Contemporary Global Terrorism Analysis

Terrorism has become a global scourge, affecting development and security of modern state and citizens’ life. Although the history of terrorist activities is longer than the modern nation-state, it has now become more fanatical, more lethal, and more global than any time of the history. Today, terrorism is more diverse in terms of motivations, financing, and security implications. In turn, it is now more apocalyptic in perspective, methods and techniques. Eventually, all the regions of the world are hitting by the different types of terrorism. It is not likely that all terrorists are religiously motivated or religiously motivated terrorism is the new phenomenon in terrorism discourse. In words of David Rapoport, religiously motivated modern

Such challenges may come from within states and be backed by a variety of parties. The technical sophistication or quality of attacks has increased all over the world. A trend analyses report identifies three new trends of contemporary global terrorism. First, the emergence of micro-actors in capability of the terrorist groups, i.e. reduction of the operational capability of the terrorist groups, but increase of their ideological, motivational, and propaganda ability. The second is the promotion of operational sophistication of terrorist activities, using modern technology and global information flow. The third is the increasing trend of overlapping terrorist activities with transnational crime, using the same supply, transport, and money-moving networks. Marc Sageman, the eminent author of Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-first Century, has revealed the new trends of terrorism by portraying it as leaderless or network of local groups. He argues that today's terrorist threat has evolved from a structured group of masterminds to a multitude of informal local groups. These groups have been trying to follow their predecessors by conceiving and executing operations from the below. He states that the true menace has been generating

According to Europol, the European law enforcement agency, terrorism is indeed on the rise in Europe. There have been 211 failed, foiled or completed attacks, which marks a notable increase of 39% from 2013, following a steady fourfold decrease in the period 2007, meanwhile the number of terror related arrests has boomed as well, reaching 1,077 in 2015, a twofold increase from 2013 and the highest number recorded by Europol since it started publishing its annual assessments in 2006. Islamist terrorism is largely responsible for this upsurge. Although attacks from jihadi groups still represent a minority of the total attacks recorded, that number is increasing whereas most other forms of terrorism are decreasing (most notably separatism, which has long been the dominating form of terrorism in Europe, while right-wing terrorism is on the rise again). The trend is likely to be confirmed in 2016. Since the beginning of the year, more than ten attacks across Europe have been attributed to, or inspired by, ISIS. A number of foiled plots have been reported as well. With regard to arrests, a large majority of the arrests made in 2015 was related to Islamist terrorism. This number has steadily increased over the past years, to rise from around 20% to more than 70% of all arrests in Europe. Therefore, with this background, this