Using geography to understand terrorist actors and actions

Michael G. Findley and Joseph K. Young examine India and Peru, two of the most terrorist-affected countries to understand terrorism. In India, most of the violent events occur in the civil war zones, such as Jammu and Kashmir. Punjab also has many events associated with Sikh militants. In an action-based approach, all of these events count as terrorism. Other events outside of the zones of insurgent control or unconnected to the main combatant groups might count as terrorism, but regardless the number of events would decrease substantially. Shining Path was responsible for the bulk of attacks in Peru from 1970 to 2004. They controlled large portions of the countryside, sieged the capital city, and influenced over 50% of primary educators. The authors emphasize on the need for better data on zones of government and rebel control. GIS can be used effectively to examine events in these zones of control to obtain a better understanding of whether such events are qualitatively different than acts committed by groups controlling no territory.