Reflecting on 10,000 Islamic Terrorist Attacks

Emerging Trends and Stark Conclusions

Numerous websites track the daily rising toll of deadly Islamic terrorist attacks. Two of the most comprehensive tallies are maintained by the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism, called the Terrorism Knowledge Base ( www.tkb.org ) and The Religion of Peace (TROP) website ( www.thereligionofpeace.com ).  Late last year, readers watched the terrorist attack score box for TROP grow to 10,000 attacks since September 11, 2001.  Behind the grim data are trends and modalities which may be useful in efforts to isolate and combat Islamic terrorism.  While the editors of the TROP website would be the first to admit there are gaps and flaws in the data, they have been as diligent as humanly possible to provide an accurate accounting from newspaper articles, tips, and other information sources. If anything, the data grossly understates the true extent of Islamic terrorism.  (See “About the List of Terrorist Attacks” on their website sidebar.)  So, looking at the six year period, what is happening with regard to Islamic terrorism?

 

 

                                       Terrorism by Year:

 

	ATTACKS	KILLED	INJURED	ATTACKS EXCLUDING IRAQ/AFGH	KILLED EXCLUDING IRAQ/AFGH	INJURED EXCLUDING IRAQ/AFGH
2002	549	2,723	6,039	542	2,686	5,877
2003	835	3,372	6,905	627	2,554	5,358
2004	994	7,210	14,632	578	4,265	8,348
2005	1,539	7,662	12,850	914	2,648	5,709
2006	2,286	15,251	19,540	1,105	3,733	6,108
2007	2,649	20,172	16,013	1,387	4,758	7,422

 

The data show that terrorist attacks and deaths are increasing year by year, but the figures are overwhelmed by the events in Iraq and Afghanistan.  When these war zones are excluded, it is still clear that the incidents of Islamic terrorist attacks are increasing at a compound rate of 21% per year in areas outside the U.S. sphere of influence.     

 

 

                                Terror in the U.S.:

 

	ATTACKS	KILLED	INJURED
2002	12	16	1
2003	2	2	-
2004	3	2	10
2005	-	-	-
2006	4	6	20
2007	2	5	5

 

Probably of most interest to American readers are the data about the U.S.  These figures are dominated by the Beltway Sniper incidents in 2002.  The remaining attacks were by single perpetrators, often considered mentally unstable, and there are no obvious trends over time.  The figures indicate that the strong anti-terrorism measures have been effective, despite the outcries of some over the encroachment on our civil liberties.  While guns accounted for 75 percent of the killings and about half of the injuries, the second highest cause of injuries was being deliberately run down by vehicles.

 

                                   Afghanistan:

 

	ATTACKS	KILLED	INJURED
2002	6	36	162
2003	58	248	192
2004	80	342	329
2005	162	530	356
2006	229	859	1,180
2007	289	1,293	1,491

 

The United States’ “war on terror” began in Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. While the conflict there has been overshadowed by the events in Iraq, the table shows that the number of attacks and the number of casualties have been increasing steadily. 

 

                                       Iraq:

 

	ATTACKS	KILLED	INJURED
2002	1	1	-
2003	150	568	1,365
2004	336	2,603	5,955
2005	463	4,484	6,785
2006	952	10,659	12,252
2007	973	14,121	7,100

 

	ATTACKS	KILLED	INJURED
Jan-Sept	780	12,553	4,724
Oct-Dec	193	1,568	2,376

 

The War in Iraq began as combat between two armies, but quickly the Iraqi regulars evaporated and the Coalition found itself fighting an insurgency which, over time, was spearheaded by people claiming allegiance to Al Qaeda.  Beginning in October of this year, the United States deployed a surge of ground forces and also changed its tactics to win greater support of the tribal leaders.  Another factor could be that much of the violent “sectarian segregation” process has been accomplished. For whatever reasons, the data above show a dramatic decrease during the last quarter of 2007. The number of attacks and the number killed declined on a monthly basis by 25% and 63%, respectively.  The reason the rate of injuries actually increased is because many of the post-surge incidents were horrific suicide bombings of marketplaces packed with Iraqi civilians rather than targeted killings of coalition forces and their Iraqi counterparts.

