Terrorism - number of attacks worldwide 2006-2020

How many terrorist attacks occur worldwide every year? In 2020, 10,172 terrorist attacks were recorded globally. This is an increase from the previous 3 years, where the number of terrorist incidents was around 8,000.

Terrorist attacks

In recent years, the number of terrorist attacks reached a low in 2012 with 6,771 attacks globally. In 2014, the number of attacks had more than doubled to 13,463 attacks. The majority of terrorism acts have been located in Middle Eastern countries such as Afghanistan and Syria, which suffered 1,722 attacks and 1,332 attacks respectively in 2020.

Terrorism in the United States

Soon after the September 11, 2011 attacks in the United States, the fear of another terrorist attack was prominent among American citizens. The Al-Qaeda terrorist attack killed some 3,000 people on this occasion, in comparison; some 202 people were killed in another October 2002 attack in Bali, Indonesia. In 2002, 49 percent were worried a great deal about terrorist attacks but the percentage of concerned citizens dropped to 34 percent by 2013. About 13 percent of citizens also claimed they were very dissatisfied with the nation’s security from terrorism and almost half stated that they believed that the government’s policies had not gone far enough to adequately protect the country. Some studies have shown that Americans fear an attack from terrorism more than the prospect of being a victim to a violent crime or even being hospitalized, which could indicate a necessity to increase understanding of public attitudes in order to improve programs used to manage public risk perception.