By: Cadet William Frangia
Abstract: Current counterterrorism policy focuses on religion as a key indicator of terrorist activity. This article evaluates this precedent by investigating whether Muslim countries in Southeast Asia are more likely to experience successful terrorist attacks compared to non-Muslim countries in the same region. Analyzing data from the Global Terrorism Database, the Quality of Government Dataset, and the ARDA National Profile 2011 Dataset this article compares the number of successful terrorist attacks to the Muslim population percentage in a State. Muslim countries, which this article defines as those where over one-third of the population is Muslim, have experienced significantly fewer terrorist attacks compared to non-Muslim countries in Southeast Asia. These findings contrast with global trends that Muslim countries have significantly higher amounts of successful terrorist attacks. The difference in trends, however, is most likely due to other permissive factors such as internal conflict, rather than religion, as data from the Middle East skew the global trends. Conflict in the Middle East has caused policymakers to incorrectly correlate religion with the likelihood of terrorism. Policy needs to address the permissive factors of terrorism rather than religion, to increase national security and prevent discrimination.
Introduction
For the past three decades, conflicts in the Middle East and refugees fleeing the region have influenced policy about Muslims and Muslim countries, particularly in the context of counterterrorism and security. Since the announced defeat of ISIS in 2018, the counterterrorism effort has focused on the return of foreign fighters leaving Syria and Iraq.[1]Recently, there is greater interest in Southeast Asia because of the number of foreign fighters returning to Muslim countries in the region or joining groups such as Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah. As nations make domestic and foreign policy decisions concerning Muslim countries, which this article defines as those where over one-third of the population is Muslim, decisions must rest on data, not stereotypes. To support that objective, this paper assesses whether Muslim countries in Southeast Asia are more likely to experience successful terrorist attacks compared to non-Muslim countries in the same region. It draws from three datasets to conduct a basic trend analysis of terrorist activities between 2000 and 2018. In doing so, this paper also strives to highlight how and why Southeast Asia may differ from global trends, specifically those in the Middle East. The author hypothesizes that Muslim countries in Southeast Asia are not more likely to experience successful terrorist attacks compared to non-Muslim countries in the same region. In the analysis, this paper suggests that religion alone is not a decisive factor in why terrorism occurs, and many countries with terrorism are involved in larger conflicts which lead to more terrorist activity. The following section will lay out the methodology to test this hypothesis and offer analysis and context to situate the findings. Then, this paper will consider the factors that might be influencing those results, and finally, it will conclude with a discussion about how these observations might help government officials create and implement context-relevant, non-biased policies.
Methodology
The data presented in this paper is based on a database compiled using data from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), the Quality of Government Dataset (QOG), and the ARDA National Profile 2011 Dataset. The database analyzes successful attacks conducted from 2000 to 2018 compared to the Muslim population within each State as calculated in 2011.
All the variables in the dataset were coded at the State level. The Muslim population percentage variable (Perc_Muslim) was calculated by the author using total population and Muslim population data for each State from the ARDA dataset. The Number of Successful Terrorist Attacks (total_success) was taken from the GTD, defined as the “total number of successful attacks in a given country-year observation.”[2] Each State was compared using the country variable (cname) from the QOG. Specific relationships included the year (year) between 2000 and 2018 from the QOG, and the region (region) the State was located as taken from the GTD. The author conducted a further analysis by grouping countries as Muslim or non-Muslim using the variable Muslim Country based on the Perc_Muslim. States with a Perc_Muslim greater than 33.33% were categorized as a Muslim country while those under 33.33% were categorized as a non-Muslim country.
The independent variable for this analysis is the Perc_Muslim and the dependent variable is the total_success. By comparing a State’s Perc_Muslim and total_success this research attempts to answer the question are Muslim countries in Southeast Asia more likely to experience successful terrorist attacks compared to non-Muslim countries.
Analysis
This section provides an overview of Perc_Muslim and the total_success in the respective State. First, this analysis section specifically examines trends in Southeast Asia. Then the analysis compares these findings with global trends, examining the effect of Perc_Muslim in a State on the total_success during a specific time.
SEA Trends
This paragraph provides an analysis of trends in the Southeast Asia region between 2000 and 2018. Table 1 presents a summary of the data in terms of total_success in each of the countries.
Table 1: Total Number of Successful Attacks in SEA, 2000 - 2018
As shown in the table above, the Southeast Asia region experienced a total of 9,048 successful attacks between 2000 and 2018. Thailand and the Philippines, both non-Muslim countries, account for 8,153 of the attacks in the region. Myanmar is another non-Muslim country in Southeast Asia experiencing successful terrorist attacks. The table shows that in recent years the total_success in Myanmar is increasing. Indonesia is the only Muslim country in the region to have successful terrorist attacks, with a total of 501.
