Planet of terror
Over the past couple of decades, the world has changed beyond recognition. Where are those “good old days” when organized crime was the most serious problem for humanity - and even then we are better known for various works of literary creativity, as well as detective and adventure series and Hollywood blockbusters. Where are the times when the main - and even in many respects virtual - external threat for the inhabitants of the countries participating in this or that military-political bloc, headed by one of the two superpowers, was the opposing side in the cold war (although with the start of the 2.0 cold war "We are back to this forgotten state). And where are the days when manifestations of terrorism were limited locally and were familiar to us from newspapers and television reports on the actions of militants of the Irish Republican Army, the ETA Basque organization, the Italian Red Brigades and other ultra-left or far-right organizations in a number of other regions the planets (about several terrorist attacks that took place in the USSR, we learned in detail at all only after the collapse of the latter).Since then, not so much time has passed, but the international terrorist movement has managed to use it so productively that today, it seems, for the citizens of any country in the world, the terrorists have become the main sources of hell, and the threat of a terrorist act is the main security problem. their and their loved ones. By and large, today no one, no matter who he is or where he lives, is immune from the fact that he will not be in the epicenter of an explosion of a residential building or a car, airplane or train filled with explosives, or will not become a victim of a suicide bomber or a wolf Loners ", throwing at passers-by with a knife. Whichever channel you turn on, whatever newspaper or magazine you open, everywhere you come across information or a report about some terrorist attack or bloody attack by separatists who want to separate from something or someone or, on the contrary, join something or someone something.
So much so that, due to the impossibility of putting a reliable barrier to terrorists at the state level, decisions are being made to terminate transport links with one or another country of the world, and governments recommend their citizens to abandon business and tourist trips to states that have undergone a massive attack by terrorist or separatist organizations of all kinds. At the same time, if everything is clear with the separatists - they will probably never end, but these days they have simply begun to more widely use violent methods of struggle, including full-fledged terrorist actions, then only one terrorist organization can be stated with regret - most of them represented by radical Islamist or, as they are also called, jihadist groups of a completely understandable direction.
You can assess the scale of the wave of terrorism and separatism, as well as politically and ideologically motivated violence of various kinds that swept our world, according to the 2017 Global Attack Index, which recently introduced the Center for Terrorist and Insurgent Action. (Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Center - JTIC), organized as part of the information and consulting and analytical group IHS Markit. The latter, in turn, was formed in 2017 by the merger of IHS (Information Handling Service) and Markit Ltd., while Jane's name remained in use by the new company due to keeping Jane's information and analytical group known to many generations of military experts and analysts Information Group, which IHS acquired in 2016 year.
MILITARY ACTIVITIES
Compiled by the experts of the Global Attacks Index center mentioned above, during the 2017 year, a total of 22 487 attacks and various types of terrorist attacks of which 18 475 became victims occurred in the world with the participation of non-state groups and organizations. civilians. Compared to 2016, the situation was somewhat better in that the JTIC center recorded a total of 24 202 attacks and the number of victims reached 27 697 people were killed (plus 39 040 people were injured, although in the 2017 data this year missing). On the other hand, if the center’s experts in their study for 2017 a year, and also for previous years, also provide data on casualties among non-military (non-military), in fact non-combatants, that is, civilians, then in 2017 a given number The victims include the “security services” (security forces), which accounted for almost 60% of the total death toll. Why employees of the “security services (forces)” are considered non-combatants, that is, they belong to the “non-military” group, is not entirely clear. It is possible, however, that here we are talking about employees of non-state security services, that is, in our opinion, private security companies, etc.
At the same time, which is typical, 2016 year became, apparently, one of the most "active" in this regard, since the number of attacks of the profile under review increased by 27,5% (in 2015 year - 18 985 attacks), but the number of victims caused by them among the civilian population decreased by 5,9% (in the 2015 year - 29 384 dead and 36 839 injured). JTIC analysts explained this by activating various kinds of power actions in a number of regions of the world, including the eastern part of Ukraine, which they traditionally include in their annual report on the “separatist actions”, while reducing the number of terrorist attacks and attacks characterized by scale and numerous casualties. Given that, the authors of the analytical report do not include the war led by Russia and the United States coalitions against international terrorist associations in Syria and Iraq, considering only individual attacks organized by these associations in different countries of the world, or individual actions against security forces . At least such a conclusion can be drawn from data analysis for the 2017 year.
