Statistics on Incidents of Terrorism Worldwide

About the 2018 Annex of Statistical Information

The Annex of Statistical Information (henceforth referred to as the Annex) is a summary of worldwide terrorist activity that occurred during the 2018 calendar year, as reported by unclassified sources. The data for the Annex are processed by a combination of electronic data acquisition and filtering and of human processing and validation of terrorism incidents. All the data come from open-source material and are used to strengthen ongoing efforts to analyze and understand the threat landscape and risk of global terrorism.

Defining Terrorism

For the purposes of this Annex, an incident is deemed “terrorist” if it conforms to Title 22, Section 2656f, of the U.S. Code. It is therefore defined as a violent act carried out by non-state actors that meets the following inclusion criteria:

1. The violent act aims to attain a political, economic, religious, or social goal.

2. The violent act includes evidence of an intention to coerce, intimidate, or convey some other message to an audience (or audiences) larger than the immediate victims.

3. The violent act occurred outside the precepts of International Humanitarian Law insofar as it targeted non-combatants.

GTTAC includes only those incidents for which all three criteria were met. In exceptional cases, such as in conflict zones, incidents could be included that target military forces rather than non-combatants — when known terrorist groups commit the violent acts. An example is U.S. forces in Afghanistan coming under attack by the Taliban. Additionally, all identified terrorist incidents must be reported by at least one independent and reliable source. For example, GTTAC does not use any reports from terrorist media sources, and it excludes any incidents for which there was considerable uncertainty or conflicting reporting.

About GTTAC

DSG created the GTTAC database that the Annex uses to summarize global terrorism incidents. GTTAC accesses five of the most comprehensive, open-source, multimedia data aggregators to identify reports of potential terrorist incidents. Data acquisition begins with using open-source technology tools developed in Python atop a Linux platform for text analysis, predictive modeling, and feature extraction. GTTAC applies ontologies for terrorist incidents, perpetrators, tactics for attack, weapon use, and the targeting of victims and facilities. Once the automated processes have established a body of data for human review and validation, the global terrorism incidents database begins to take form within regional and other geographic locales.

To the extent practicable, the following data elements are extracted for each incident:

• The number of individuals killed
• The number of individuals injured
• The number of individuals kidnapped
• The location* (country and state/province) of the incident
• The perpetrator responsible for the incident
• The attack type (e.g., armed assault, bombing/explosion, hijacking)
• The type of target (e.g., business, government, police, military)

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*GTTAC uses the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s Geopolitical Entities, Names, and Codes for the encoding country and state/province information. For geographic region designations, GTTAC uses the United Nations Country Grouping as an initial set of regions. These designations can be found online: https://unstats.un.org/unsd/methodology/m49/.

Limitations

This rigorous approach has its challenges. First, because GTTAC uses open-source data to identify reports of terrorist incidents, the initial data collection process is burdened by biased and unreliable media coverage, especially in conflict zones.

GTTAC has worked around this by employing a well-trained multilingual and multicultural team of subject-matter experts, technologists, and researchers to continually monitor and enhance the methodology and thereby maintain a comprehensive, accurate, and systematic data collection process. This is important, as GTTAC’s source material has been extracted from more than 90 languages worldwide.

To support this report, GTTAC created a Global Terrorism Experts Group, an international advisory board that reviews content and ensures objectivity by capturing local context and nuance.

Quantifying harm to victims of terrorist incidents is challenging when open-source information is imprecise (persons killed or injured).

To address this issue, GTTAC created the following scale to aid in the recording of casualties:

Table 1.1. Quantifying Vague Amounts

This method of quantifying harm when open-source reports are imprecise means the 2018 Annex may show a higher number of casualties than previous reports.

It is GTTAC’s understanding that previous Annexes omitted data on deaths and injuries when open-source reports did not cite numbers; casualties described in terms such as “a few,” “huge losses,” or “scores” were classified as “missing data” and were not counted.

Finally, as noted in the introduction, the process for collecting and analyzing data used to create the Annex has changed over time. From 2004 to 2011, the data were collected by the National Counterterrorism Center. From 2012 to 2017, they were collected by START. In 2018, DSG and its subcontractor GMU began producing the Annex. GTTAC has made use of technological advancements in data collection that employed different processes for identifying, coding, and counting terrorism incidents. Additionally, the 2018 Annex employed a new set of variables to record victims of terrorist incidents that did not exist in previous Annexes. Given the differences in methodology from the initiation of the Statistical Annex in 2004, caution should be used when comparing statistics over time.

