Incidents of Terrorism — 2010

Country Reports on Terrorism
National Counterterrorism Center: Annex of Statistical Information
Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism
Published: August 18, 2011
Information Cut Off Date: March 23, 2011

Developing Statistical Information

Consistent with its statutory mission to serve as the United States government's knowledge bank on international terrorism, the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) is providing the Department of State with required statistical information to assist in the satisfaction of its reporting requirements under Section 2656f of title 22 of the US Code (USC).

This statute requires the State Department to include in its annual report on terrorism "to the extent practicable, complete statistical information on the number of individuals, including United States citizens and dual nationals, killed, injured, or kidnapped by each terrorist group during the preceding calendar year." While NCTC keeps statistics on the annual number of incidents of "terrorism," its ability to track the specific groups responsible for each incident involving killings, kidnappings, and injuries is significantly limited by the availability of reliable open source information, particularly for events involving small numbers of casualties. Moreover, specific details about victims, damage, perpetrators, and other incident elements are frequently not fully reported in open source information.

This Annex is provided for statistical purposes only. The statistical information contained in the Annex is based on factual reports from a variety of open sources that may be of varying credibility. Any assessments regarding the nature of the incidents or the factual circumstances thereof are offered only as part of the analytic work product of the National Counterterrorism Center and may not reflect the assessments of other departments and agencies of the United States Government. Nothing in this report should be construed as a determination that individuals associated with the underlying incidents are guilty of terrorism or any other criminal offense. As with all entries in the Worldwide Incident Tracking System, the statistical information will be modified, as necessary and appropriate, when and if the underlying incidents are finally adjudicated.

In deriving its figures for incidents of terrorism, NCTC in 2005 adopted the definition of "terrorism" that appears in the 22 USC § 2656f(d)(2), i.e., "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents."

NCTC posts information in the repository for the US government's database on terror attacks, the Worldwide Incidents Tracking System (WITS). WITS is accessible on the NCTC Web site for the public to have an open and transparent view of the NCTC data. A detailed description of the methodology and counting rules is also available on the Web site, as is a geospatial tool to allow mapping of the data. NCTC will ensure that the data posted to the Web site is updated as often as necessary by regularly posting information about new or prior attacks.

Tracking and analyzing terrorist incidents can help to understand important characteristics about terrorism, including the geographic distribution of attacks and information about the perpetrators, their victims, and other details. Year-to-year changes in the gross number of attacks across the globe, however, may tell little about the international community's effectiveness either for preventing these incidents or for reducing the capacity of terrorists to advance their agenda through violence against the innocent.

• Attacks are limited to attacks against noncombatant targets. Numbers represented in table for 2006 through 2009 are updated since the 2009 publication and based on data in the Worldwide Incidents Tracking Systems .

NCTC Observations Related to Terrorist Incidents Statistical Material

Over 11,500 terrorist attacks occurred in 72 countries in 2010, resulting in approximately 50,000 victims, including almost 13,200 deaths. Although the number of attacks rose by almost 5 percent over the previous year, the number of deaths declined for a third consecutive year, dropping 12 percent from 2009. This decline reflected a combination of two factors: a decrease in the number of attacks causing more than five deaths along with an increase in attacks causing no deaths. For the second year in a row, the largest number of reported attacks occurred in South Asia, which also had the largest number of victims for the third consecutive year. More than 75 percent of the world’s terrorist attacks and deaths took place in South Asia and the Near East.

Perpetrators

Sunni extremists committed almost 60 percent of all worldwide terrorist attacks. These attacks caused approximately 70 percent of terrorism-related deaths, a significant increase from the almost 62 percent in 2009. The following noteworthy attacks are cataloged in WITS.

Largest Sunni extremist attacks

Other notable Sunni extremist attacks

Attacks Perpetrated by Other Groups:

Of the remaining attacks, secular, political, or anarchist groups accounted for almost 16 percent of the total, roughly the same proportion as in 2009. Christian extremist attacks fell sharply from 1,052 in 2009 to 321 in 2010.

Types of Attacks

Armed attacks in 2010 continued to be the most prevalent form of attack, accounting for more than a third of the total. Bombings, including suicide attacks, were far more lethal, causing almost 70 percent of all deaths. In particular, suicide bombings continued to be the most lethal type of terrorist attack, resulting in nearly 13.5 percent of all terrorism-related deaths. Sunni extremists conducted 93 percent of all suicide attacks in 2010.

Victims and Targets of Attacks

Muslims continued to bear the brunt of terrorism based on the fact that most terrorist attacks occurred in predominantly Muslim countries. Somalia hosted the largest number of attacks with 10 or more deaths followed by Pakistan. Although Iraq and Pakistan had the same number of attacks with 10 or more deaths, those in Iraq produced more fatalities.