International Terrorism - International Terrorism Statistics

The average number of international terrorist attacks from 1982 to 2003 was about 430 per year. (See Figure 6.1.) The mid-1980s saw a peak in terrorist attacks, averaging more than six hundred per year from 1985 to 1988. The number of terrorist attacks was generally lower after 1988, with the exception of 1991, and was especially low between 1996 and 1998. They rose slightly in 1999 through 2001. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the numbers again dropped dramatically in 2002 and 2003, down to just over two hundred attacks per year.

Of the terror attacks against U.S. targets in 2003, those against businesses (sixty-one) far outnumbered those against other types of targets (sixteen attacks against government targets, fifteen against diplomatic targets, and three against military targets). (See Figure 6.2.) Terrorist attacks against businesses fell dramatically from a high in 2000 of 408 attacks. In 2000 there were 152 bombings of the Colombian pipeline, a multinational oil pipeline in Colombia, that accounted for 40% of international terrorist acts in that year. Of the 346 international terrorist attacks in 2001, 178 (51%) were bombings of the Colombian pipeline. By 2003, thanks to increased government surveillance powers and a new program designed to demobilize terrorists who turned themselves in peacefully, attacks on the Colombian oil pipeline were negligible.

The number of U.S. fatalities from international terrorism from 1998 to 2000 was low, with the highest number, twenty-three, occurring in 2000. Because nearly three

FIGURE 6.2

thousand people were confirmed dead in the September 11, 2001, attacks by al Qaeda, casualties in 2001 far outnumbered those of any previous year. (See Figure 6.3.) In addition to those killed or injured in the September 11 attacks, eight U.S. citizens were killed and fifteen were wounded in separate international terrorist attacks in 2001.