to 2015, the withdrawal was mainly completed. And these three countries are three of the IS’s four-member states. After the withdrawal of the U.S, it left behind chaotic internal affairs. The IS began to grow, whose occupation area peaked in 2015, then began to be cleared and weakened by resistance, leading to the mainly decrease of a global tendency.

2. How destructive the terrorist attacks are according to time and region?

Terrorist attacks vary from many elements so lead to the difference in the degree of damage and spread. We compiled the average number of casualties per case in each country to compare the extent of terrorist attacks:

Bar Chart 2. Ten Countries with the Highest Average Number of deaths in Terrorist Incidents

By accident, we have found that the top 10 frequent countries with terrorist attacks are not the top 10 countries with the average number of casualties per case. That is, the attacks happen most frequently in some countries are not the high levels of health damage; on the other hand, among the top casualties per case 10 countries in the world, although the possibilities of territory attacks happening are low, once it occurs, each attack would cause enormous casualties, for example of Norway, the victims’ numbers per case is as high as 12 deaths and 12 injuries.

Bar Chart 3. Ten Countries with the Highest Average Number of Injuries in Terrorist Incidents.

We compared injury rates to mortality rates to further study the terminal degree of each case in the above countries. The four countries like Norway, Chad, Angola and Morocco, which both rank the top 10 in the numbers of death per case and injures per case. Which significant that attacks in these four countries are highly possible to make people injured as well as die. The ratio of deaths and injuries in Norway is as high as 1:1, which means that every two of the people hit by a terrorist attack were one killed and one injured, while chad close to 1:3, Angola close to 1:5, morocco close to 1:2.

Moreover, other countries rank in the top death per case but not rank on the top injures per case like South Sudan, Ethiopia, CAR, Congo, and Uganda may indicate a higher ratio of deaths and injuries, which suggests that although there are few injured people in each case, the accuracy of making people death is higher.

On the other hand, in some areas like Moldova, HK, Kuwait, Belarus, and South Korea, although the injury rate is high in each case, the death ratio is fortunately not as high top 10. The degree of damage in terrorist attacks in these countries is a little sight and mostly injured.

3. The relationship between attack types and casualities

Bar Chart 4. The Fatalities Numbers of Attack Types

The targets of international terrorism are further generalized and softened, and they are more inclined to attack economic and cultural targets, especially civilians who lack defense. Based on the data, the first target of attacks is the public. Among them, 25,912 terrorist incidents were launched against ordinary people, accounting for 28% of the total number of terrorist attacks. This is an extremely dangerous phenomenon.

This phenomenon may be due to: In the post-911 era, governments around the world have generally strengthened the protection of important target such as police and military, making it difficult for terrorists to attack. However,it is inconvenient to prevent some mass venues and commercial venues due to their large number, and general security measures are difficult to put in those place. It is more easier for terrorists to target private citizens than government-related departments for attack.The terrorists are cruel and violent, they attempt to put pressure on the government by murdering private citizens, which can undermine the government’s international image and government’s prestige. By this way,terrorists are showing the world that they can attack any target in the world.

In fact, the state and society are also the main targets of terrorist attacks and violations.The data shows that the frequency of terrorists targeting the military, government agencies, police departments, or personnel is similar. Judging from the characteristics and attributes of these attacked targets, they all belong to relevant government departments. These government departments (including police , The government, the military) are attacked as high as 40%. The frequency of terrorist attacks on commercial facilities, transportation facilities, political institutions, educational groups, media and other public facilities is slightly weaker than that of politically related departments. The probability of terrorist attacks on government diplomatic departments and non-profit organizations is half of that on public equipment, which accounts for the least.

Bar chart 5. Top Ten Attack Targets with the Highest Average Number of Injured in Terrorist Incidents

Bar chart 6. Top Ten Attack Targets with the Highest Average Number of Deaths in Terrorist Incidents

In view of the casualties and the injured suffered by the attacked objects, public facilities such as airports and business equipment, as well private citizens and their properties, have the most casualties when they are attacked. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, these objects have been attacked more frequently. Secondly, because it is inconvenient to prevent public venues due to their large amount, and it is difficult for general security measures to achieve high coverage. However, related government departments that have suffered more attacks, such as the police and the army, have fewer casualties. This is because the government has strengthened protection measures for these departments. Even if the number of attacks is more than other targets, the level of casualties is the lightest.

For other educational institutions, media institutions, etc., there are fewer attacks and fewer casualties. It can be seen that there is a certain relationship between the number of attacks and the number of casualties. The more the number of attacks, the more casualties and the greater the influence. Such a relationship will also affect the motivations of terrorists. They tend to choose attack objects and places that are likely to cause mass casualties.

Bar chart 7. Top Ten Weapons Types in Terrorist Incidents (Times)

The performance methods of terrorist activities changed in different period. it not only depends on the level of science and technology at the time but also depends on the social form at that time, especially the information dissemination mode and the degree of human society’s response and tolerance to crime. Based on data analysis,considering the number of weapons used in terrorist attacks, we found that the main types weapons used in terrorist attacks after 9/11 were dynamite, explosives, bombs, firearms, incendiary, melee, and attacks on public facilities,explosions and armed attacks are the most commonly used attack weapons by terrorists.

Bar chart 8. Top Ten Weapons Types with the Highest Average Number of Injured in Terrorist Incidents

Bar chart 9. Top Ten Weapons Types with the Highest Average Number of Deaths in Terrorist Incidents

We try to find the relationship between frequency of weapons use and the casualties caused by weapons.Incendiary and melee attacks have caused more casualties than other methods. Therefore, it can be inferred that explosions and armed attacks have a higher success rate and cause more casualties. It can attract more attention and achieve good propaganda purposes, thereby expanding its influence, so these two have become the main methods for terrorists to launch attacks. In comparison, destructive weapons, and chemical weapons are not used frequently in terrorist attacks because the number of casualties caused by them is far less than the number of casualties caused by explosions and armed attacks. But it’s worth mentioning that vehicle weapons cause more casualties while it rank lower in the list of the frequency of weapons used in attack.

Among these weapons, For weapons of mass destruction, terrorists have almost never used nuclear, biological, or radiological weapons, and only 184 times have used chemical weapons. These weapons with great lethality but less frequent use may be related to the level of technology mastered by criminals.The power of weapons may have effect on the frequency of the use of weapons in terrorist attacks. The more lethal weapons cause more injuries, the more they can cause a large-scale sensation, and the more they can achieve the terrorist’s intent to spread terrorism.