Suicide Attacks: The Numbers
It is really scary to be caught up in traffic. It isn’t just traffic; going to religious gatherings, social gatherings, or just sitting on a sofa in a house can be scary for some people. I mean, because an explosive can just go off at anytime.
Although the number of suicide attacks seem to have reduced (well, we can’t quite tell until we see the numbers in very recent times), it is still impossible to neglect that they are still happening. Talk about the suicide attack on the 22nd of March 2021 at the outskirt of China’s southern Guangzhou city where five people (including the attacker) were killed and five injured.
Well, Let’s dive straight in to extract information from the data about suicide attacks between the year 1982 to 2015 globally, then as a nation… NIGERIA. Please note that there could be other instances of attacks not mentioned here, I made use of just the dataset gotten from the CORGIS Datasets Project website, here.
I used Juptyer Notebook to analyze this dataset. The full codes I wrote can be found here
The dataset has 21 columns and 4,616 rows. These columns are shown below:
Throughout this dataset, the suicide attack with the highest number of casualty is the attack on the world Trade Center, New York which happened on September 11, 2001. This attack has the highest number of wounded people as well as the highest number of people killed.
This attack had civilians as its target type and the weapon of attack was an airplane. According to this dataset, 2,739 people were killed and 6,185 people were injured. The attacker who was from the Al-Qaeda Central terrorist group was an unmarried Egyptian with a post secondary qualification. The attacker was also a Muslim.
There were still a number of failed suicide attacks in history. This dataset records a total of 273 instances in which there were no injured or killed people (my definition of ‘failed suicide attacks’). Note that the ‘age’ and ‘year of birth’ columns have been removed due to the high number of missing values (outliers).
The trend of the number of killed and injured is shown below:
From the graph above, the year 2007 had the highest number of casualties (people killed and wounded). The total number of wounded for that year was 13,413 and the total number of those killed was 5679.
The year 2007 had a total of 525 attacks. The year with the least number of people killed is the year 1989 with 0 deaths. The year with the least number of wounded people is the year 1992 with 0 wounded people.
The trend for the total number of attacks per year is shown below:
The number of attacks was on the increase from the year 1999. The year 2014 had the highest number of attacks (545). The next highest year was 2007 with 525 attacks. The year 1982 and 1992 had the least number of attacks; 1.
Some Countries were affected more than others. This dataset records a total of 47 countries. Let us look at the number of attacks for each country from 1982 to 2015
Below is the graph of deaths and those wounded in the attack for each country from 1982 to 2015
We can see from the graph above that Iraq has the highest number of people wounded (48,902)and killed (20,084) from 1982 to 2015. Also observe how the number of wounded are usually higher than those killed.
From the figure below, 128 unique terrorist groups are named in this dataset. Also the terrorist group with the highest number of attacks was carried out by ‘Unknown Group’. Hence the known Terrorist group with the highest number of attacks is the Taliban (IEA) group with 661 attacks.
The total number of people wounded and killed by specific known terrorist groups between 1982 and 2015 are shown below
From above, we can see that the Al-Qaeda Central terrorist group are the known terrorist group responsible for the highest number of suicide kills and injuries between 1982 and 2015 (ignoring the ‘Unknown Group’ terrorist Groups). One can also observe that this terrorist group made a total of 15 suicide attacks according to this dataset within that period.
From the year 1982 to 2015, a total of 117,989 people were wounded and 45,824 people were killed.
NIGERIA
Suicide attack wasn’t quite a thing in Nigeria until about 2011 in which the first suicide attack was carried out on June 16, 2011. The attack targeted security personnel in the Federal Capital Territory. Six people were killed and there were no injured people recorded. According to the dataset, the attacker, a Married Muslim man used a car bomb for that first attack.
There were several attacks that same year with quite a number of casualties.
Generally, from this dataset, the number of suicide attacks in Nigeria from 2011 to 2015 were 103.
From the dataset, civilians were the most targeted with the attacks. Security personnel were the second most targeted and then Politicians were the least known target group.
These attacks also had major cities or towns in which they were more. The attacks from the dataset are seen majorly to have affected the Northern parts of Nigeria. Below is a pie chart showing how the attacks are distributed amongst these towns:
Maiduguri, the capital of Borno is seen to have had about 25 attacks between 2011 to 2015. It is impossible to ignore the fact that several towns in that same Borno were attacked as well. Borno alone had a total of 35 attacks in several towns. Kano the capital of Kano State is seen to have the next highest number of attacks within 2011 to 2015 (14 attacks). Potiskum in Yobe was the third most attacked town (13 attacks). From these we can see that State Capitals were no exceptions to these attacks unlike what is expected. Somehow, these suicide attackers found ways to keep repeating their acts within these capitals as well as other towns. The figure below shows the exact number of times these attacks occurred per town:
These attacks were perpetuated by both gender; male and female. The gender of some of the attackers were recorded as unknown. But then, Male had the highest number of attackers(29), although the difference is negligible with female being 27. The number of attackers recorded as unknown is 47.
Usually, female are less suspected when it comes to things like suicide attacks and the likes but this dataset shows clearly that they are actively involved in things like this and should not be ignored during investigations or searches.
In Nigeria one of the main terrorist group that was responsible for these suicide attacks were the Boko Haram. This record shows that 20 of the attacks were clearly perpetuated by Boko Haram, it is unclear who 83 of these attacks were carried out by. Although most people still believe it was all carried out by the same Boko Haram. The question is what if it wasn’t just them? What if there are some other terrorist sect that were responsible for these attacks?
Most of the suicide attackers’ religion were unknown. Just one record shows the religion to be Muslim.
The trend for yearly attacks in Nigeria is shown below:
There was a rise from 2011 to 2012, then a fall in the number of attacks. There was an increase in 2014 as well as 2015. It is difficult at this point to foresee future predictions of these attacks due to the limited number of data.
Below also shows the number of casualties for each year, killed and wounded:
2014 had the highest number of Killed and wounded.
The attack with the highest number of casualties is the attack at the Grand Mosque of Kano with 120 people killed and 270 people wounded. The attack was carried out with a belt bomb. The attack was carried out on the 28th of November, 2014.
The weapon of attack used by these suicide attackers are shown below. The number of attacks the weapon were used for are shown as well:
We can see that the belt bomb was the most used weapon of attack and the cart bomb was the least used weapon of attack. It is obvious what security measures should be taken when it comes to keeping citizens safe. It doesn’t mean that the weapons least used should be neglected. The general idea is for security personnel and individual to be cautious and observant of strange people and activities
All through the year 2011 to 2015, there has been a total of 4,073 casualties. 2,726 were wounded and 1,347 were killed.
These aren’t just numbers, these are humans.
Reference:
https://link.medium.com/rf0ZQkXk8eb