Figure 1.1: Total Number of Successful Attacks in SEA, 2000 – 2018
Figure 1.2: Total Number of Successful Attacks in SEA, 2000 – 2018
In 2001, as shown in Figure 1.2, Indonesia experienced more successful terrorist attacks than any other country in the Southeast Asia region. This is the only time in the 19 years that a Muslim country in Southeast Asia experienced the highest total_success. Malaysia and Brunei, the two other Muslim countries in the region, have yet to record a successful attack, along with Timor-Leste and Singapore as shown in Figure 1.1.
Figure 1.3: Number of Successful Attacks in Muslim and non-Muslim Countries in SEA, 2000 – 2018
Figure 1.3 further demonstrates the difference in total_success between Muslim and non-Muslim countries. Non-Muslim countries in Southeast Asia experience 17 times more successful attacks compared to Muslim countries in the region.
Global Trends
Next, it is useful to examine global trends and see how they compare within the period between 2000 and 2018. Upon evaluating the global trends, they are then compared with the trends discussed in the previous section to see if the Southeast Asia region is experiencing the same correlation as the world in regards to the total_success and the Perc_Muslim. As seen in Figure 2.1 below, as a State’s Perc_Muslim increases the total_success increases as well. While this is not a perfect linear fit, one can see that States with a higher percentage of Muslims are experiencing more terrorist attacks.
Figure 2.1: Total Number of Successful Attacks in the World, 2000 – 2018
However, as Figure 2.2 shows, between 2000 and 2003 there does not appear to be any relation between Perc_Muslim and the total_success. It was not until 2004, as demonstrated in Figure 2.3, that the total_success shifted to countries with a higher Perc_Muslim. 2004 marked the first year a Muslim country experienced more terrorist attacks than a non-Muslim country and the trend has continued since with most of these attacks occurring in countries in the Middle East, like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria.
Figure 2.2: Total Number of Successful Attacks in the World, 2000 – 2003
Figure 2.3: Total Number of Successful Attacks in the World, 2004
In the 19 years of 2000 to 2018, Muslim countries have experienced 59,596 successful terrorist attacks, almost two times as many successful attacks as non-Muslim countries, which have experienced a total of 30,862 as shown in Figure 2.4 below. This is significant considering there are three times as many non-Muslim countries compared to Muslim countries in the world today.
Figure 2.4: Number of Successful Attacks in Muslim and non-Muslim Countries in the World, 2000 – 2018
Eight non-Muslim countries have experienced over 900 successful terrorist attacks. Combined they have experienced 23,397 attacks, accounting for 75% of the total attacks in non-Muslim countries. Figure 2.5 below compares the results of the eight countries which include: Israel, India, Russia, the Philippines, Thailand, Nepal, Ukraine, and Colombia.
The trends in the data prove the author’s hypothesis that Muslim countries in Southeast Asia are not more likely to experience successful terrorist attacks compared to non-Muslim countries in the same region. This runs counter to global trends, which suggest that Muslim countries are more likely to experience successful terrorist attacks compared to non-Muslim countries.
Figure 2.5: Non-Muslim Countries with the Highest Total Number of Successful Attacks in the World, 2000 – 2018
Explanation
The trends in Southeast Asia are opposite of the global trends found in the data. While the global trend shows an obvious positive correlation between Perc_Muslim and the total_success, in the Southeast Asia region non-Muslim countries are experiencing more attacks. This section attempts to explain why these trends differ from each other using historical and theoretical analysis.
