Geographic Profiling of Terrorist Attacks

Terrorism is defined by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as “ the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives” (1). Since the terrorist attacks that occurred in the United States on September 11, 2001, attempts have been made to develop more effective and efficient strategies for combating terrorism (2). Many of the procedures that have been proposed deal directly with trying to prevent future terrorist activity by identifying the whereabouts of known terrorists. This chapter presents a preliminary attempt at contributing to this effort by examining whether a procedure known as geographic profiling can be used to identify the location of terrorist hideouts based on an analysis of attack sites. Geographic profiling already assists with similar tasks in other settings,