First, the marketplace of violence on the continent is saturated with a variety of armed groups-many of which are affiliated with major international terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State or ISIS -that are jockeying for influence, power, and access to resources. At least two such theories are worthy of consideration in the African context and may help explain the trend. Some of these targeting strategies may be attributed to external factors, such as inter-organizational competition, or internal factors, such as ideological justifications or principal-agent problems. Scholars have long sought to explain how terrorist and insurgent groups develop their targeting strategies, including the potential benefits they derive from various approaches. The threat of terrorism has grown so much on the continent that by 2020 seven of the top 10 countries in the world in terms of terrorism risk were in Africa, according to global risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft (Brown 2010).Įxisting research from the literature on terrorist targeting may offer a few explanatory pathways to account for this trend. This number rose sharply throughout the years and by 2020 there were 7,108 attacks targeting civilians resulting in 12,519 fatalities (see Figure 1) (Raleigh, et al 2010). According to data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), in 2015 there were 381 attacks targeting civilians in Africa resulting in 1,394 fatalities. From Somalia to Mali and Nigeria to Mozambique, the continent has repeatedly witnessed grisly acts of violence targeting its civilian populations. Non-state (terrorist groups, militias, rebel groups, etc.) have increasingly targeted civilians in their campaigns of violence. Terrorism on the continent of Africa has been rising sharply over the decade.
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