Disclaimers

Nothing in this report should be construed as a determination that individuals associated with particular incidents are guilty of terrorism or any other criminal offense.

The data on terrorist incidents collected and stored in GTTAC are not static. Rather, the database is dynamic and will evolve over time as new incidents are identified and new details about existing incidents become available. For this reason, the data provided in this report may not exactly match data provided in subsequent reports.

1. Significant Trends

In 2018, terrorist incidents occurred in 84 countries and territories. About 85 percent of all incidents were concentrated in three geographic regions: the Middle East, South Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. In order, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, India, Nigeria, Somalia, Philippines, Pakistan, Yemen, and Cameroon experienced the greatest number of terrorist incidents in 2018. Incidents in these 10 countries accounted for 71 percent of the overall total number of incidents and 81 percent of all fatalities from terrorist incidents (see Table 10.1).

In 2018, there were 8,093 terrorist incidents resulting in 32,836 fatalities. The number of fatalities per incident was 4.58 per incident in 2018. In 2018 there were 901 terrorist incidents with more than 10 fatalities.

Afghanistan had the largest number of fatalities attributable to terrorism in 2018, and the Taliban was responsible for 83 percent of them. For the purposes of this report, attacks attributed to the Taliban are also inclusive of attacks committed by the Haqqani Network. Among other global perpetrators, the Taliban was responsible for the largest number of incidents and casualties (persons killed or injured), followed by ISIS and al-Shabaab. The Taliban was responsible for 8,509 deaths and 4,943 injuries, about 25 percent of the total casualties attributed to terrorism globally in 2018. With 647 terrorist attacks, ISIS was the next-most-active terrorist organization, responsible for 3,585 fatalities and 1,761 injuries. Having conducted 535 attacks, al-Shabaab was responsible for 2,062 deaths and 1,278 injuries. Boko Haram was among the top-five terrorist perpetrators, with 220 incidents, 1,311 deaths, and 927 injuries. It should be noted that local sources do not always differentiate between Boko Haram and ISIS-West Africa.

In 2018, ISIS lost most of the remaining territory of its so-called caliphate in Iraq and Syria; however, the group and its affiliates remained active in 26 countries. The most active ISIS affiliates were:

• The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria-ISIS (647 incidents, 3,585 deaths) in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen
• ISIS-Khorasan (110 incidents, 1,324 deaths) in Afghanistan and Pakistan
• ISIS-West Africa (22 incidents, 160 deaths) in Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Nigeria, and the Lake Chad Basin
• ISIS-Sinai province (56 incidents, 485 deaths) in Egypt
• ISIS-Philippines (52 incidents, 150 deaths) and Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (62 incidents, 121 deaths) in the Philippines
• ISIS-Greater Sahara (18 incidents, 79 deaths) in Mali and Burkina Faso
• Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (16 incidents, 41 deaths) in Indonesia

Al-Qa’ida networks continue to operate in 15 countries concentrated in the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa. Some of the major al-Qa’ida affiliate groups are

• Al-Shabaab (534 incidents, 2,098 deaths) in Somalia and Kenya
• Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (117 incidents, 177 deaths) in Syria
• Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (57 incidents, 129 deaths) in India and Pakistan
• Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (30 incidents, 131 deaths) in Yemen
• Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam Wal-Muslimin (26 incidents, 121 deaths) in Mali and Burkina Faso

2. Incidents of Terrorism Worldwide

In 2018 there were 8,093 terrorist incidents worldwide, which resulted in 32,836 fatalities. Additionally, 22,651 persons were injured. These incidents involved 3,534 hostages or kidnap victims.

Figure 2.1 shows hotspots of global terrorist incidents in 2018. The expansion of terrorism in West Africa made a dramatic impact on the numbers of incidents and casualties there. This was due to the increased activity of terrorist groups largely associated with ISIS-West Africa, Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam Wal-Muslimin (an al-Qa’ida affiliate), and Boko Haram.

