Data Warriors Part I: The Birth
Introduction
Terrorism encompasses a broad definition of violent acts, which capture attention both socially and legislatively of societies throughout the world. Globally, terrorism has accounted for an average of 21,000 annual deaths in the last decade. Even recent to the time of posting, an attack in Mali was carried out in February 2021 where 10 soldiers were killed by an Al-Qaeda affiliated group, and a stabbing in October 2020 where three were killed by an Islamic extremist in France.
Terrorism has been prevalent in society throughout the modern era but gained significant attention in the wake of the September 11th attacks; which include the heavily covered attacks on the World Trade Center. The US government has since spent a significant amount on counter-terrorism, including over $174 billion in 2017 alone. Thus, we can deduce how crucial it is to understand and analyze various aspects of terrorism and most importantly the motivation behind these events. Hence, we selected the Global Terrorism Database to evaluate the actual threat posed by terrorism. The objective of our study is to derive insights into the nature of terrorist attacks happening around the world and how they have changed over time, primarily by visualizing the data. To achieve this, we will conduct our research on three main areas: over time, region, and between terrorist organizations, and carry out in-depth analysis for each of them.
Research Perspectives
Between Groups
Acts of terrorism are an end that organizations justify by a wide range of means, with groups citing unique and often political motivations. Some organizations have theoretical goals; such as the US domestic terror group the Weatherman, who were against the US involvement in the Vietnam war and conducted bombings preceded by warnings on symbolic structures of power. Others exist in competing power struggles, such as ISIS, where the group acts to retain its insurgency by committing acts of terror stemming from theological, financial, and intimation purposes.
Apart from differences in motivations of attacks, groups can also vary by where they take place in time. Groups can be different when assessing the medium their form of terror or communication exists in. Some examples of transforming mediums of terror between groups include the Black September Terrorist organization who conducted acts of terror during the 1972 Olympics received coverage from mass media outlets, Osama Bin Laden’s use of video messages and more current use of social media by groups like ISIS which shown below have extensive international connection.
When assessing acts of terror, it’s of interest to investigate the organizations behind the actions. Some guiding questions include: how do different organizations differ across types of methods (e.g. weapons, media, or targets) used? What is the total loss and success rate of each organization’s attacks? How has the method of terrorist organizations claiming involvement in an incident changed between groups, and overtime? Also when investigating how terror is communicated, does exposure to social media shift the way groups function, especially in terms of influencing people?
Over Time
Despite seeming like a loose collection of violent events, researchers identify trends in modern terror acts across time. Adam Roberts, ph.D, provides a narrative of the broadening targets for terrorist events in recent years, contrasting targeted political assassinations in the late 19th and early 20th-century, to the late 20th century where he describes the prevalence of organizations to “inflict carnage and destruction on their adversaries.”. A similar sentiment is echoed in the last chapter of Revill’s “Improvised Explosive Devices: The Paradigmatic Weapon of New Wars,” where he claims that IEDs have existed throughout the modern era, but have “come of age” in the 21st-century due to advancements and availability of necessary components, and now demonstrate “increasing volume and deadly efficiency.”
This leads to an inquiry on how terrorism has changed over time: Has there been an evolution in the methods of attacks or has there been any prominent type of attack that emerged over time while considering the advancement in technology? Has any terrorist organization become more active over the years? Can we find any seasonal or longitudinal patterns in terms of attacks, weapons used, and most importantly targets? Were the administrations able to limit the occurrence or intensity of attacks over the years?
By Region
Despite contrasting differences over time, Roberts also identified similarities in terrorist actions in their regional nature. One similarity identified is, “the tendency of terrorism to become endemic in particular countries and regions” which he writes, “started in a nationalist cause, it is then employed in resistance to the resulting state. Started to cleanse society of corruption and external control, it continues in support of the drug trade and prostitution. If violence becomes a habit, its net effect can be to prevent economic development, to provide a justification for official violence, and to perpetuate existing patterns of dominance and submission.”
By taking an “endemic” perspective on terrorism, an approach could be to investigate the regionality of terror actions and groups. Does the violence tend to be evenly distributed among the regions or it is only dominated in a few regions? Do the methods of attacks and targets differ between regions? Which regions are attacked highest in a difference in the cost of incidents, .i.e., how are different regions affected in terms of property value as to human life. Extending this regional perspective to account for geography, we may investigate if there are paths terrorists take and what drives them towards the path — resources of the region, ease of logistics, legislation, socio-cultural level of ethnic population, or religion?
Outcome
To establish the scope of the project, it’s essential to answer the question: what’s the outcome? A general answer would be to put recent terrorism in context, so an audience member unfamiliar with the recent history of terrorism can have a better understanding when encountering coverage of recent or future actions. We hope to provide novel visualizations that will allow the audience to have an understanding of past terrorist events.