The list of countries leading in terms of the number of attacks and terrorist acts of the nature under consideration following the 2017 year does not differ from the frequency of their appearance in various media in the sections on conflicts, the fight against terror, etc. In the form of "Top 10" it looks like this: Syria - 8440 attacks and 3641 killed non-combatant; Ukraine - 3735 attacks and 177 killed; Iraq - 2164 attacks and 3378 killed; Yemen - 1326 attacks and 1092 killed; India - 758 attacks and 338 killed; Afghanistan - 661 attack and 2299 killed; Turkey - 470 attacks and 226 killed; Somalia - 445 attacks and 1466 killed; Libya - 414 attacks and 606 killed; Philippines - 337 attacks and 268 killed. Of these countries, nine were in the "Top 10" and in the 2016 year, but the Philippines last year pushed Pakistan from last place, in which the situation, according to the authors of the report, turned out to be better. Although, we emphasize this in particular, Pakistan is still ahead of the Philippines in the number of attacks and terrorist attacks - 367 against 337, as well as in the number of victims - 797 against 268 dead. However, while in Pakistan compared with the previous year only the number of casualties increased, and the number of attacks decreased, in the Philippines both indicators increased at once. Apparently, this was the reason why the Philippines took the 10-place in the ranking, and Pakistan moved to the 11-th. In more detail, the data on the mentioned countries for 2015 – 2017 is presented in the table.
Particularly noteworthy here is the fact that, according to JTIC specialists, as of the end of 2017 for the last six years - during the 2012 – 2017 period - a total of 117 812 attacks occurred, and the most serious situation in this regard was noted in 2014 year - almost 20 thousand attacks, and there was a constant increase in their number from 2012 to 2016 year, after which the number of acts of violence declined somewhat. Taken together, 186 540 people — noncombatants — died in these attacks over the period, with a sharp increase in the number of victims from 2012 thousand to almost 2014 thousand in 20 – 50, after which the number of victims also began to decline quite actively and The year 2017 has fallen already lower than the year 2012 and lower than the bar in 20 th.
The number of people killed in these acts of violence is, of course, not comparable to the number of victims of any of the two world wars or other large-scale military conflicts, but is comparable, for example, with casualties suffered by the warring parties in the Afghan war 1979 – 1989, in which the USSR and the Afghan government forces lost about 33 thousand killed, and their opponents - spooks and mercenaries who fought on their side and representatives of the armies and special services of the countries supporting them - up to 90 thousand. The total figure for 10 years of a hard “war without rights Il, ”not counting casualties among the civilian population, is about 123 thousand dead, which is less than the number of victims of attacks of various kinds of terrorists, extremists and separatists during the six years of human war on terror. It would be time, it seems, to think about either changing the tactics of actions or changing the strategy radically.
SAFETY FORCES AND RANDOM PASSAGE
Who were the main goals of terrorists, separatists and their accomplices of all stripes over the past year? The breakdown by attack targets is as follows:
- security services or security forces - 13 474 dead, or 59,9% of the total number of victims for the year 2017;
- random victims (random / indiscriminate) - 3670 dead (16,3%);
- members of non-state armed groups - 3627 dead (16,1%);
- victims, the belonging of which to one group or another, could not be established by experts of the JTIC center (other / unknown) - 1360 dead (6%);
- representatives of the private sector or industry (commerce & industry) - 1274 dead (5,7%);
- groups, united by common interests and considered for this reason as a whole (identity groups) - 787 dead (3,5%).
As you can see, the main purpose of the attacks of the nature under consideration in 2017 has a very specific shape - these are representatives of the security forces, as well as occasional people who simply were not lucky to be at the wrong time and in the place that, however, makes such attacks and the attacks are even more resonant, because it makes every citizen fear that he may become the next “random victim”. Naturally, the number of casualties among non-state armed formations, many of which, one should think, can be described as “illegal armed formations,” is comparable with the latter. The author deliberately used the word “many”, since abroad a number of formations of this kind are considered quite legitimate and even controlled by the state, but not organized by it and not part of any state structure, and therefore not legally state. In our country, such formations cannot exist at all, except for private security companies, which may fall under the designation “security services”, although private military companies are already operating outside the borders of Russia.
DEATHERS COLLECT THEIR Tribute
In the discharge of crimes committed by terrorist organizations and movements similar to them, the most resonant are, of course, suicide attacks. This is probably due to the fact that it is difficult for a normal person to understand how to deprive oneself of life for one or another idea, and in most cases, adding to it the mass of innocent people. Last year, according to analysts of the JTIC center, a total 691 attack was committed in the world with the participation of suicide bombers whose victims were 3828 people.
