As we discussed above,
the four most common terrorist targets in the GTD are first private citizens,
second, businesses, third, government, and fourth the police.
In the last part of this lecture,
I'd like to talk very briefly about how these different targets
Look if you look at the data over the regions of the world and then also I want
to look at trends in these targets over time before concluding this section.
If we look at the regions of the world, private citizens and property are the most
frequent targets in six of the 13 regions of the world that we've identified here.
Businesses are the most common primary target.
In North America, South America, and Western Europe.
When we consider the perpetrators of attacks on businesses in these regions,
we note that in North America, businesses were frequently attacked by environmental
and animal rights groups such as the Earth Liberation Front and
the Animal Liberation Front which makes good sense because the grievances of
these organizations are often directed at the businesses.
That they perceive to be harming either he environment or animals.
Such as the lumber industry, the fast food industry or the fur industry.
Extreme environment groups such as ELF have also attacked businesses in
Western Europe.
However, local separatist groups such as the ETA,
the Corsican National Liberation Front and the IRA were responsible for most
of the attacks on businesses in Western Europe especially in the 1970s and 1980s.
The most common business target for ETA and the FLNC were bank,
while the IRA was most likely to attack shops, bars and restaurants.
The FARC, and the National Liberation Army of Colombia are among the most prominent
groups that targeted businesses in South America.
These two groups have attacked a wide variety of businesses, including banks,
construction sites, ranches, retail stores, even trucking companies.
Turning back to the figure we see that the government is the most common target
in East Asia, Central Asia and in Australasia Oceania.
All of which are regions with relatively few terrorist attacks
in general in the GTD.
Finally the police are the most commonly targeted group in Russia and
the Newly Independent States.
The terrorists that most openly target the police in this region
are Chechnyan rebel groups.
Given their grievances with the Russian government,
it's perhaps unsurprising that these groups target police and
other government officials in terms of their attack patterns.
At the same time, Chechen separatists had been involved in several major attacks
that have targeted civilians including the bloody attacks,
including very bloody attacks on theaters and schools.
Finally, how do these targets look if you look at them over time,
over the 43 years included in the data?
We give you an illustration of this for
the four most common targets in the next figure.
Interestingly, while the top four targets trend closely to one another for
much of the series.
The most common of these four attack targets changes over time.
So for most of the 1970s,
businesses were the most frequently targeted of the four categories.
Businesses also were the leading target in a few years, 85, 86, and 91,
around the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union by contrast,
government is only the most common target for
terrorists in two years of the series, in 1970 and 1988.
Police are never the most common target, although the frequency of attacks on
police have gone up dramatically in the last 12 or 13 years.
Surpassing both government and business targets.
In 72 and 73 and throughout much of the 80s, 90s and 2000s,
private citizens and property were the most common of the four types targets.
In fact, near the end of the series in 2008 and 2009, private citizens and
their property were target in nearly 50% of terrorist attacks.
On these four types of targets.
For the last few years of the series, nearly one third of the attacks on private
citizens and their property, took place in a single country, the country if Iraq.
A few conclusions about targets of terrorism.
I began this section by exploring in greater detail,
the idea that terrorists primarily attack private citizens.
We can see that there's a good deal of truth to this assertion, but
that it's complicated.
That it's often difficult to separate attacks on private citizens
from attacks on government, attacks on police, attacks on the military, or
even attacks on different types of transportation.
So in other words, it's hard to know if the terrorists were out to get civilians
or they happen to kill civilians in their effort to hit some other kind of target,
and a lot of times we just do not have enough detail and
we don't know enough about the motivations of the terrorist to actually
determine which of these is the case.
Also, many attacks impact multiple types of targets and
in these cases it's very difficult now.
If we look at the Bali bombings for example, there were lots of soldiers
killed, but there were also lots of ordinary citizens killed as well.
When we examine targets across regions, we see that private citizens and
property are the most common of the four types in 6 of the 13 world regions,
but we also see a fair amount of variability across the world.
Furthermore, this tendency to target private citizens and
property has become more prevalent since the early 1990s.
Prior to that period terrorist groups attacked other types of targets about as
often as private citizens.
In short, we find that private citizens are often the target of terrorist attacks
and during many periods, in fact, the most common targets of terrorist attacks.
Nevertheless, the GTD also reveals a good deal of variation
in a lot of complexity in targeting strategies.
In the next lecture, I want to conclude this three part series by talking about
tactics used by the terrorist organizations in the GTD since 1970.
Thank you very much.