Figure 2.1. Global Terrorist Incidents and Deaths, 2018

Table 2.1 shows the distribution of terrorism casualties across months at the global level. January 2018 had the highest number of incidents with 843 and more than 4,986 casualties. November 2018 had the highest number of fatalities with 3,966 killed.

Table 2.1. Global Terrorist Incidents and Deaths, 2018

*As noted in the methodology section on page 4 above, GTTAC quantifies open-source reporting statements such as “many,” “tens,” “several” and the like into numeric quantities for those killed or wounded in a terrorist incident. This quantification scale is unique to GTTAC and this report.

Figure 2.2. Terrorist Incidents and Total Deaths Worldwide by Month, 2018

In 2018, there were 8,093 terrorist incidents worldwide, which resulted in 32,836 fatalities.

Incidents with the highest fatality rates in 2018 include the following:

• On January 27, in Afghanistan, a Taliban suicide bomber detonated an ambulance bomb, killing 95 persons and wounding 158 others in a government-controlled zone of the city.
• On May 15, in Farah City, Afghanistan, a Taliban raid killed 330 people.
• On May 16, in Afghanistan, a complex Taliban operation killed more than 180 people.
• On July 13, in Mastung, Pakistan, an ISIS-K suicide bomber killed 128 persons and injured 150 during an election rally.
• On July 25, ISIS militants carried out a complex coordinated attack in Syria that killed 290 people.
• On August 2, in al-Hudaydah, Yemen, militants killed 55 civilians.
• On August 10, in Ghazni, Afghanistan, the Taliban killed 190 people during an operation.
• On November 18, in Borno state, Nigeria, ISIS-WA attacked a military base in the town of Metele, killing at least 118 soldiers, while at least 153 others were missing after the attack. The militants also seized tanks, armored vehicles, artillery, weapons, and ammunition.

3. Perpetrators

As in previous years, a significant percentage of terrorism incidents were either not claimed or not credibly attributable to one group or another. In 2018 for 2,427 incidents (30 percent of the global total of incidents) the perpetrators were either unclaimed or unknown. Some groups, like al-Shabaab, have a known policy of not claiming responsibility for incidents outside Somalia even though they are active in neighboring countries. The geographic clustering of terrorism incidents (see Figure 2.1, page 6) suggests that effective counterterrorism activities are displacing traditional terror groups, including ISIS and al-Qa’ida. These groups, to devastating effect, have found refuge across a huge swath of Africa: from Somalia, through the Lake Chad region, Nigeria, and the tri-border area of the Sahel.

Table 3.1 shows that in 2018 the Taliban, ISIS, and al-Shabaab are the groups with the highest number of terrorist incidents. These three groups (as seen later in this report) are the most prolific in their use of IEDs and other deadly tactics.

Table 3.1. Top-10 Known Perpetrator Groups With the Most Incidents, 2018

*Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) formed in January 2017 as a merger involving Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly al-Nusra Front), the Ansar al-Din Front, Jaysh al-Sunna, Liwa al-Haqq, and the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement. In 2017, al-Nusra Front had 104 incidents, Liwa al-Haqq had 3 incidents, and HTS had 21 incidents directly attributed to them. This table represents the merged incidents and casualties of HTS and its member groups.

4. Casualties

Table 4.1 shows that in 2018 the average number of fatalities per incident was 4.58. Yemen, Afghanistan, and Nigeria were the countries with the highest fatality rates per terrorist incident.

The average injury rate per incident in 2018 was 2.81.

Table 4.1. Average Number of Fatalities and Injuries per Incident in 10 Countries With the Most Terrorist Incidents, 2018

As indicated in Figure 4.1, not all terrorism incidents ended up with (reported) casualties. Casualties are defined in the Annex as fatalities and physical injuries. The number of fatalities in terrorist incidents varied by location, target, weapon used, and tactic. Attacks with armed assaults and vehicles were deadlier than incidents with other weapons, including bombings and explosives.

Twenty percent of the incidents in 2018 resulted in neither fatalities nor injuries. Examples of this are a mortar attack that missed its intended target, incendiary weapons that caused only property damage, and a kidnapping in which the victim was unharmed physically. Nine percent of the incidents in 2018, however, resulted in more than 10 fatalities.