Historical Explanation
In the Southeast Asia region, Thailand, and the Philippines account for the majority of successful terrorist attacks. Both Thailand and the Philippines are experiencing insurgencies. Southern Thailand has experienced an ethnic separatist insurgency since 2001. These insurgents use drug trafficking as finance for their efforts and often use terrorism to attack the government.[3] Abu Sayyaf has been waging a separatist insurgency in the Philippines since the early 2000s. Abu Sayyaf is often described as a terrorist group because they rely so heavily on terrorist tactics such as kidnappings and bombings, however, they have also been involved in conventional warfare like the battle of Marawi in 2017.[4] The new uptick in Myanmar is explained by the rise of new terrorist groups in the area.[5] Like Myanmar, Indonesia is not experiencing an insurgency but local terrorist group Jemaah Islamiah explains its large number of attacks. Active in the early 2000s many fighters then left to go join AQ and ISIS operations in the Middle East. Many fighters began returning to Indonesia in 2014 which explains why Indonesia is experiencing more terrorist attacks again as shown in Figure 1.1.[6]Malaysia and Brunei have no known terrorist organizations and are currently not experiencing any insurgencies. Both countries also have strong counterterrorism measures in place helping them to avoid any successful attacks.[7]
After the 9/11 attack, the United States began a massive military campaign in the Middle East. Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the United States has been a massive presence in Middle Eastern politics.[8] United States involvement caused many insurgent movements and uprisings in the Middle East, resulting in increased terrorist activity which explains the change between Figure 2.2 and Figure 2.3. When the United States left Iraq in 2011, the Arab Spring began, with massive uprisings and civil wars breaking out throughout the Arab nations. This gave rise to terrorist groups such as ISIS and Hezbollah who could now gain more control because of the distress already placed on the governments in the region.[9] The continued turmoil in the Middle East, especially with the Syrian Civil War explains the trend displayed in Figure 2.1 as most of the Middle Eastern countries have high Perc_Muslim. Many of the non-Muslim countries in Figure 2.5 are experiencing insurgencies or the return of ISIS foreign fighters as explained in the previous section. Russia, however, is a great power like the United States and the United Kingdom, which represents the influence of a culture contrary to the traditionalist views of extreme Muslims in the Middle East. This makes Russia a close target that serves as a symbol when attacked, of Islamic ideals pushing against the west, which is the ideology of many extremist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS.[10]
The Southeast Asia region is not experiencing the global trend of increasing total_success when the Perc_Muslim increases because the Muslim countries in the region are not experiencing a larger conflict and have strong counterterrorism policies. When analyzed more closely countries with larger total_success are those experiencing war or an insurgency which involves the use of terrorist attacks as a tactic by many small organizations who are not strong enough to engage in conventional warfare.
Theoretical Explanation
In her article, “The Causes of Terrorism,” Crenshaw describes two sets of factors that set the stage for terrorism, permissive and direct factors. Permissive factors are events that create an opportunity for terrorism to occur. The four permissive factors are modernization, urbanization, social facilitation of violence, and the government’s overall inability to prevent terrorism. Direct factors include concrete grievances, lack of opportunity in political participation, elite dissatisfaction, and other precipitating events such as government force.[11] Most countries in the Middle East and Southeast Asia are developing countries experiencing modernization and urbanization.[12] Due to the consistent fighting in the Middle East, the Philippines, and Thailand, violence has become a social norm. Since Malaysia and Brunei do not have the social facilitation of violence and have established strong counterterrorism measures they lack all of the permissive factors described by Crenshaw.[13] This proves that Muslim countries in the Middle East, the Philippines, and Thailand are recording large numbers of terrorist attacks because they have the permissive setting for terrorism to occur. This combined with specific direct factors in each State has made terrorism rampant. These factors better explain the trend of terrorist attacks as opposed to Perc_Muslim.
These permissive factors create a setting conducive to the goals of terrorism. Contrary to popular belief, terrorist attacks are not a form of irrational violence. Instead, terrorists are driven by a variety of goals. Kydd and Walter list five ultimate goals of terrorists in their article “The Strategies of Terrorism,” they include regime change, territorial change, policy change, social control, and status quo maintenance.[14] As explained earlier the Philippines and Thailand are currently going through separatist insurgencies. The desire for territorial change and the creation of their own State drives the terrorists there. Most of the countries in the world with large numbers of successful attacks are experiencing a political struggle often in the form of regime change. If there is no desire for political change then terrorism is highly unlikely as explained in Hoffman’s definition of terrorism.[15] These goals are the central driving factors that cause terrorists to attack, not their religion.
Islam like most religions plays a key role in shaping a follower’s identity and moral code. Often the moral code of religion unintentionally turns terrorists to the extreme and makes them extra dangerous since they can so easily overcome the psychological boundaries of violence. Terrorists with religious values tend to personalize the conflict and use their religious beliefs to justify their actions.[16] Since 2001, a sense of islamophobia has encircled America putting the focus on religious terrorism specifically related to Islamism. There are three main variants of Sunni Islamism: political, missionary, and jihadi. Political Islamism involves the desire to obtain more political power by reforming the government. Missionary Islamism is the effort to convert others to the identity and moral code of the Muslim faith. The final variant Jihadi is the Islamic armed struggle to purify the faith mainly in a war against western culture.[17] Many terrorist groups such as ISIS and Abu Sayyaf use a mixture of these variants to push their message and draw recruits. Religion serves more as a rallying call than a purpose behind the movement, as many terrorists are not even active in their traditional faith.[18] Religion, like ethnicity, provides a strong tie to make a terrorist group larger in both size and influence, however, religion is rarely the reason terrorist groups commit violence. Often some form of a political goal, as mentioned by Kydd and Walter, motivates religious terrorists.[19] However, people tend to group and characterize each other by external rather than internal identifiers. Therefore, to fully understand the trends related to Perc_Muslim, the goals of the groups in their specific States must also be evaluated.
