ABSTRACT
This chapter reports new results from a recently compiled database that includes both international and domestic terrorist attacks from 1970 until 2007. One of the most notable advances in the study of terrorism and political violence in recent years has been the construction of large and increasingly comprehensive databases that document characteristics of terrorist attacks over time. Beginning in the late 1960s, a growing number of governmental and private entities began collecting open-source data on terrorist attacks. One aspect of terrorism that receives nearly universal agreement is that it is directed against civilian targets, yet, what it actually means to be a civilian target is itself a complex issue. In the merged database, terrorist tactics are divided into seven categories: bombings, armed attacks, assassinations, kidnappings, barricade/hostage taking, arson, and hijackings. Much of the terrorist violence in Rwanda and Burundi was driven by the conflict between the Tutsis and the Hutus.
