Terrorism trends in Europe

CHAPTER V. The effects of terrorism on homicide 106

Figure V-8 Terrorism mortality rate (per 100,000 inh.) in selected countries with high exposure to terrorism (1970-2014)

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

As opposed to Figure V-6, the comparison of the terrorism mortality rates depicted in Figure V-8 suggested that the period of attacks in Central America was more intense than the upsurges in terrorist violence that Western and Southern Asia have experienced over the past decade.

This is despite the fact that the absolute numbers of attacks and deaths caused by these attacks in Iraq, Syria, Pakistan and Afghanistan continue to push for globally unprecedented highs in absolute counts. Also, here it is noteworthy that the counts of attacks and victims indicated differences in terms of the terrorism mortality rate. For example, the peak in the terrorism mortality rate for 2007 for Iraq was due to 6292 deaths caused by 1047 attacks. The value for Iraq in 2013 indicated roughly the same number of victims but almost three times as many attacks. This made for a much lower ratio of deaths per attack.

V.1. Global and regional trends in terrorism (1970-2014) 107

violence did indeed occur at times. This had a strong influence on the mean values and made for a strong positive skew in the distributions as a comparison of mean and median values indicated.

Table V-1 Summary statistics of key indicators of terrorism in Europe

Statistic N Mean St. Dev. Min Median Max

Number of attacks 1,781 11.07 42.46 0 0 891

Victims killed 1,781 6.61 41.07 0 0 972

Terrorism mortality rate 1,781 0.02 0.16 0.00 0.00 4.98

Figure V-9 gives indication of how the number of terror attacks and deaths caused by these attacks developed in Europe over time. Compared to other regions, terrorism trends in Europe appeared to be relatively stable and homogenous. The most salient feature was the spike in the deaths per attack ratio in 2004.

Figure V-9 Clustered counts of terror attacks, terror-related deaths, and the deaths per attack ratio in Europe (1970-2014)

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

This spike during that year is the result of two factors. Firstly, a very low number of terrorist attacks occurred during that year. The number is in fact one of the lowest ever recorded in Europe. Secondly, however, several of these attacks caused an unusually high number of casualties, notably the Madrid train bombings in March 2004. These attacks consisted of a

CHAPTER V. The effects of terrorism on homicide 108

number of simultaneous bomb explosions which cost the lives of 192 victims. The attacks were initially blamed on the terrorist organization ETA, but shortly after Al-Qaeda was found to be responsible (Rose, Murphy, and Abrahms 2007). Several other high-profile attacks occurred in Russia during that year. These include two attacks on the Moscow metro which were carried out in February and August by Islamic suicide bombers and cost 51 lives (Monaghan 2010).

The deadliest terror attack occurring in Europe that year, however, was the so-called Beslan school siege that took place in North Ossetia, a Russian republic in the North Caucasus. It was an extended attack that lasted more than two days and was carried out by Chechnyan separatists. The siege caused almost 400 deaths, making it the deadliest attack that has occurred in Europe so far (Dunlop 2009). The Russian security forces have been widely criticized for mishandling the incident and thus contributing to the high number of casualties (Dunlop 2006).

Before then, the highest number of victims in a single terror attack were killed in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing—an attack on a passenger plane (Pan Am Flight 103) that exploded with 259 people aboard and when crashing in Scotland killed an additional 11 on the ground (Beveridge 1992, 907).

Figure V-10 Terrorism mortality rate (per 100,000 inh.) in selected European countries (1970-2014)

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

As mentioned above, the influence of all these terror attacks became visible when consulting the disaggregated terrorism mortality rates of selected European countries (Table V-2). This confirmed the strong effect that single terror attacks can take on the terrorism mortality rate.

V.1. Global and regional trends in terrorism (1970-2014) 109

The Lockerbie bombing in 1988, for example, caused an increase of several hundred percent in the terrorism mortality rate for the U.K., boosting it to more than 0.6. The U.K.’s homicide rate during the same year was 1.09, revealing that a single terror attack accounted for a significant portion of violent deaths in the U.K. during that year.

Due to differences in the population sizes, the effect on the terrorism mortality rate was less pronounced in the case of the above-mentioned attacks in Russia. Table V-2 shows the Top 5 observations on terrorism in Europe aggregated at level of country-year, sorted by the absolute count of victims killed. The 2004 terror attacks in Russia made for a terrorism mortality rate of 0.4. This seemed comparatively high. However, compared to a homicide rate of 27.3 during the same year, the attacks accounted only for a minor share of the overall number of violent deaths. This is different in the Ukraine which accounts for the highest number of victims measured for any European country-year. As previously discussed, the Ukraine crisis led to a significant increase of terror attacks which are equally noticeable at regionally aggregated levels. Figure V-9 reveals that 2014 accounts for the highest number of deaths caused by terrorism measured in Europe during the time under observation.

Table V-2 Top 5 country-year observations of terrorism in Europe (number of victims killed)

Country Year Number of attacks Victims killed Terrorism mortality rate

Ukraine 2014 891 972 2.16

Russia 2004 43 573 0.40

Russia 2002 89 459 0.32

Ukraine 2015 637 396 0.88

Russia 1999 54 382 0.26

Table V-3 shows the Top 5 observations of terrorism in Europe aggregated at level of country-year, sorted by the terrorism mortality rate. Here, the Ukraine (2014) accounted for the second highest terrorism mortality rate ever measured in Europe. A higher rate was only measured in Croatia in 1991, the year the Croatian war of independence started (Cigar 1993). Also the high terrorism mortality rate in Bosnia and Herzegovina marked the onset of a war, namely the Bosnian war which was to become the bloodiest of all Yugoslav wars and involved genocide (Ching 2009). The high rate for Macedonia in 2001, on the other hand, marks the end of the Yugoslav wars. It links to a relatively short-lived conflict between ethnic Albanian militants and Macedonian security forces that started and ended in 2001 (R. C. Hall 2014, 178).

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Table V-3 Top 5 country-year observations of terrorism in Europe (terrorism mortality rate)

Country Year Number of attacks Victims killed Terrorism mortality rate

Croatia 1991 26 237 4.98

Ukraine 2014 891 972 2.16

Norway 2011 3 77 1.55

Bosnia and Herzegovina 1992 22 55 1.28

Macedonia (FYR) 2001 67 24 1.19

Among the five highest terrorism mortality rates measured during the observation period in Europe, only Norway 2015 did not relate to a conflict setting. The spike was caused, in fact, by the attacks committed by Anders Breivik on Utøya island and in Oslo (Leonard et al. 2014).

These attacks made for a terrorism mortality rate of 1.55. The homicide rate in Norway during the same year was 2.2, compared to 0.67 in 2010 and 0.5 in 2012. This gives a striking example of how influential a single terror attack can be in boosting the homicide rate of a country.