Figure 4.1. Casualties Attributable to Terrorist Incidents Worldwide, 2018

*As noted in the methodology section on page 4 above, GTTAC quantifies open-source reporting statements such as “many,” “tens,” “several” and the like into numeric quantities for those killed or wounded in a terrorist incident. This quantification scale is unique to GTTAC and this report.

5. Hostage-Taking and Kidnapping

There were 3,534 people kidnapped or taken hostage by terrorist groups in 2018. The Taliban was the perpetrator with the highest number of hostages and kidnappings — with 1,082 in 2018, almost 34 percent of the worldwide total. ISIS, with the second highest, kidnapped or took hostage 325 individuals in 2018.

GTTAC could report only those incidents that had reliable corroborating information and for which specific numbers were available. Thus, the GTTAC database likely will show only a handful of kidnappings, despite evidence that the problem is much more pervasive.

6. Attack Types

A wide range of tactics and weapons were used to commit acts of terrorism in 2018. Any single recorded incident may have involved multiple tactics and weapons.

The clear majority of incidents (68 percent) were armed assaults. Only 19 percent of incidents were carried out with bombs and explosives. GTTAC found that the percentage of bombings and explosives was higher for ISIS and the Taliban (about 25 percent), compared with the other most-active terrorist groups.

There were 305 suicide attacks in 2018, which killed 3,315 persons. ISIS committed the highest number of suicide attacks in 2018, with 49 incidents, killing 714 people. ISIS is followed closely by ISIS-Khorasan, Boko Haram, the Taliban, and al-Shabaab (43, 42, 39, and 33 attacks, respectively). These five groups were responsible for 206 suicide attacks, which comprise more than 80 percent of all suicide attacks from the known terrorist groups.

Suicide attacks took place in 22 countries. Afghanistan had the largest number, with 97 suicide attacks, killing 1,409 persons in 2018. Seventy-five percent of all suicide attacks occurred in five countries — Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Somali, and Pakistan. Suicide attacks in 2018 were highly lethal, with a fatality rate of 11.05 deaths per incident.

In 2018, 306 assassinations took place in 40 countries. Somalia alone experienced 60 assassinations, 51 of which were attributed to al-Shabaab.

Figure 6.1. Primary Attack Types of Top-Five Perpetrators, 2018

Figure 6.1 shows the frequency with which the three primary attack types (suicides, assassinations, and IEDs) were used by the top-five terrorist groups — with IEDs being the type the terrorists chose most often (19.7 percent). Suicide attacks and assassinations accounted for 3.8 percent of primary attack types of the top-five perpetrators.

Of the top-five terrorist groups in 2018, al-Shabaab had the highest percentage use of IEDs per incident (28.2 percent), followed by ISIS (25.0 percent), while the Taliban and Boko Haram shared similar patterns of usage (15.4 percent and 16.8 percent, respectively). Among suicide attacks, Boko Haram conducted more suicide attacks (17.7 percent) than ISIS-WA (7.6 percent), while al-Shabaab used suicide attacks less frequently (6.1 percent). Of the top-five terrorist groups in 2018, al-Shabaab had the highest usage of assassinations (9.9 percent) — more than the Taliban and Boko Haram combined.

7. Weapons and Technology

As seen in Figure 7.1, firearms and bombs/explosives were the most commonly used weapons in 2018, accounting for 88 percent of weapons used in all incidents: 53 percent of terrorist incidents involved firearms, while bombs and explosives were used in 34 percent of all incidents. Widely available explosives such as dynamite, grenades, mortars, and IEDs were the weapons of choice in the majority of terrorist incidents. IEDs were used in 1,594 incidents, 19.7 percent of all terrorist incidents. Al-Shabaab, ISIS, and the Taliban used IEDs more frequently than other terrorist groups. These three groups were responsible for more than half of the IED-related incidents from the known terrorist groups. In the Middle East, bombs and explosives were used in 53 percent of incidents. Some incidents involved more than one weapon. For example, firearms and explosives were used together in 6 percent of terrorist incidents. Eight incidents were carried out by unmanned aerial vehicles (drones). In 19 incidents, perpetrators used vehicles as weapons. Ten of these vehicle-ramming incidents took place in the West Bank against Israeli soldiers.