At the same time, the authors of the study made a rating of "Top 10" of the countries in which the greatest number of such acts of violence occurred, and it looks like this. In the first place, Iraq is leading by a wide margin, where 265 attacks occurred with the participation of suicide bombers, whose victims were 781 people. In second place is Syria, on the territory of which 140 terrorist acts committed by suicide bombers occurred, and the number of victims was 450 people. In third place is Afghanistan with 83 terrorist attacks involving suicide bombers and 883 victims (the largest, by the way, indicator of the number of victims that leads to certain conclusions). Next on the list are Nigeria (67 suicide attacks and 315 victims), Cameroon (51 attack and 98 victims), Pakistan (25 attacks and 295 victims), Somalia (also 25 suicide attacks, but 801 dead), Yemen (15 terrorist attacks and 94 victims), Egypt (11 terrorist attacks and 98 victims) and Libya (9 terrorist attacks and 13 victims).
As we see, terrorists and their accomplices and supporters most often resorted to the tactics of using suicide bombers last year in Iraq and Syria, who in this regard lead by a wide margin, and least often in Yemen, Egypt and Libya. However, on the other hand, the most bloody such attacks - by the number of killed per terrorist attack with the participation of a suicide bomber - were primarily in Somalia (32,04 killed per terrorist attack), Pakistan (11,8) and Afghanistan (10,64). One of the reasons for this may be that in these countries, suicide bombers arrange terrorist acts mainly in religious centers (mosques, churches, etc.) and crowded places (markets, etc.), trying to kill as many as possible. civilians. Although in other countries such acts of violence occur in similar places. So, identifying the reasons for such “bloody leadership” of these countries is a serious task for analysts in the field of counterterrorism and security. Other countries from the JTIC Top 10 list compiled by JTIC specialists by the number of victims per terrorist act with the participation of suicide bombers are distributed as follows: Egypt - 8,91 killed per terrorist attack with the participation of the suicide bomber; Yemen - 6,27; Nigeria - 4,70; Syria - 3,21; Iraq - 2,95; Cameroon - 1,92; Libya - 1,44 killed on one hit by a suicide bomber. At the same time, the average for all countries from the “Top 10” list is 5,54, which allows the reader to make a conclusion about the danger of one or another of the indicated countries.
By the way, judging by the analytical report of the JTIC center for 2017, the country at first glance is the safest country in terms of terrorist attacks and various kinds of attacks by militants of various kinds - it is Tanzania, in which last year there were "only" 7 attacks, which killed 16 people. But this data is also deceptive, because in both of these indicators, there has been a deterioration in recent years: in the 2016, 2 attacks with 6 dead were recorded in the country, and in 2015, 4 attacks with 2 killed. Right at least passport pass with such a trend!
However, as can be seen from the total number of suicide attacks, this tactic is not too common: 691 suicide bombing is only 3,07% of the total number of attacks of this kind recorded by JTIC specialists, although the number of victims of these attacks is one fifth from the cumulative death toll - 20,72%.
The most common tactics of actions of terrorists and separatists of all stripes during 2017, however, as always, apparently, were strikes at squares and strikes from a zone beyond the reach of security forces and assets directly at the time of the attack (stand-off / area attack ). They amounted in quantitative terms - 7534 attacks and 33,5% - in fractional terms. On the second and third most popular places among terrorists and other rapists were such types of attacks as engagement, which usually means either a clash, a shootout or shelling, and hit and run, which accounted for 5876, respectively attacks (26,1% of total attacks) and 3230 attacks (14,4%).
Assassinations are also actively used by assassins, of which 2017 occurred in quantitative terms in 1868, which gives 8,3% of the total number of recorded attacks, as well as raids (corresponding to 1115 attacks and 5%), which are indicated as assault, which can be attributed to such type of actions as an attack, blow or attack again (such a tautology turns out, unfortunately) - they were 1060 last year, which accounted for 4,7% of the total number recorded by analysts JTIC Center Cases. Close the list of tactics used by the militants, ambush (ambush) - 655 of such cases were recorded during the year (2,9% of the total number of attacks), as well as kidnappings or kidnap (kidnap) - 489 (2,2%) accumulated over the year of such episodes .