 

                                       Israel:

 

	ATTACKS	KILLED	INJURED
2002	78	373	1,799
2003	62	202	811
2004	43	118	417
2005	30	58	283
2006	38	89	724
2007	7	9	75

 

                               Palestinian Authority:

 

	ATTACKS	KILLED	INJURED
2002	-	-	-
2003	1	1	-
2004	2	5	6
2005	2	21	167
2006	14	19	27
2007	43	146	477

 

 

When this six year study period began, two major events were happening in Israel – the Second, or al-Aqsa, Intifada triggered by Yasser Arafat in September, 2000, and the construction of the controversial 436 mile Separation Wall between Israel and the West Bank. Arafat died of AIDS on November 11, 2004, leaving the Palestinian Authority in shambles.  Other than the distortion introduced by Hezbollah’s rocket attacks from Lebanon on Israel in August, 2006, the decline in attacks and casualties in Israel has been dramatic. The wall is now about 60% complete.  The data show that terrorism within the Palestinian Territories – mostly HAMAS vs. Fatah factions – has increased to the point that, in 2007, the Palestinian terrorist attacks exceeded those in Israel by 600%.  It should also be noted that the high casualty figures in the Palestinian Authority in 2005 were two accidental explosions of weapons intended to be used against Israeli targets.

 

                                    Pakistan:

 

	ATTACKS	KILLED	INJURED
2002	61	152	388
2003	39	155	207
2004	64	325	800
2005	83	274	375
2006	189	619	729
2007	302	1,638	2,876

 

Pakistan is counted as one of the U.S.’s most important allies in stamping out Islamic terrorism. Unable to defeat terrorism, President Musharraf tried to make a “pact with the devil” to bring it under control. In June, 2006, his government signed a truce with the tribal elders of the North West Frontier Province and later with those in North Waziristan to withdraw government military forces from those territories in exchange for their promise not to support Al Qaeda terrorism. The data show that this policy has done nothing to curb the rise in Islamic terrorism in Pakistan. Late in 2007, beleaguered Musharraf declared a state of emergency and suspended the constitution. By year’s end, Benazir Bhutto was assassinated and there was rioting throughout Pakistan. Clearly, appeasement does not work.  When viewing the data above, it is important to understand that these acts of violence were generally Muslims against Muslims, whether of a different faction or as representatives of the government.

 

                           Russian Federation:

 

	ATTACKS	KILLED	INJURED
2002	4	256	449
2003	56	434	774
2004	83	978	1251
2005	82	219	245
2006	47	106	110
2007	59	157	197

 

The data above include Russia, Chechnya, Dagestan, and Ingushetia. Almost 60% of these attacks were in Chechnya. The crack-down on two Chechen Islamist leaders Shamil Basaev and Abdul-Kalim Sadulayev (and their deaths in 2006) may account for the for the over-all reduction in terrorist attacks in the Federation. 

 

 

                                   Saudi Arabia:

 

	ATTACKS	KILLED	INJURED
2002	1	1	-
2003	7	61	321
2004	17	64	277
2005	4	9	-
2006	3	6	13
2007	5	9	4

 

For many terrorism watchers, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia represents the breeding ground for Islamic terrorism.  Osama bin Laden was born, educated, and began his evil career there.  Fifteen of the nineteen September 11 hijackers were Saudis.  An Al-Qaeda-in-Iraq directory recently captured by U.S. forces indicated that 60% of the recruits were from Saudi Arabia and Libya.  So why is terrorism remarkably absent from the Kingdom?  Some of the more horrific attacks were actually aimed at expatriate workers. The bottom line is that many Saudis support terrorism as long as it isn’t directed against the Kingdom.  A recent event underscores this point: the government released 1,500 extremists after an intensive re-education program (involving 100 Islamic scholars and 30 psychologists) which was aimed not at condemning terrorism, but rather condemning the concept of takfeer.  Takfeer  is a key element of the writings of Hasan al-Banna (Muslim Brotherhood) and Sayyed Qutb which declares corrupt rulers un-Islamic and worthy of being overthrown or put to death. The “graduates” of the re-education program had to sign an oath pledging fealty to the Saudi King.

