Problems with 2003 report
The 2003 report was released twice, in April and June 2004. The release of the April 29th version led Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to say
- Terrorism continues to destroy the lives of people all over the world; and this report we are releasing today, "Patterns of Global Terrorism: 2003," documents the sad toll that such attacks took last year. This report also details the steps the United States and some 92 other nations took in 19 — or 2003 to fight back and to protect our peoples. Indeed, you will find in these pages clear evidence that we are prevailing in the fight.
On June 10, 2004, a few weeks after challenges from two professors (Alan Krueger of Princeton University and David Laitin of Stanford University) and Congressman Henry Waxman, the State Department announced that the report previously issued for 2003 was incomplete and incorrect in part. The revisions issued twelve days later included significant changes, including a doubling of the number of killed and wounded mentioned in the April 2004 version. Here are examples from the section "The Year in Review":
| April 29 version | June 22 version |
|---|
| There were 190 acts of international terrorism in 2003, a slight decrease from the 198 attacks that occurred in 2002, and a drop of 45% from the level in 2001 of 346 attacks. The figure in 2003 represents the lowest annual total of international terrorist attacks since 1969. | There were 208 acts of international terrorism in 2003, a slight increase from the most recently published figure of 198* attacks in 2002, and a 42% drop from the level in 2001 of 355 attacks. |
| 307 persons were killed in the attacks of 2003, far fewer than the 725 killed during 2002. | 625 persons were killed in the attacks of 2003, fewer than the 725 killed during 2002. |
| 1,593 persons were wounded in the attacks that occurred in 2003, down from 2,013 persons wounded the year before. | 3646 persons were wounded in the attacks that occurred in 2003, a sharp increase from 2013 persons wounded the year before. This increase reflects the numerous indiscriminate attacks during 2003 on “soft targets,” such as places of worship, hotels, and commercial districts, intended to produce mass casualties. |
In November 2004, news leaked to the Los Angeles Times about an internal report from the State Department's Office of Inspector General. The report found more errors in the 2003 report, and concluded that even the June version "cannot be viewed as reliable" because of questionable statistics on terrorist attacks and casualties, as well as other issues. The inspectors cited some short-term problems from the transition to the government's new interagency Terrorist Threat Integration Center. These included gaps in data entry, inadequate oversight, and personnel issues. They also cited a long-standing failure by the State Department, CIA, and other agencies to use consistent standards for the identification and classification of terrorism-related events.
A lone wolf attack, or lone actor attack, is a particular kind of mass murder, committed in a public setting by an individual who plans and commits the act on their own. In the United States, such attacks are usually committed with firearms. In other countries, knives are sometimes used to commit mass stabbings. Although definitions vary, most databases require a minimum of four victims for the event to be considered a mass murder.
Terrorism and mass attacks in Canada includes acts of terrorism, as well as mass shootings, vehicle-ramming attacks, mass stabbings, and other such acts committed in Canada that people may associate with terroristic tactics but have not been classified as terrorism by the Canadian legal system.
Palestinian political violence refers to actions carried out by Palestinians with the intent to achieve political objectives that can involve the use of force, some of which are considered acts of terror, and often carried out in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Common objectives of political violence by Palestinian groups include self-determination in and sovereignty over all of Palestine, or the recognition of a Palestinian state inside the 1967 borders. This includes the objective of ending the Israeli occupation. More limited goals include the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and recognition of the Palestinian right of return.
Country Reports on Terrorism is an annual report published by the United States Department of State. In 2005 it replaced the Patterns of Global Terrorism report, which had been released since 1985.
In the United States, domestic terrorism is defined as terrorist acts that were carried out within the United States by U.S. citizens and/or U.S. permanent residents. As of 2021, the United States government considers white supremacists to be the top domestic terrorism threat.
Jewish extremist terrorism is terrorism, including religious terrorism, committed by extremists within Judaism.
Targeted killing, or assassination is a tactic that the government of Israel has used during the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the Iran–Israel proxy conflict, and other conflicts.
Terrorism in South Africa has not been seen as a significant threat to the security of the state since the end of apartheid.
Terrorism in Indonesia refer to acts of terrorism that take place within Indonesia or attacks on Indonesian people or interests abroad. These acts of terrorism often target the government of Indonesia or foreigners in Indonesia, most notably Western visitors, especially those from the United States and Australia.
The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is a global counterterrorist military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks and is the most recent global conflict spanning multiple wars. Some researchers and political scientists have argued that it replaced the Cold War.
The insurgency in the North Caucasus was a low-level armed conflict between Russia and militants associated with the Caucasus Emirate and, from June 2015, the Islamic State, in the North Caucasus. It followed the (Russian-proclaimed) official end of the decade-long Second Chechen War on 16 April 2009. It attracted volunteers from the MENA region, Western Europe, and Central Asia. The Russian legislation considers the Second Chechen War and the insurgency described in this article as the same "counter-terrorist operations on the territory of the North Caucasus region".
The Global Terrorism Index (GTI) is a report published annually by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), and was developed by IT entrepreneur and IEP's founder Steve Killelea. The index provides a comprehensive summary of the key global trends and patterns in terrorism since 2000. It is an attempt to systematically rank the nations of the world according to terrorist activity. The index combines a number of factors associated with terrorist attacks to build an explicit picture of the impact of terrorism, illustrating trends, and providing a data series for analysis by researchers and policymakers. It produces a composite score in order to provide an ordinal ranking of countries on the impact of terrorism.
Terrorism in Sri Lanka has been a highly destructive phenomenon during the 20th and 21st centuries, especially so during the periods of the Sri Lankan Civil War (1983–2009) and the first (1971) and second JVP insurrections (1987–1989). A common definition of terrorism is the systematic or threatened use of violence to intimidate a population or government for political, religious, or ideological goals. Sri Lanka is a country that has experienced some of the worst known acts of modern terrorism, such as suicide bombings, massacres of civilians and assassination of political and social leaders. Terrorism has posed a significant threat to the society, economy and development of the country. The Prevention of Terrorism Act of 1978 is the legislation that provides the powers to law enforcement officers to deal with issues related to terrorism in Sri Lanka. It was first enacted as a temporary law in 1979 under the presidency of J. R. Jayewardene, and later made permanent in 1982.
Islamic terrorism in Europe has been carried out by the Islamic State (ISIL) or Al-Qaeda as well as Islamist lone wolves since the late 20th century. Europol, which releases the annual EU Terrorism Situation and Trend report (TE-SAT), used the term "Islamist terrorism" in the years 2006–2010, "religiously inspired terrorism" 2011–2014, and has used "jihadist terrorism" since 2015. Europol defines jihadism as "a violent ideology exploiting traditional Islamic concepts".
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