Predictors of successful terrorism incidents

ABSTRACT

The research on predictors of successful terrorism incidents is scarce and warrants more scholarly attention to minimize the number of successful terrorist attacks. This study examined whether suicide attack, region, weapon type, attack type, target/victim type, and type of terrorist organization are predictors of successful terrorism incidents. The data contained global terrorism incidents that occurred between 1970 and 2019 and were obtained from the Global Terrorism Database (N = 154,289). The results of multivariate analyses obtained from the binary logistic regression test showed that successful terrorism is less likely to occur in North America but, when such attacks do occur, they are more likely to involve facility/infrastructure as the attack type and a firearm as the weapon type; target private citizens and property; and be committed by religious terrorist organizations. The findings of the study and its policy implications are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Successful terrorism
• attack type
• target type
• weapon type
• type of terrorist organization
• 9/11 attacks

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 According to the GTD (University of Maryland, 2019), the incidents that did not meet all of the following criteria were deemed doubtful terrorism incidents: (1) the violent act must be aimed at attaining a political, economic, religious, or social goal; (2) there must be evidence of an intention to coerce, intimidate, or convey some other message to a larger audience (or audiences) than the immediate victims; (3) the action is outside the context of legitimate warfare activities, insofar as it targets non-combatants. (University of Maryland, 2019, pp. 15–16).

2 The original 12 categories of for region were as follows: 1 = North America, 2 = Central America and the Caribbean, 3 = South America, 4 = East Asia, 5 = Southeast Asia, 6 = South Asia, 7 = Central Asia, 8 = Western Europe, 9 = Eastern Europe, 10 = Middle East and North Africa, 11 = Sub-Saharan Africa, 12 = Australasia and Oceania (University of Maryland, 2019, pp. 20–22). The following categories are combined: Central America and the Caribbean + South America; East Asia + Central Asia; Southeast Asia + South Asia; Western Europe + Eastern Europe; Middle East and North Africa + Sub-Saharan Africa (see Guler & Demir, 2021a).

3 The original 9 categories for attack type were as follows: 1 = Assassination, 2 = Armed Assault, 3 = Bombing/Explosion, 4 = Hijacking, 5 = Hostage Taking [barricade incident], 6 = Hostage Taking [kidnapping], 7 = Facility/Infrastructure, 8 = Unarmed Assault, 9 = Unknown (University of Maryland, 2019, pp. 24–25). The following categories are combined: Armed Assault + Unarmed Assault; Hijacking + Hostage Taking [barricade incident] (see Guler & Demir, 2021a; Demir & Guler, 2021a).

4 The original 13 categories for weapon type were as follows: 1 = Biological, 2 = Chemical, 3 = Radiological, 4 = Nuclear, 5 = Firearms, 6 = Explosives, 7 = Fake Weapons, 8 = Incendiary, 9 = Melee, 10 = Vehicle, 11 = Sabotage Equipment, 12 = Other, 13 = Unknown (University of Maryland, 2019, pp. 28–29). The following categories are combined: Biological + Chemical + Radiological; = Explosives + Incendiary; Fake Weapons + Melee + Sabotage Equipment; and Other + Unknown (see Guler & Demir, 2021a; Demir & Guler, 2021a).

5 The original 22 categories of target/victim type are as follows: 1 = Business, 2 = Government (General), 3 = Police, 4 = Military, 5 = Abortion Related, 6 = Airports and Aircrafts, 7 = Government (Diplomatic), 8 = Educational Institution, 9 = Food or Water Supply, 10 = Journalists and Media, 11 = Maritime (includes Ports and Maritime Facilities), 12 = NGO, 13 = Other, 14 = Private Citizens and Property, 15 = Religious Figures and Institutions, 16 = Telecommunication, 17 = Terrorists/Non-State Militias, 18 = Tourists, 19 = Transportation (Other Than Aviation), 20 = Unknown, 21 = Utilities, 22 = Violent Political Parties (University of Maryland, 2019, pp. 32–36). The following categories are combined: Government (General) + Government (Diplomatic); Police + Military; Airports and Aircrafts + Maritime (includes Ports and Maritime Facilities) + Telecommunication; Educational Institution + Religious Figures and Institutions + NG0 + Abortion Related; Food or Water Supply + Utilities; Journalists and Media + Tourists; Terrorists/Non-State Militias + Violent Political Parties; Unknown + Other (see Guler & Demir, 2021a; Demir & Guler, 2021a).

6 The term type of terrorist organization was used instead of the term perpetrator group because the organizations were classified on the basis of ideological affiliations. The GTD database includes a text variable column called ‘gname’ to report a perpetrator group name. According to the GTD Codebook, ‘This field contains the name of the group that carried out the attack. In order to ensure consistency in the usage of group names for the database, the GTD database uses a standardized list of group names that have been established by project staff to serve as a reference for all subsequent entries.’ ‘If no information about the perpetrator group is available, this field is coded as Unknown.’ The information in that column was used to classify groups according to their ideological motivations by using the classification system developed by White (2016) and the Terrorism Research and Analysis Consortium (2021). However, 85,500 out of 154,289 terrorism incidents (55%) included information about the perpetrator group in the database.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mustafa Demir

Mustafa Demir is associate professor of criminal justice at State University of New York at Plattsburgh. He received his Ph.D. in criminal justice from Rutgers University. His areas of research include police body-worn cameras, procedural justice, police legitimacy, police citizen encounters, suicide, and terrorism. He has about twenty years police experience including international organizations such as the United Nations, and Organizational Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Ahmet Guler

Ahmet Guler is associate teaching professor and director of graduate studies in criminal justice and policy administration in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at Pennsylvania State University. He received his Ph.D. from University at Albany. His research focuses on issues related to terrorism, criminal justice policy, and transnational crime.

Murat Ozer

Murat Ozer is associate professor at the School of Information Technology at University of Cincinnati. He received his Ph.D. in criminal justice from University of Cincinnati. His research interests are primarily in crime information to generate predictive data analytics for various public health problems such as drug-related problems and street violence. He works with law enforcement and correction agencies in the nation and develops certain web-based predictive analytical systems.