 

IS ISLAM TOLERANT OF OTHER RELIGIONS?

 

One of the most fallacious arguments put forth by Muslims and their apologists is that Muslims are tolerant and want to live in peace with their non-Muslim neighbors.  If violence occurs, it is only due to the Islamophobia of the racist non-Muslims who provoke a defensive reaction from the victimized innocent people of the Islamic faith.  In this context, it is a propos to look at the trends in Islamic terrorism in countries where Islam is a minority faith relative to Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism. 

 

 

                  India – Muslims attacking Hindus:

 

	ATTACKS	KILLED	INJURED
2002	295	905	1353
2003	301	692	1633
2004	120	367	1142
2005	222	498	1241
2006	295	704	2024
2007	149	268	483

 

India is 81% Hindu, 13% Muslim, 2% Christian, and 2% Sikh.

 

 

             Indonesia – Muslims attacking Christians:

	ATTACKS	KILLED	INJURED
2002	14	247	423
2003	13	48	142
2004	23	80	260
2005	11	69	246
2006	6	8	2
2007	2	1	13

 

 

Indonesia is 88% Muslim, 8% Christian, and 2% Hindu.  Most of the attacks reflected above were in Poso (Central Sulawesi) where there has been an on-going war between Islamists and Christians.

 

 

                 Nigeria – Muslims attacking Christians:

 

	ATTACKS	KILLED	INJURED
2002	8	195	620
2003	4	31	48
2004	17	194	60
2005	7	59	31
2006	9	101	401
2007	8	36	66

 

Nigeria is 50% Muslim, 40% Christian, and 10% “indigenous beliefs.”  The northern part of Nigeria is predominantly Muslim and some provinces claim to adhere to Sharia Law.

 

 

           Philippines – Muslims attacking Christians:

 

	ATTACKS	KILLED	INJURED
2002	11	64	273
2003	47	232	448
2004	16	247	174
2005	23	70	255
2006	39	83	163
2007	27	114	201

 

The Philippines are 95% Christian (mostly Roman Catholic) and 5% Muslim.

 

 

          Thailand – Muslims attacking Buddhists:

 

	ATTACKS	KILLED	INJURED
2002	-	-	-
2003	1	3	-
2004	71	117	249
2005	296	423	472
2006	315	410	495
2007	422	611	625

 

Thailand is 95% Buddhist, 5% Muslim, and 1% Christian

 

 

There are a number of interesting trends in these data.  The ratio of attacks per capita of population is relatively small for the Christian and Hindu countries – between .4 and 1.8 attacks per million over the six year period.  This may be explained by the fact that Muslims and Hindus have coexisted for centuries in India, even though the Hindu religion is considered idolatrous.  Christians are “People of the Book,” so they, too, are more tolerated than idolaters.  But the ratio of Islamic terrorist attacks in Thailand is 17 per million – ten times more frequent.  Also, this is one of the countries where the attacks and carnage are increasing steadily. What these figures indicate is that attacks may increase the more “foreign” the religion is relative to Islam.

 

It is also significant that the number of casualties per terrorist attack in Nigeria is 35, more than five times greater than the average number of casualties in India, the Philippines, and Thailand. This is because many of the attacks in Nigeria were “communal riots” where Muslims rampaged through Christian areas or churches.  An example of this would be the two days of mob rioting in Kano in September, 2007, during which 10 Christians (including a Priest) were murdered and 61 people injured, all over the “Muhammad cat” cartoon drawn by a fellow Muslim. The rioters also took advantage of the opportunity to burn down several Christian churches. Another factor contributing to the heavy bloodshed is that the local authorities in Northern Nigeria condone or at least do not interfere with the attacks.  Thirdly, most of these riots occurred in areas where the Muslims were in the majority.  The figure for Indonesia (22 casualties per attack) is also higher than in other mixed religion countries, probably for the same reasons.  The recent post-election rioting in Kenya where a church was burned killing 50 refuge-seekers may have been another situation where Muslims took advantage of unrest to “settle scores” with non-Muslims.

