Terrorism trends in Africa

CHAPTER V. The effects of terrorism on homicide 118

The order of the list was in fact overshadowed by the intensity of the previously discussed terrorist violence in Iraq. As becomes apparent, not even Afghanistan, Syria or Pakistan made it onto the list. The sequence changed, however, when sorted by the terrorism mortality rate.

The top three observations for Iraq remained, but the second and third spot were occupied by observations from Lebanon in 1985 and 1983. The observations fall into the time of the Lebanon war (1982-1985) that was fought between Israel and Christian Lebanese militias on one side, and a variety of Arab groups on the other (Bregman 2016, 152). Most terror attacks in this context were carried out against Israeli military targets, but also against civilians and diplomats.

Table V-9 Top 5 country-year observations of terrorism in Asia (terrorism mortality rate)

Country Year Number of attacks Victims killed Terrorism mortality rate

Iraq 2014 3,925 11,400 32.32

Lebanon 1985 95 643 24.02

Lebanon 1983 234 613 23.12

Iraq 2007 1,047 6,292 22.14

Iraq 2013 2,849 6,556 19.22

V.1. Global and regional trends in terrorism (1970-2014) 119

Figure V-15 shows how the number of terror attacks and deaths caused by these attacks has evolved during the observation period. There were hardly any values visible before 1985, in fact, and the counts remained relatively low until the beginning of the 1990s. A notable increase, especially the death toll, set in in 1992 and led to subsequent highs in 1995 and 1997.

The numbers subsequently dropped and remained comparatively low before increasing again in 1992. Eventually, 2014 marked an all-time peak that was roughly twice as high as the previous maximum reached in 1997.

Figure V-15 Clustered counts of terror attacks, terror-related deaths, and the deaths per attack ratio in Africa (1970-2014)

Elaboration by the author; Data source: UMD-START/GTD

Also, the deaths per attack ratio is shown in Figure V-15. It does not show major deflections comparable to the ones indicated in Figure V-9 and Figure V-11 for Europe (2004) and the Americas (2001) respectively. The ratio increased, however, over time and peaked in 1997 before declining again. This trend was largely driven by increases in the counts of deaths while the counts of attacks remained comparatively stable.

Figure V-16 shows the disaggregated terrorism mortality rates for selected African countries.

As becomes visible, terrorist violence in Africa throughout the 1990s was generated by attacks in several countries, in particular Rwanda and Algeria. The significant increase during the most

CHAPTER V. The effects of terrorism on homicide 120

recent years under observation, on the other hand, was largely due to rising levels of terrorism in Nigeria.

The level of terrorist violence in Rwanda is linked to the Rwandan genocide that took place in 1994. Combined with the genocidal violence that occurred in Bosnia during the breakup of Yugoslavia, this event has evolved into one of the most notorious and influential cases in driving the debate on genocide and crimes against humanity—and has also found its way into the criminological debate (Maier-Katkin, Mears, and Bernard 2009, 227). This is not only associated with the magnitude of this case, but also with the international community’s failure to intervene appropriately while the genocide took place (Barnett 1995). Rwanda is inhabited by two major ethnicities, the Hutu and Tutsi. While the Hutu form the vast majority of the population, Rwanda had long been dominated politically by a Tutsi monarchy under Belgian colonial rule. When gaining independence in 1962, Rwanda became a republic and power was transferred to the Hutu. The following decades were marked by tension and violence between the two ethnicities. In 1990, a civil war between the Rwandan government and the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (FPR) broke out. The shooting-down of the Rwandan president’s airplane in 1994, eventually, sparked a genocide committed by Hutu extremists who targeted predominantly the Tutsi population which claimed at least 500,000 lives (Prunier 1997). The perpetrators of the terror attacks listed in the GTD for Rwanda in 1994 are mostly unknown.

The deadliest attack, however, an armed assault killing 1180 Tutsi hiding in a church, was attributable to Hutu extremists.

