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Terrorist Attacks against Concerts and Festivals: A Review of 146 Incidents in the Global Terrorism Database

BACKGROUND: Mass gatherings are vulnerable to terrorist attacks and are considered soft targets with potential to inflict high numbers of casualties. The objective of this study was to identify and characterize all documented terrorist attacks targeted at concerts and festivals reported to the Globa...

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Autores principales: De Cauwer, Harald, Barten, Dennis G., Tin, Derrick, Mortelmans, Luc J., Ciottone, Gregory R., Somville, Francis
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Cambridge University Press 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9885432/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36541015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1049023X22002382
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author De Cauwer, Harald
Barten, Dennis G.
Tin, Derrick
Mortelmans, Luc J.
Ciottone, Gregory R.
Somville, Francis
author_facet De Cauwer, Harald
Barten, Dennis G.
Tin, Derrick
Mortelmans, Luc J.
Ciottone, Gregory R.
Somville, Francis
author_sort De Cauwer, Harald
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Mass gatherings are vulnerable to terrorist attacks and are considered soft targets with potential to inflict high numbers of casualties. The objective of this study was to identify and characterize all documented terrorist attacks targeted at concerts and festivals reported to the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) over a 50-year period. METHODS: The GTD was searched for all terrorist attacks against concerts and festivals that occurred world-wide from 1970 through 2019. Analyses were performed on temporal factors, location, target type, attack and weapon type, attacker type, and number of casualties or hostages. Ambiguous incidents were excluded if there was doubt about whether they were exclusively acts of terrorism. Chi-square tests were performed to evaluate trends over time and differences in attack types. RESULTS: In total, 146 terrorist attacks were identified. In addition to musical concerts, festivals included religious, cultural, community, and food festivals. With 53 incidents, South Asia was the most heavily hit region of the world, followed by the Middle East & North Africa with 25 attacks. Bombings and explosions were the most common attack types. The attacks targeted attendees, pilgrims, politicians, or police/military members who secured the concerts and festivals. CONCLUSION: This analysis of the GTD, which identified terrorist attacks aimed at concerts and festivals over a 50-year period, demonstrates that the threat is significant, and not only in world regions where terrorism is more prevalent or local conflicts are going on. The findings of this study may help to create or enhance contingency plans.
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spelling pubmed-98854322023-02-08 Terrorist Attacks against Concerts and Festivals: A Review of 146 Incidents in the Global Terrorism Database De Cauwer, Harald Barten, Dennis G. Tin, Derrick Mortelmans, Luc J. Ciottone, Gregory R. Somville, Francis Prehosp Disaster Med Original Research BACKGROUND: Mass gatherings are vulnerable to terrorist attacks and are considered soft targets with potential to inflict high numbers of casualties. The objective of this study was to identify and characterize all documented terrorist attacks targeted at concerts and festivals reported to the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) over a 50-year period. METHODS: The GTD was searched for all terrorist attacks against concerts and festivals that occurred world-wide from 1970 through 2019. Analyses were performed on temporal factors, location, target type, attack and weapon type, attacker type, and number of casualties or hostages. Ambiguous incidents were excluded if there was doubt about whether they were exclusively acts of terrorism. Chi-square tests were performed to evaluate trends over time and differences in attack types. RESULTS: In total, 146 terrorist attacks were identified. In addition to musical concerts, festivals included religious, cultural, community, and food festivals. With 53 incidents, South Asia was the most heavily hit region of the world, followed by the Middle East & North Africa with 25 attacks. Bombings and explosions were the most common attack types. The attacks targeted attendees, pilgrims, politicians, or police/military members who secured the concerts and festivals. CONCLUSION: This analysis of the GTD, which identified terrorist attacks aimed at concerts and festivals over a 50-year period, demonstrates that the threat is significant, and not only in world regions where terrorism is more prevalent or local conflicts are going on. The findings of this study may help to create or enhance contingency plans. Cambridge University Press 2023-02 2022-12-21 /pmc/articles/PMC9885432/ /pubmed/36541015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1049023X22002382 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Research
De Cauwer, Harald
Barten, Dennis G.
Tin, Derrick
Mortelmans, Luc J.
Ciottone, Gregory R.
Somville, Francis
Terrorist Attacks against Concerts and Festivals: A Review of 146 Incidents in the Global Terrorism Database
title Terrorist Attacks against Concerts and Festivals: A Review of 146 Incidents in the Global Terrorism Database
title_full Terrorist Attacks against Concerts and Festivals: A Review of 146 Incidents in the Global Terrorism Database
title_fullStr Terrorist Attacks against Concerts and Festivals: A Review of 146 Incidents in the Global Terrorism Database
title_full_unstemmed Terrorist Attacks against Concerts and Festivals: A Review of 146 Incidents in the Global Terrorism Database
title_short Terrorist Attacks against Concerts and Festivals: A Review of 146 Incidents in the Global Terrorism Database
title_sort terrorist attacks against concerts and festivals: a review of 146 incidents in the global terrorism database
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9885432/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36541015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1049023X22002382
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