 

IS ISLAM AN AFRICAN RELIGION?

 

As far back as the 1930’s, Islam has been promoted among African-Americans as an African religion because of its origins on that continent. It was called the “Lost-Found Nation of Islam in the Wilderness of North America” because it was “discovered” here by the descendants of African slaves. Likewise, in Africa, Islam is promoted as indigenous, as opposed to the white-man’s religion of Christianity. Easily forgotten in this discourse is the historical fact that those who enslaved upwards of 180 million Africans both for domestic use in Arab countries and for export to the American colonies were in fact Muslims using the Quran’s endorsement of jihad against infidels and of capturing “booty” slaves as their justification.  The last countries to formally end slavery were Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Mauritania just a generation or so ago, and then only due to world-wide pressure.

 

Today’s greatest humanitarian crisis is the on-going genocide of black Africans in the Sudan and Chad by the Arab Janjaweed militias, sometimes supported by government aircraft.  While the context of this killing is a 24-year-long civil war which has claimed over 2 million lives, the terrorist attacks in the past five years have been mostly on peaceful African villages.  The Janjaweed kill the men, rape the women, and burn down the villages as a means of driving the black Africans (many of whom are actually Muslim) out of the oil-rich Darfur region and neighboring Chad.

 

  Sudan/Chad –Arab Muslims attacking African Muslims:

 

	ATTACKS	KILLED	INJURED
2002	1	24	23
2003	6	261	35
2004	20	1241	908
2005	11	325	80
2006	26	720	210
2007	16	564	157

 

The terrorism in the Sudan/Chad region may be the most under-reported part of TROP’s database because only limited access to the Darfur region is given to the press or human rights observers.  What jumps out of this table, however, is that the ratio of casualties per reported attack is 57 – the highest of any continuous terrorism campaign. It should also be noted in the data above that the Sudan/Chad region is one of the few regions where the number killed exceeds the number injured by a significant margin, over two to one. The Arab Janjaweed militias are Sunni Muslims, as are most of their African victims.  These data, indeed, support the claims of genocide and government complicity.  

 

IS ISLAMIC TERRORISM EXTRAORDINARY?

 

An argument frequently heard with regard to Islamic terrorism is that other religions engage in terrorism, too.

True enough.  Christian anti-abortion activists have blown up abortion clinics and Hindus have set off bombs. For a religion to call itself “the religion of peace,” however, it falls to reason that their record would be extraordinarily devoid of terrorism.  Finding data to make the case one way or another is difficult.  The three largest religions, accounting for two-thirds of all religious followers, are Christianity (2.1 billion), Islam (1.3 billion), and Hinduism (.9 billion). These would be the most likely religions for assessing the relative prevalence of religious terrorism

 

To get information on Hindu terrorist acts, two “conflict studies” websites operating out of India were contacted, namely, the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies and the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism. Neither organization replied.

 

Regarding Christian terrorism, the National Counterterrorism Center provided data for one report published by Many Eyes, called “Terrorist Incidents – Christian Extremists, 1/12004 to 3/31/2007.”  When looking at the date, however, all but one of the 82 attacks listed were identified with either the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda or the Bandu Dia Kongo (BDK) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  While these violent separatist groups have incorporated some militant concepts from the Old Testament into their doctrines, they could hardly be called Christian.  What denomination do they belong to?  Where is their church? What is the name of their pastor or priest?  It would take the same stretch of the imagination to call these groups “Christian” as it would be to call the Nazis “Christian” because the movement began in predominately Christian Germany.

 

All of this is to argue, in absence of proof to the contrary, that Islam is truly extraordinary in its doctrine of making war against non-believers, in its record of actually conducting violence in the name of Islam, and its numerous sacred texts (Quran, Hadith, and Sunnah) which justify such acts as being commanded by Allah and His Prophet.