As far as the spike in the number of deaths in 1997 is regarded (see Figure V-15), the number of terror attacks and deaths occurring in Algeria was even higher than in Rwanda. This is hardly visible in Figure V-16 below, however, because Algeria’s terrorism mortality rate was roughly the same as Rwanda’s during the same year (also see Table V-12). In Algeria, a civil war had been going on since 1990, fought between the government and Islamic rebels. While the earlier years were primarily marked by battles with Algerian security forces, 1997 was characterized by a dramatic increase in so-called village massacres committed by Islamists (Kalyvas 1999, 243). The deadliest one listed in the GTD caused 256 deaths.

V.1. Global and regional trends in terrorism (1970-2014) 121

Figure V-16 Terrorism mortality rate (per 100,000 inh.) in selected African countries (1970-2014)

Elaboration by the author; Data source: UMD-START/GTD

Also, others among the selected countries displayed in Figure V-16 exhibited increases in their terrorism mortality rates throughout the 1990s. There was, for example, Sierra Leone which experienced a civil war lasting from 1991 until 2002 (Zack-Williams 1999, 143). Most of the terror attacks listed in the GTD for Sierra Leone were committed by rebels against the civilian population. South Africa, in turn, experienced mutual attacks between the African National Congress (ANC) and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) (LaFree and Dugan 2007, 197). Both political parties were caught up in a struggle over power in laying the foundations for the post-Apartheid era. The deadliest incident occurred when ANC members attacked an IFP rally in 1991, costing 53 lives.

Table V-11 shows the top five observations on terrorism in Africa aggregated at level of country-year and sorted by the absolute count of victims killed during terror attacks. Two observations from Algeria and Rwanda were in the list while the other positions were occupied by observations from Nigeria. The rise in terrorist violence in Nigeria is a rather recent phenomenon, as can be seen in Figure V-16. The terror attacks occurring in Nigeria pushed the number of deaths related to terrorism in Africa to an all-time high in 2014. Most attacks are committed by Boko Haram, an Islamist terror organization that started an insurgency in 2009 and pledged allegiance to the Islamic state in 2015 (Byman 2016, 80). The worst terror attack

CHAPTER V. The effects of terrorism on homicide 122

committed by Boko Haram occurred in 2014 in the town of Gamboru Ngala and consisted in the killing 315 victims.

Table V-11 Top 5 country-year observations of terrorism in Africa (number of victims killed)

Country Year Number of attacks Victims killed Terrorism mortality rate

Nigeria 2014 713 6,193 3.49

Nigeria 2015 637 4,270 2.34

Algeria 1997 344 4,254 14.23

Rwanda 1994 33 1,571 26.20

Nigeria 2013 345 1,563 0.90

Even though the number of terror attacks in Nigeria was considerably high in absolute terms, their impact on the terrorism mortality rate was comparatively limited. This is because Nigeria is the most populous African country. Table V-12 shows the top five entries on terrorism in Africa aggregated at the level of country-year but sorted by the terrorism mortality rate rather than by the absolute counts of victims. While Nigeria drops out of the list, the entries from Rwanda and Algeria remain. The first place is occupied, however, by Djibouti which suffered three particularly deadly attacks by the Front for the Restoration of Unity and Democracy (FRUD) (Bereketeab 2016, 7) against two military posts and a government facility.

Table V-12 Top 5 country-year observations of terrorism in Africa (terrorism mortality rate)

Country Year Number of attacks Victims killed Terrorism mortality rate

Djibouti 1992 6 228 36.36

Rwanda 1994 33 1,571 26.20

Burundi 1996 35 1,365 21.55

Rwanda 1997 33 1,027 15.79

Algeria 1997 344 4,254 14.23

Besides that, also Burundi is included in the list. Similar to Rwanda, Burundi suffered from ethnic violence and civil war (1993-2006) between the Hutu and Tutsi. In 1996, the Hutu president was ousted by a Tutsi in a coup d’état which led to intense violence between the two ethnic groups (DeRouen and Heo 2007, 199). The deadliest incident listed in the GTD regards an attack committed by the Tutsi against a Hutu village, killing 375. The second deadliest attack, on the other hand, was committed by the Hutu against a Tutsi refugee camp, killing 304.