Terrorists Target Civilians to Provoke Government Overreaction
Brandon Prins, 2020
In 2018, nearly 4,700 domestic terrorism incidents were recorded by the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), which is located at the University of Maryland (see figure 1). This is a 37% decrease from the 2015 high of worldwide terrorism when ISIL ravaged parts of Iraq and Syria and Boko Haram wreaked havoc in the Borno, Yobe and Adamawa provinces of Nigeria.
Any decrease is worth celebrating, but the aggregate numbers mask important differences across extremist organizations in their targeting choices. Government and security personnel have increasingly become the object of terrorist organizations. Indeed, attacks against soldiers and police grew by nearly 800% from 2011 to 2015. While admittedly the number of similar attacks fell each of the next three years, the 2,230 incidents in 2018 remain over 500% higher than what was witnessed in 2011, accounting for nearly 50% of all domestic terror attacks. This is the highest percentage recorded since at least 1990.