Limitations
As previously mentioned, this database compares the total_success between 2000 and 2018, with the Perc_Muslim of each State. Like any database, there is possible inaccuracy with the reported number of attacks as well as population sizes. With no universally accepted definition of terrorism, the number of successful attacks could be lower or higher than reported.[20] It is also difficult to get accurate population counts especially in developing countries.
This dataset also fails to include a variety of extraneous variables that could better explain the noticed trends. Recording the number of conflicts in each country within each year could account for the wars in the Middle East and insurgencies in Southeast Asia.[21] Including permissive and direct factors within each country such as economic standing would allow for situations like the economic discrimination against the Muslim population in the Philippines to explain the data.[22] Also accounting for the number of unsuccessful attacks would allow for a gauge at exactly how many attacks are occurring in each country and the extent to which a country has productive counterterrorism measures.
Extension
Future research will overcome these limitations by accounting for the listed extraneous variables. Oftentimes terrorism is part of a larger war effort. By comparing the level of violence within countries, the level of terrorism based on the number of successful attacks can be determined. Evaluating the factors within each State that create a setting for terrorism will show how much each factor plays into the number of successful attacks. Perc_Muslim will then be compared with these factors to determine which is a stronger predictor of terrorism. Using these factors to better understand the causes of terrorism will also allow for a better analysis of counterterrorism measures. Evaluating the number of successful attacks with the number of unsuccessful attacks will determine the rate of terrorism in each country. Muslim countries that are experiencing low numbers of successful attacks and high counterterrorism levels will then be analyzed to determine what successful measures they are using to combat terrorism. Understanding the policies of these successful nations like Malaysia and Brunei can serve as a blueprint for future counterterrorism policies throughout the Middle East and other Muslim States.[23] The difference in Southeast Asia and global trends emphasize the difficulty in generalizing terrorism across the globe. Instead of focusing on religious and ethnic factors that are specific to certain regions of the world, counterterrorism policy needs to focus on evaluating permissive factors within States.
Implications
Islam, the second-largest religion in the world, remains largely misunderstood, particularly in the West.[24] Though a handful of Muslim countries have experienced disproportionately high rates of terrorist attacks it is oversimplistic to infer a correlation between Islam and terrorism. Between 1980 and 2005, non-Muslims carried out 94% of terrorist attacks in the United States and 98% of terrorist attacks in Europe.[25] While religion can serve as a factor in causing someone to become a terrorist, religion, especially Islam, is not an accurate label for a category of terrorism.
Many governments around the world have incorrectly taken extreme action to counterterrorism through religious measures. In the United States, after 9/11 immigration policies changed dramatically, hurting Muslims hoping to enter the country.[26] France currently is undergoing similar changes. In October 2020, President Marcon announced a law against Islamist separatism. Due to recent violence by Muslim terrorists, the controversial bill proposes numerous initiatives targeted towards the rights of Muslims in France. Many criticize the bill for not specifically addressing the issue of terrorism.[27] These policies and the media portrayal of terrorism have created rampant islamophobia. Islamophobia inherently causes the radicalization of the population. In the United States in 2001 assaults against Muslims increased by almost eight times and the numbers continue to remain high.[28] Muslim terrorist attacks cover most of the news media, to the point that if asked to imagine a terrorist people often picture a Muslim.[29]
Governments should be wary of overgeneralizing causes of terrorism, particularly when religion is involved. This preliminary analysis challenges the notion that religion, specifically Islam, is an appropriate factor for identifying and categorizing terrorism. Muslim countries in Southeast Asia successfully deterred terrorist activity as shown in the data from 2000 to 2018, while non-Muslim countries in the region have experienced many successful attacks. While this does differ from global trends, data from the Middle East where internal conflict has ravaged the region for decades skews the global trends. Consequently, policymakers need to identify the direct factors fueling terrorism in different contexts and seek to address those issues rather than focus on religious affiliation. Failure to do so will negatively affect national security and citizens.
