As discussed in class, terrorism bears many unknowns. The Global Terrorism Database claims terrorism must be intentional, obtain some level of violence, and have national actors. However, researchers have struggled to universally define the term which is seemingly the first step to identify potential warning signs and eventually prevent the crime from occurring. In March 2016, the New York Times published an article following the suicide bombings that occurred in Brussels (Apuzzo, 2016). Psychologist Marc Sageman analyzed terrorist acts in attempt to identify a demographic that terrorists stem from. However, he, amongst other economists, have found it difficult to make progress on these pressing questions as studies have shown that “nearly anyone is a potential terrorist”. Both the Bush and Obama administration promised to take immediate steps to prevent these horrific acts but have done little to actually follow through. In America, interference with freedom of religion is considered unconstitutional and is therefore extremely controversial. The British government takes forward action to prevent potential acts of terrorism by monitoring political and religious speech, both of which may correlate with extremism. The Justice Department, however, does use “checklists” that help gauge the potential for extremists by investigating whether people felt “mistreated by the government, distrust law enforcement or suffer from discrimination”. The fundamental issue with these checklists is that they can be alarmingly inaccurate, flagging many more innocent people than actual terrorists. The article mentioned that a Muslim-led organization known as Worde is a phenomenal resource to use that will arrange mental health or religious counseling for those that demonstrate warning signs. Still, there is much to learn about how effective and accurate counseling can be to prevent violent actions.

In 2018, a month-long FBI investigation led to the arrest of 27-year-old Wesley Ayers after he planted four explosive bombs around Anderson County in South Carolina (Feit, 2018). One person was injured after the explosion of one of the bombs, while the other three devices were fortunately intercepted by law enforcement. However, Ayers planted three additional bombs that were intentionally fake to threaten even more turmoil. During the FBI investigation of his Anderson residence, officials found an ottoman that was buried with “explosive supplies, a photo of the White House on fire with a reference to jihad, clown and animal masks, and items with Arabic writing”. One of the pipe bombs that was planted was found in the same basket as a pink teddy bear with red beaming eyes. On Wesley Ayers left arm lies a tattoo of a pink teddy bear with red beaming eyes. As the New York Times article discussed, it is often unclear what the exact motive of the terrorist is. A source reported to Fox Carolina that Ayers “thinks differently than others” (Shaw, 2018). Analyzing how the British government monitors suspicious activity, it is clear that this witness who knew Ayers saw red flags early on. In fact, the source reported that Ayers also killed his fiancée’s cat. If this suspicious activity was reported to an organization like Worde, Wesley Ayers may have been able to receive religious or mental health counseling. However, he pleaded guilty to multiple violent crime charges and now faces 20 years to life in prison.

The following visualizations are based off of data from the Global Terrorism Database via START, a program through the University of Maryland that intends to build effective counterterrorism policy (START, 2021). The area chart portrays how terrorist attacks have affected regions of the world over time. In the 1970s, the majority of these events occurred in North America and Western Europe. However, the graph shows how terrorism has grown in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as South America and even Sub-Saharan Africa. Although this graph provides a general overview of geographic trends, the adjacent bubble chart specifically shows which states or provinces have high terrorist rates. At first glance of the bubble chart, many of the largest bubbles are yellow, representing the Middle Eastern and North African provinces. Baghdad, Iraq, stands out as one of the most dangerous provinces with 7,948 suspected acts of terrorism in the last 50 years. In comparison, South Carolina has 9 reported terrorist attacks in the same time span. Even California, the state with the highest rate in North America, has 613 attacks since 1970, a fraction of Baghdad’s rate. The corresponding map provides a key to which region countries fall into. When clicked on, the region on the map will highlight the same region on both the proportional area graph and packed bubble chart.

Lower on the dashboard lies a bar chart presenting the percentage of each type of attack based on region. The figures to the right provide a visual for each type of attack by color. For example, when clicking on the yellow handcuffs, the tooltip explains that the yellow bars represent “other” terrorist actions. These actions include hijacking, unarmed assault, and other unknown events. Throughout all regions of the world, bombings and explosives are the most common type of attack, making up over 60 percent of terrorist event in the Middle East and North Africa.

According to the New York Times article, there is a pattern of extremist behavior and terrorists. However, it cannot be assumed that there is a direct correlation between the two factors, which we discussed in class. Racial profiling has led to many false accusations like the example of the Italian economist who was reported for coding on a plane. As a result, psychologists, economists, and government officials still struggle with how to balance preventative actions with constitutional rights.

Works Cited:

Apuzzo, M. (2016, March 28). Who will become a terrorist? Research yields few clues. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/28/world/europe/mystery-about-who-will-become-aterrorist-defies-clear-answers.html

Feit, N. (2018, October 29). One of his bombs went off, but SC man had planned to do much worse, prosecutor says. https://www.thestate.com/news/local/crime/article220801750.html

Flaticon. (2021). Flaticon. https://www.flaticon.com/search?word=crime

Shaw, A. (2018, March 8). FBI: Teddy bear with glowing eyes, mutilated clown masks connected to Anderson Co. bomb investigation. FOX Carolina. https://www.foxcarolina.com/news/fbi-teddybear-with-glowing-eyes-mutilated-clown-masks-connected-to-anderson-co-bombinvestigation/article_1041b930-0d22-50ab-92a1-2e05ac0029a9.html

START.umd.edu |. (2021). https://www.start.umd.edu/