It is also interesting that weapon use action movies during their attacks. At least according to the results of 2017, the most popular was a tactical weapon that allows you to strike from a closed firing position, or, as they say, indirect defense tactical weapons. In this case, we are talking about mortars, improvised and serial rockets, maybe about grenade launchers in separate episodes of their use. In just the past year, such a weapon was used in more than 5 thousand attacks. In second place are explosives and explosive devices of various kinds - more than 4 thousands of attacks have occurred using this "good". In the past year, various small arms and, to a certain degree, direct combat infantry, with the use of which more than 3 thousands of attacks were committed, turned out to be the most popular militants in the past year.
Following is heavy armament that allows direct fire heavy fire - during the 2017 year it was used in more than 1000 attacks. And this weapon rating of militants of all stripes closes such weapons as “incendiary device”, guided missiles of various types (both anti-tank and even long-range, probably Scud or Point missiles used by in the same Yemen), as well as cold and various self-made weapons. All this was used by militants last year in less than 1000 attacks.
As you can see, the militants today do not have any difficulties with the choice of this or that type of weapon. Apparently, the world market, including black, saturated with various means of defeat and weapons for every taste, and also not a small amount of assistance that the special services of various countries of the world willingly provide to any kind of “freedom fighters” who actually ordinary terrorists. But, as the popular saying goes, “Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but this is our son of a bitch.” It is customary to attribute it to US President Franklin Roosevelt, but historians have not yet found confirmation of this fact, which first appeared on the pages of the famous Time magazine in the 15 issue of November 1948 of the year. However, whoever uttered these words, they most vividly characterize the situation that has developed today in the relations between state security services and all kinds of terrorists, using their methods by separatists and militants of all stripes and colors.
RUSSIA AGAIN GUILTY
And finally, about Russia. Indeed, where is the heir of the Reagan “evil empire” in the study of terrorists, separatists, and politically and ideologically motivated acts of violence on the planet without the heir to it? True, in this case Russia is accused not directly, but indirectly - in the form of the People’s Republic of Donetsk and Luhansk, allegedly controlled by and manipulated by it, like puppets, which took respectively the second (!) And fifth places in the Top 10 rating of various kinds , formations and organizations responsible for the commission of attacks and attacks counted in this analytical study. True, a year earlier, JTIC analysts put the Donetsk and Lugansk republics, characterized as “local, ethnocultural, separatist,” on 2 and 3, respectively. In this regard, some kind of Taliban modestly occupies the 9-place according to the results of the 2017 of the year and 8-place - according to the results of the 2016 of the year. The first, of course, is occupied by the Islamic State terrorist organization banned in Russia and many countries of the world.
You ask, and what have Russia? Yes, and with what? But with it. We read what is written in the certificate for the Donetsk People's Republic, which, we recall, is put on the 2 place in the ranking of the most “bloody” groups and organizations that got into the report, and which counted 2851 attack and the death of 122 noncombatants for the past year.
“285 attacks by the pro-Russian separatist Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) have been making this non-state armed group second in the world for the second year in a row. Nevertheless, as compared with 2016, there was a decrease in 16,6% activity, and the number of victims as a result of attacks from the DPR, which was 122 dead during the year, was reduced compared to 2016 in the year by 15,3%. The separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine remained essentially static throughout the year, characterized by frequent exchanges of blows with security forces, but few attempts to occupy territory. The bulk of the attacks were undertaken by the DPR forces in Donetsk (!), And the reduction in the level of violence can be partially attributed to a number of partly respected truces in Lugansk and Donetsk during the summer months. ”
About the Lugansk People’s Republic, the same is written, only the numbers are different. Even the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which did not stop the struggle for freedom and independence and was recognized as terrorist in the countries of the European Union and NATO, as well as in a number of other countries of the world, turned out to be “less bloodthirsty” than Donetsk and Lugansk militias and took 7 2017 of the year and 5, according to the results of 2016 of the year. In both cases, the DNI and the LC were put far ahead of her.
And, by the way, do you know how the “Islamic State”, which for the 2017 year included 4612 attacks and 6499 killed, is described in the report of the JTIC center? You would never guess. In the original it sounds like this: Scope: Transnational, Orientation: Sunni Islamist, Objective: Revolutionary. And in translation into Russian it will be approximately like this: an international, Sunni Islamist, revolutionary sense. Maybe that is why the main burden of the war with these "revolutionaries" fell on the shoulders of the Russian Armed Forces and their Syrian, Iranian and Lebanese comrades? However, not one of the most active, that is, actually “bloody” groups and organizations represented in the “Top 10” is named terrorist in the document. “This is, you understand, a pretext that turns out,” as Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin, the first president of Russia, said.
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