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Deaths by Human
Dan at tdaxp posed a question from his reader, Catholicgauze:
With bombings like yesterdays in Iraq will 2005 be the first year were Muslims form a majority (or even a plurality) of terrorism victims? Do you know any numbers?
The question made me think of another question I’ve had: How have death counts from terrorist acts compared with death counts from murders committed within the U.S.?
Having only a vague idea of the results of such a comparison, I decided to do a little amateur sleuthing.
According to the MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Database, these are the deaths attributed to terrorism for every year from 1990 to the present (using the Graph Wizard and tracking for all regions on the globe, U.S. domestic and international terrorist acts):
[Note: Data for 1968-1997 covers only international incidents. Data for 1998-Present covers both domestic and international incidents.]
The graph is interesting, because it shows a drop immediately after 9/11 but a subsequent increase to levels above the number of terrorism deaths in 2001 (for 2004; 2005 is incomplete.)
The graph doesn’t appear to include genocidal or other war casualties, however.
Using the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program, I found murder statistics for the U.S. for 2003 — the last set of complete figures available from the FBI. A list of various statistics can be found in spreadsheet format for years 1995-2003. By weapon, these are the murders for the U.S. for 2003:
| Total murder victims 2003 | 14,408 |
| Firearms | 9,638 |
| Knives or cutting instruments | 1,816 |
| Blunt objects (clubs, hammers, etc.) | 651 |
| Personal weapons (hands, fists, feet, etc.)1 | 946 |
| Poison | 9 |
| Explosives | 4 |
| Fire | 163 |
| Narcotics | 41 |
| Strangulation | 184 |
| Asphyxiation | 128 |
| Other weapon or weapon not stated2 | 828 |
| 1 Pushed is included in personal weapons. | |
| 2 Includes drowning. |
So, it would seem that more murders are committed within the U.S., on average, than are committed worldwide by terrorists.
Of course, figures from Iraq are likely to skew this comparison; but are U.S. deaths in Iraq casualties of war or deaths by terrorism?
Interestingly, the 2003 FBI homicide figures include statistics by race [Single victim/single offender cases]:
| Race of offender | |||||
| Race of victim | Total | White | Black | Other | Unknown |
| White | 3,603 | 3,017 | 501 | 44 | 41 |
| Black | 3,147 | 226 | 2,864 | 8 | 49 |
| Other | 199 | 47 | 26 | 122 | 4 |
| Unknown | 75 | 33 | 21 | 2 | 19 |
So it would appear that for 2003 at least, victims of homicide within the U.S. were more likely to be killed by members of their own race than by other races. In all likelihood, this reflects a general segregation within the U.S., since murders tend to be committed against those who are nearest to the offender (within the family, on the block, in the community, etc.); but this would hold true for those terrorist homicides in Iraq, too. Perhaps Catholicgauze might find an answer in these statistics.
[Perhaps these statistics would also explain GWB’s strategy: Keep the Islamic terrorists from crossing our borders, by whip or by carrot; limit terrorist deaths to other Muslims. But maybe I’m just being crass.]
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FBI: Missing the newest trend in terrorism?
By John Loftus
http://www.intelligencesummit.org/news/JohnLoftus/JL091905.php
Special Agents in the street grumble that Al Qaeda is evolving again, while the Bureau's bosses pat each other on the back over yesterday's victories. Al Qaeda was a different beast before. First it was an alumni organization, recruiting combat veterans who had been schooled in the Afghan wars. Once the school rosters fell into American hands, the alumni were systematically hunted down, captured or killed. Good work.
But while the FBI applauded itself, Al Qaeda switched over to its second tier of recruits. Waiting in the wings were members of nationalist groups like the Moroccan madmen who bombed Madrid or the Jordanian fanatics of Al Zarqawi. These second tier terrorists were more like Kentucky Fried Chicken franchisees: they were independent operators who only borrowed the Al Qaeda name but were not subject to Al Qaeda control. As the EU and Arab states consolidate their anti-terror operations, the franchise terrorists are slowly becoming neutralized, isolated or exterminated. Ask Iraq.
In desperation, Al Qaeda has now devolved into its third iteration: a teenage fan club whose members correspond with each other over the internet as if they are playing a video game. But, as the London subway passengers discovered last July, sometimes the video games are a deadly dress rehearsal for the real thing.
For too long, western intelligence has dismissed the third tier of recruits as kiddy crime, the harmless posturing of Al Qaeda wannabees. The teens' twin terrorist organizations, Hizb ut-Tahrir and Al Mujaharoun ("Hut/Muj" for short) were laughed at as propaganda outlets of Sheik Bakri, a harmless little lunatic based in London at the Finsbury Mosque. But, as Bakri himself admits, during the 1990's both he and his assistant worked with the British Secret Intelligence Service setting up the Kosovo Liberation Army. They are not exactly virgins at recruiting kids to kill.
Hut/Muj usually targets 15 to 19 year olds, and indoctrinates them with private religious lessons for several years. Their naïve émigré parents think the kids are going to some sort of Islamic Sunday school, while they are actually attending Bin Laden's version of the Hitler Youth. After several years of bonding and brain washing, the kids, now in their early twenties, are ready for terrorist operations. Some live near you.
Hut/Muj cells have spread like a cancer to California, New York, Virginia and Oregon. Despite the fact that local police have made several arrests for planned subway bombings and terrorist training, the FBI still laughs the whole Hut/Muj phenomenon off. This, the feds assert, is protected freedom of speech, mosque based religious education, entirely harmless. That is what the British used to say before 7/7. The mental calendar of the FBI's top leadership seems permanently stuck on 9/10. Wake up or die, FBI.
Posted by: The Intelligence Summit | September 20, 2005 1:33 PM