Afghanistan Watch: Portraits of an Insurgency

August 29, 2006

Portraits of an Insurgency

These two images, generated using the MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base interactive map feature, show--in graphic terms--the striking expansion of terrorist attacks across Afghanistan over the past 4 years. Click here to see four-year progression. Each graph covers twelve months (September through September)

9/2002-

9/2003

9/2005-

9/2006

Each of these data points do not represent armed attacks or incidents of violence, but incidents of terrorism as defined by a RAND team. And each dot represents multiple incidents, with the number indicated by dot's size. (MORE)

The RAND-MIPT research team has generated a comprehensive, if not exhaustive, database of terrorist incidents. Clearly, "terrorism" is a slippery and controversial term, so you may want to read the RAND-MIPT methodology described here. In short, the definition seems sound if not conclusive: "Terrorism is violence, or the threat of violence, calculated to create an atmosphere of fear and alarm" and is "defined by the nature of the act, not by the identity of the perpetrators or the nature of the cause." Moreover, these maps do not necesarily include "does not include all incidents resident in the database for a given country."

Even with these caveats, the maps present a striking image of an insurgency on the rise. The data points call to mind the spread of a feverish pox from a few hotspots to a wide portion of the country. (This expansion most likely represents not only increased activity but also a shift of tactics, since attacks that target civilian and government sites will be classified as "terrorist incidents" while straightforward military attacks will not.)

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Below are four maps showing the incidents from 2002 through today

Each map represents the terrorism incidents for each of the past four years (I calculated each year as September through September to take advantage of the latest data.) .

From top to bottom these maps show:

2002-2003, 2003-2004, 2004-2005, and 2005-2006.