 

FINDINGS REGARDING WEAPONS OF TERROR

 

The trends in the “weapons of terror” may provide some insights about the “tactics” of terrorism as well as its resources.  The following analysis should be seen as purely impressionistic, as no attempt was made to tally up the weapon used in each of the 10,000 or so terrorist attacks.  Rather, the frequency of words used in the TROP descriptions was summarized and then “normalized” based on the relative number of attacks in a given year.  For example, since there were three times as many terrorist attacks in 2007 as there were in 2003, if “bomb” was used 205 times in the descriptions in 2003, then that figure would be multiplied by 3 to make it comparable with the number of times “bomb” was used in 2007 for a comparable number of attacks.

 

Frequency of weapon in description normalized by number of attacks

 

	BOMB	SUICIDE	GUN	SHOT/ SHOOT	IED	GRENADE	ROCKET /RPG	KIDNAP
2002	365	128	220	145	48	207	-	61
2003	615	157	209	232	38	197	58	43
2004	757	238	284	299	37	127	95	66
2005	667	254	295	299	24	70	35	68
2006	632	181	325	251	10	55	60	109
2007	745	275	292	444	19	72	55	99

 

There are a couple of conclusions that may be drawn from these data.  Bombing (including suicidal) is clearly the weapon of choice for the terrorists, followed by guns.  IEDs, grenades, and rockets are more commonly weapons of warfare than they are weapons of terror.  The relative increase in the number of kidnappings may indicate that terrorists are having more difficulty financing their terror, and so they are resorting to kidnapping for ransom money. Obviously, more data and analysis would be needed to confirm these hypotheses.

 

CONCLUSIONS:

 

The following conclusions are admittedly broad generalizations to which specific exceptions can be found.  Nevertheless, until equally large amounts of statistical data can be produced to prove they are invalid, these generalizations provide a picture as to the nature of terrorism and its general trends.

 

1. Terrorism is increasing in frequency and severity in most countries where it is not dealt with directly and with specific government actions – as it is in the U.S., Russia, and Israel.  The appeasement approach taken by Pakistan only accelerated the terrorism.

 

2.  Terrorism has generally failed to accomplish any political or social goals. The data seem to indicate that it is losing its support as a tactic in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and India.

 

3.  Where terrorism was directed toward majority religions in such countries as India, the Philippines, and Thailand, the intensity increased as the religion involved was more “foreign” to Islam.

 

4. Violence increased in severity in regions where terrorism against non-Muslims (or non-Arabs) is justified by the country’s Sharia law codes or where it was condoned by the government authorities, as in northern Nigeria and the Sudan.

 

5.  The rapidly increasing terrorism in Afghanistan (financed by bumper opium harvests) demonstrates clearly the consequences of the failure of the United States (and now NATO) to identify and soundly defeat the enemy there.

 

6. Muslim-on-Muslim terror and Arab-on-Black terror reveal the evil agenda of its perpetrators, where the desired ends justify the means even if it means killing fellow Muslims.  Examples include Iraq, Pakistan, and the Sudan.

 

 

Note on methodology: 

 

The analysis of the data was performed with simple Microsoft Word tools, which can be duplicated and confirmed by anyone with the motivation and time.  Each year of data was stored as a separate file.  Using the edit tool “replace,” the number of entries could be “counted” electronically just by replacing a piece of the text common to every entry with exactly the same text.  Example:  By commanding ‘Replace “/05” with “/05”,’  the computer will indicate the number of times the change was made in the 2005 terrorist attack file, which would be equivalent to the number of terrorist attack entries for that year. (Some of these single entries were actually for multiple attacks that occurred at the same time. For example, the Nov. 9, 2005, coordinated attack on three hotels in Amman, Jordan, which resulted in 56 killed and 115 injured is shown as a single entry in the table, but is counted as three separate terrorist attacks. Consequently, the total line count of TROP files won’t exactly total 10,000, but the tallies are reasonably close for analytical purposes.)  A similar approach was used to identify modal attack methods, such as bomb, IED, or shot.   While such words were not used in describing every attack, the raw score gives some indication of the modality of those terrorist tactics.  To get data by country, the table was sorted alphabetically by country, and then the table was “broken” by country to get sub-totals. Using the MS table “formula” tool, a row was pasted at the bottom of each country grouping to get a total of the number  killed and injured.  The same “formula” tool was used to get raw data for the entire file for a given year.  Since the data for 2001 was a partial year, it was not analyzed. 

 

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