Hotels Increasingly Targeted by Terrorist Organizations Since 2005

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June 29, 2011

Following yesterday’s coordinated attack by the Taliban on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul,
Afghanistan, START has released a background report on terrorist activities in Afghanistan, attacks by the Taliban, attacks using complex tactics, and attacks by terrorist groups against hotels.

Key findings from the report include:

• Since 1970, there have been 2,417 terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, with the majority of those
  occurring since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
  
• The Taliban are now the most active terrorist organization in Afghanistan, accounting for 1,323
  attacks against civilians, or 57.7% of all attacks in Afghanistan since 1970.
  
• Since 1970, terrorist groups throughout the world have conducted 2,515 tactically complex
  attacks (using both firearms and explosives in the commission of a single attack).
  
• More than 660 attacks against hotels have occurred in the past 40 years, with at least three
  attacks occurring each year.
  
• Hotels appear to be of increasing interest to terrorist organizations, targeted in more than 100
  attacks since 2005 alone.
  

The full background report is available here.

The background report contains information on:

• Trends of Terrorism Against Civilians in Afghanistan
  
• Terrorist Attacks Against Civilians by the Taliban
  
• Tactically Complex Attacks
  
• Terrorist Attacks Against Hotels
  

These data were collected and compiled from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD, www.start.umd.edu/gtd). An updated version of the database, with information on incidents through 2010, was released in June 2011. Unlike many other event databases, the GTD includes systematic data on domestic as well as transnational and international terrorist incidents that have occurred during this time period. For each GTD incident, information is available on the date and location of the incident, the weapons used and nature of the target, the number of casualties, and—when identifiable—the perpetrator.

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