Conclusion
Researching the question, are Muslim countries in Southeast Asia more likely to experience successful terrorist attacks compared to non-Muslim countries, the author hypothesized Muslim countries are not more likely compared to non-Muslim countries. The findings from the analyzed data proved that while the global trends show Muslim countries experience more successful terrorist attacks, Muslim countries in Southeast Asia are not as likely. This is because the Muslim population percentage does not appear to be involved in the setting of where terrorism takes place while countries experiencing permissive factors of terrorism are a better indicator. Future research will compare these factors along with unsuccessful terrorist attacks to determine what factor is a better predictor of a country experiencing terrorism. Doing this will also allow for a better understanding of Muslim countries experiencing success in combatting terrorism, such as Malaysia. Counterterrorism measures and policy will then account for permissive factors of terrorism that will better predict areas of future attacks, enabling the effort to lower the number of successful attacks in the future and avoid social problems such as islamophobia.
[1] United States Department of State, Country Reports on Terrorism 2018 (Washington D.C., 2018)
https://www.state.gov/reports/country-reports-on-terrorism-2018/.
[2] Global Terrorism Database (October 2019), distributed by the University of Maryland.
[3] “History of Thailand’s Southern Insurgency,” The Thaiger, February 26, 2019,
https://thethaiger.com/news/south/insurgency/history-of-thailands-southern-insurgency.
[4] “Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG),” Counter Extremism Project, 2020,
https://www.counterextremism.com/threat/abu-sayyaf-group-asg.
[5] “Myanmar (Burma),” Counter Extremism Project, 2020,
https://www.counterextremism.com/countries/myanmar.
[6] “Jemaah Islamiyah (JI),” Counter Extremism Project, 2020,
https://www.counterextremism.com/threat/jemaah-islamiyah-ji.
[7] United States Department of State, Country Reports on Terrorism 2019: Malaysia (Washington D.C.,
2018) https://www.state.gov/reports/country-reports-on-terrorism-2019/malaysia/.
[8] VOX, “The rise of ISIS, explained in 6 minutes,” YouTube video, 6:18, December 16, 2015,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzmO6RWy1v8.
[9] Ibid.
[10] “Understanding Islamism,” International Crisis Group, March 2, 2005, 14-17.
[11] Martha Crenshaw, "The Causes of Terrorism," Comparative Politics 13, no. 4 (1981): 381.
[12] “Updated List of Third World Countries 2019/2020,” Public Health of Nigeria,
https://www.publichealth.com.ng/list-of-third-world-countries/.
[13] Crenshaw, "The Causes of Terrorism," 381.
[14] Andrew H. Kydd, and Barbara F. Walter, "The Strategies of Terrorism," International Security 31, no. 1
(2006): 52.
[15] Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, 43.
[16] Juergensmeyer, Is Religion the Problem?, 7-8.
[17] “Understanding Islamism,” International Crisis Group, March 2, 2005, i.
[18] Ibid., 15.
[19] Kydd, and Walter, "The Strategies of Terrorism," 52.
[20] Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, 13-15.
[21] VOX, “The rise of ISIS, explained in 6 minutes.”
[22] “Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG),” Counter Extremism Project.
[23] United States Department of State, Country Reports on Terrorism 2019: Malaysia.
[24] BBC, s.v. “Jihad,” last modified August 3, 2009, https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions /islam/beliefs/jihad_1.shtml.
[25] Omar Alnatour, “Muslims are not Terrorists: A Factual Look at Terrorism and Islam,” The Huffington Post, December 9, 2016, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/muslims-are-not-terrorist_b_8718000.
[26] Muzaffar Chishti, & Claire Bergeron, “Post-9/11 Policies Dramatically Alter the U.S. Immigration Landscape,” Migration Policy Institute, September 8, 2011. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/post-911-policies-dramatically-alter-us-immigration-landscape/.
[27] Peter Yeung, “‘French Muslims will suffer’ under separatism rules, critics say,” Al Jazeera, February 11, 2021, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/2/11/french-muslims-will-suffer-under-separatism-bill-critics-say.
[28] Kishi Katayoun, “Assaults against Muslims in U.S. surpass 2001 level,” Pew Research Center, November 15, 2017, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/11/15/assaults-against-muslims-in-u-s-surpass-2001-level/.
[29] Caroline Mala Corbin, “Terrorists Are Always Muslim but Never White: At the Intersection of Critical Race Theory and Propaganda,” Fordham Law Review 86, no. 2 (2017): 455-460.
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