Figure 7.1. Weapon Types by Terrorist Incidents Worldwide, 2018

Figure 7.2. Weapon Types by Top-Five Perpetrators, 2018

As seen in Figure 7.2, most active terrorist groups relied on firearms more than any other type of weapon. Explosives are the second-most-frequently used weapon of choice for the Taliban, ISIS, al-Shabaab, and Boko Haram.

8. Victims

Figure 8.1. Victims of Terrorist Incidents Worldwide, 2018

This section contains a new set of variables for 2018 that did not exist in previous Annexes. Information about victims is being collected at two different levels. As seen in Figure 8.1, the first level consists of more general attributes, such as “Civilians” and “Military,” while the second level includes more detailed characteristics, such as “Students/Children.”

Many incidents are complex, and a single incident may affect different types of victims. As also shown in Figure 8.1, civilians were the single largest category of victims, accounting for 44 percent of victims in all terrorist incidents. Civilians were not always the primary target; they often were collateral damage. One of the deadliest attacks against civilians took place on July 13, in Mastung, Pakistan, where a suicide bomber affiliated with ISIS-Khorasan killed 128 civilians and injured another 150 people during an election rally.

Military and government victims comprise 20 percent and 14 percent, respectively, of all terrorist incidents. Among government targets, law enforcement was the most frequently targeted subgroup, with 890 incidents comprising 11 percent of all terrorist attacks. A large number of these attacks against law enforcement (354 incidents) took place in Afghanistan, with 334 of them carried out by the Taliban.

Terrorists targeted diplomats in eight incidents. Three of these attacks took place in South Sudan, two in Afghanistan, and one each in Libya, Mali, and Somalia. Terrorists targeted journalists in 28 incidents, in which 52 people died.

Figure 8.2. Victims of Top-Five Known Perpetrator Groups With the Most Incidents, 2018

Among the five perpetrator groups with the greatest number of terrorist attacks, Boko Haram carried out most of its attacks against civilians, nearly twice as high as any of the other groups. About 59 percent of Boko Haram attacks were aimed at civilians (see Figure 8.2). The Taliban attacked the government more than any other category. Forty-two percent of Taliban attacks were aimed at government targets, and civilians were about 21 percent of the Taliban’s primary victims. Al-Shabaab conducted 45 percent of its incidents against the military.

9. Facilities

Targeted facilities were characterized using two levels of attributes (see Figure 9.1). The first level describes general attributes about where the incident took place, such as “Infrastructure.” The second level includes more specific characteristics, such as “Utilities and Mining.”

The largest portion of incidents (other than unattributed incidents), 11 percent (903 attacks), took place on private property and residences; an additional 11.6 percent (937 attacks), took place on national military facilities; 7.2 percent of incidents (583 attacks) targeted land transportation, such as passenger terminals or transportation vehicles; and 6.7 percent of incidents (548 attacks) took place in public places, where civilians were the most affected. For example, ISIS-Khorasan conducted 15 attacks in public places and killed 393 people in these attacks. On the anniversary of September 11, in Nangarhar, Afghanistan, ISIS-Khorasan bombed a large public demonstration, killing 68 persons and wounding 165. Overall, about 38 percent of all incidents reported in 2018 were not attributed to any type of facility by the open sources.

Figure 9.1. Facilities Targeted in Terrorist Incidents Worldwide, 2018

Figure 9.2. Facilities Targeted by the Top-Five Known Perpetrator Groups With the Most Incidents, 2018

Figure 9.2 shows that among the five perpetrator groups with the greatest number of terrorist attacks in 2018, most of the identified targeted facilities were infrastructure, military facilities, and government facilities. Twenty-six percent of ISIS attacks were against identified infrastructure facilities. Additionally, 40 percent of al-Shabaab attacks and 34 percent of Boko Haram attacks were against identified military facilities, whereas 29 percent of Taliban attacks were against identified government facilities.

10. Locations

The majority of terrorist incidents were concentrated in the Middle East, West and East Africa, and South Asia. As Table 10.1 shows, the top 10 countries with the most incidents (in order of number of incidents) are Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, India, Nigeria, Somalia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Yemen, and Cameroon. These 10 countries accounted for 71 percent of all incidents and 81 percent of all deaths from terrorism.

Conflict areas, however, clearly have a higher number of terrorist incidents and a greater number of casualties.

Table 10.1. Ten Countries With the Most Terrorist Incidents, 2018

Source: U.S. State Department