Terrorism: "The threatened or actual use of illegal force

and violence by a non-state actor to attain a political, economic, religious,

or social goal through fear, coercion, or intimidation."

There is an increasing trend in number of attacks and deaths due to terrorism...

Such a rise has become a worldwide concern with several communities reeling under frequent terrorist strikes.

In this chaos, it is fair to ask contextual questions such as “Who are these people committing the attacks?”, “Where are they acting?”, “Why?”

Before we dive into the details of terrorism, here is a warm-up quiz to test your current knowledge on terrorism.



Now, let's dive into the bigger picture of terrorism

and talk about the number of attacks from 1970-2018 across the world.

The Middle East and South Asia have the highest number of terrorist attacks, however, Western Europe also shows alarming numbers.


Terrorism doesn’t just happen in developing or poor countries, they happen everywhere. Explore the Sunburst to gain a better understanding of the territorial distribution of terrorist attacks since 1970.



Click on the region to zoom in and see the attack numbers of countries in that region. Then click on the country to see the cities within that country. Click the middle to go back.

Number of deaths increases in many countries across time correlating to the increasing number of attacks across the world.

Drag the map below (by the lands) and explore how death changes overtime given different countries.
YEAR Bar:

Now we know what parts of the world suffered the most because of terrorism

cumulatively and in each year.

Now let's dive into the details behind the attacks: target types, attack types, and terrorist groups.

Private citizens are the most common target in a terrorist attack, with 43627 attacks in the past 40 years.

Although terrorist groups aimed to demonstrate their power over

government officials or military forces, they are more likely to choose

private citizens as targets.


This is because other targets have been fortified and the terrorists

sought greater carnage to demonstrate their abilities.

So private citizens become the preferred target type.


More importantly, authorities are more successful at stopping attacks

against government officials, buildings, and the military, thereby

pushing terrorists to focus their attacks on private citizens or businesses.

Bombs are the most common weapon used in terrorist attacks, contributing to nearly half of all attacks.

Bombs are the most commonly used weapons due to their

low cost and high impact. As a consequence of globalisation,

the relative ease of access to the chemicals used to make

explosives has made improvised explosive devices increasingly

prominent.


Bombs can be implanted in automobiles, buildings, or on a

person (in suicide attacks). The flexible nature of bombs

causes tremendous fears and distress, which is exactly

what the terrorists want to achieve.


Want to see the trends behind the weapon types across the years?

Please click on the right arrow to see on next page.

Bombing also has an increasing trend in usage across the years.

The use of weapons like bombs and firearms has a spike between year 2010 - 2015. This was due to an upsurge in terrorism in 2013, due to the destabilisation in Syria, which has overflowed into Iraq. There were nearly 10,000 terrorist attacks in 2013, a 44% increase from the previous year. Click on each type of weapon to see the trend for that weapon. Brush on the timeline to zoom into the years you want to explore.

Taliban is most notorious terrorist group, who contributed to the most number of attacks.

From year 1970 to 2018, Taliban commited the most attacks:

over 8,000 of them. Although PKK commited the least,

they still orgnized over 2,000 attacks over the years.


Hover your mouse on the bar chart to see the number of

attacks committed by each group

Click the bar to see the releated picture!

Taliban and ISIL led the number of attacks from 2010 to 2018.




Although Taliban (founded in 1994) and ISIL

(founded in 1999) are relatively younger groups

compares to IRA and PKK, they are much more

active than the other groups in 2010s.

Top 10 deadliest terrorist attacks in history...

To bring perpetrators, means and targets together, below you can find the 10 worst attacks in history. Hover over the circles to learn more about them.

And there's plenty we can do to help.

Victims of Terrorism Organization (Kenya) is an NON-Profit making organization based in Nairobi Kenya. The organization was established in 2010 with the main aim of working with victims of terrorism in Kenya and around the world to promote peace and harmony.
Donate to VTO
The American Red Cross is a humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief, and disaster preparedness education in the United States.
Donate to Red Cross
Strength to strength brings victims of terrorism together globally in order to share their experiences through peer to peer support and move forward with their lives despite the trauma they have been through.
Donate to STS
United Nations Directory has a database of all organizations that support the victims of terrorism.
Click to Learn More

About this project

This was a final project for Boston College's Visualization course. By Duanchen Liu, Xuheng Duan, Xinyu Yao, and Juliana Fakhoury. With special thanks to our professor and instructor, Dr. Nam Wook Kim, and our teaching assistant, Pedro Guimarães.

Thank you for reading our page!

Our github page

References:

  • Dataset: https://www.kaggle.com/START-UMD/gtd
  • Project Ideas: https://www.kaggle.com/ash316/terrorism-around-the-world
  • Template idea: https://hathix.github.io/through-the-eyes-of-a-survivor/
  • Globe sample: http://bl.ocks.org/KoGor/5994804
  • Sunbrust: https://observablehq.com/@d3/zoomable-sunburst