ABSTRACT
A total of 433 international terrorist incidents were recorded in 1988. International terrorism refers to incidents that in some way involve more than one state. Yet a salient characteristic of international terrorism throughout the years has been that the major part of incidents targeted foreign objectives within the borders of the perpetrators’ own country. In 1988, attacks of this kind comprised 69.6 percent of the total of international terrorism. The persistent trend apparently reflects logistical feasibilities. Practical considerations and constraints also accounted for the relatively low proportion of attacks carried out beyond national borders that targeted objectives of the terrorists’ own nationality. Bombing remained the most common terrorist tactic; in 1988 incidents of this type accounted for 49.5 percent of the total number of international terrorist incidents. This marks a slight increase compared with the previous year’s statistics; in 1987 bombings accounted for 45.6 percent of the total number.
