Terrorist Violence Fell in 2019, But Racially Motivated Attacks on the Rise

The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) has released a report providing a global overview of terrorism in 2019 based on its Global Terrorism Database, finding that global terrorist violence has fallen 50% since it’s peak in 2014. This is largely due to continued decreases in attacks within Iraq, the country that has the most impact on global statistics over the last decade. However, there has been a sharp rise in racially and ethnically motivated terrorist attacks, especially those targeting Hispanic and Muslim populations in North America, Western Europe, and Australasia. Over 86 people were killed in 2019 due to this motivation, compared to 52 in 2018.