The Student Room Group

What % of European terrorist attacks in the last 5 years were committed by muslims?

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I'm not buying that 2% figure or that the media only reports the Islamic ones. We get the news of X happening within minutes of it happening, before anyone knows who's done it. Then you sit there going "I wonder who - Oh, Muslims again."
To be fair, that seems to cover 2008-2013, which neatly covers a lull in the pressures which led to Islamic terrorism, and (impressionistically speaking) the number of such incidents. US forces withdrew from Iraq beginning in December 2007, and ISIS did not really come to prominence until mid-2013.

Also, you would have to examine the number of people killed by each attack and the qualitative barbarity of the attacks. I don't know that much about separatist terrorism, as you say it doesn't get in the news, but I'll use the example of the IRA, who used to plant car bombs and ring the police with a warning the day of the attack. That is a stark difference to the Islamists who kill first and (don't actually) ask questions later, and are vicious about it. (Though of course they hardly have a monopoly on this: the article highlights Breivik.)

Still, I think the underlying point you are making is sound.
Reply 3
The source of this figure is the terrorism situation and trend report issued by Europol, the EU wide law enforcement agency.

https://www.europol.europa.eu/content/te-sat-2014-european-union-terrorism-situation-and-trend-report-2014
Original post by SnoochToTheBooch
I'm not buying that 2% figure or that the media only reports the Islamic ones. We get the news of X happening within minutes of it happening, before anyone knows who's done it. Then you sit there going "I wonder who - Oh, Muslims again."
then you do your research and find out that most of these are staged and muslims actually have nothing to do with it (e.g. 9/11, boston bombings, woolwich murder). surely a lot higher than 2% though lol

- not a muslim
As said above, the report takes a quantitative approach, rather than a qualitative one meaning all terrorist attacks are treated the same regardless of how many deaths, if an,y they cause.

The author also says "An FBI study looking at terrorism committed on U.S. soil between 1980 and 2005 found that 94 percent of the terror attacks were committed by non-Muslims.".

This survey suffers from the same issue. In actual fact, 93.8% of all murders by terrorist attack were committed by Muslim terrorists between 1980 and 2005. That shows you why you need to take a qualitative approach at these things.

Not Dean Obeidallah's first piece of flawed apologism, there was also this tweet:
https://twitter.com/Deanofcomedy/status/555880433972293632

And yet when one looks at the countries where blasphemy is criminalised it is clear which religion dominates.
Original post by tengentoppa
As said above, the report takes a quantitative approach, rather than a qualitative one meaning all terrorist attacks are treated the same regardless of how many deaths, if an,y they cause.

The author also says "An FBI study looking at terrorism committed on U.S. soil between 1980 and 2005 found that 94 percent of the terror attacks were committed by non-Muslims.".

This survey suffers from the same issue. In actual fact, 93.8% of all murders by terrorist attack were committed by Muslim terrorists between 1980 and 2005. That shows you why you need to take a qualitative approach at these things.

Not Dean Obeidallah's first piece of flawed apologism, there was also this tweet:
https://twitter.com/Deanofcomedy/status/555880433972293632

And yet when one looks at the countries where blasphemy is criminalised it is clear which religion dominates.
this guy just debunked the **** out of OP
(edited 9 years ago)
Reply 7
Finally so real stats to prove Muslims are not terrorists
Original post by OGGUS
Finally so real stats to prove Muslims are not terrorists


Shall we have a look at the casualty rates instead.

So far it's a bit like counting the 3500 odd casualties caused suring 9/11 aNd giving equal stature to a letter bomb that failed to detonate
Reply 9
Original post by MatureStudent36
Shall we have a look at the casualty rates instead.

So far it's a bit like counting the 3500 odd casualties caused suring 9/11 aNd giving equal stature to a letter bomb that failed to detonate


Are you definitely even show that the al khaida or whtever done this?
Reply 11
Depends which measure you want to use, as well as definitions of terrorism. Pretty sure that most terrorism is based on geo/political disputes rather than religious ideology.

I can't do the numbers right now, but I would guess that the majority of terrorist incidents do not result in fatalities, and most incidents occur in places other than the Northern Hemisphere or even the Middle East. I'd reckon the Sub-continent, North/Central Africa and Central America are the worldwide terrorist hotspots.
Reply 12
#ThreadDebunked
Reply 13
Original post by tengentoppa
As said above, the report takes a quantitative approach, rather than a qualitative one meaning all terrorist attacks are treated the same regardless of how many deaths, if an,y they cause.

The author also says "An FBI study looking at terrorism committed on U.S. soil between 1980 and 2005 found that 94 percent of the terror attacks were committed by non-Muslims.".

This survey suffers from the same issue. In actual fact, 93.8% of all murders by terrorist attack were committed by Muslim terrorists between 1980 and 2005. That shows you why you need to take a qualitative approach at these things.

Not Dean Obeidallah's first piece of flawed apologism, there was also this tweet:
https://twitter.com/Deanofcomedy/status/555880433972293632

And yet when one looks at the countries where blasphemy is criminalised it is clear which religion dominates.


#ThreadDebunked


96.36% of the people killed by terrorists in the UK in the last ten years were killed by Islamist fundamentalists.

52 were killed in London by suicide bombers on three tube trains and one bus. A soldier was killed last year in broad daylight by two Islamist fundamentalists. And two soldiers were killed at the Massereene Barracks in 2009 by Irish nationalist terrorists.

I repeat, 96.36% of the people killed by terrorists in the UK in the last ten years were killed by Islamist fundamentalists.

It's also interesting that the article said the last 5 years, presumably so they could exclude the London suicide bombings on 7/7 and the 191 people killed in Madrid in 2004 by Islamist bombings.
Original post by OGGUS
Finally so real stats to prove Muslims are not terrorists


Why do the stats "prove Muslims are not terrorists"? If the numbers were reversed and 98% of terrorist attacks were by Muslims, would that make them terrorists?

Let's look at terrorism in the UK in the last 10 years. 96.36% of people killed in the United Kingdom by terrorism in the last ten years were killed by Islamist fundamentalists.

52 people were butchered by suicide bombers on three tube trains and a bus in 2005. A soldier was murdered in broad daylight by Muslim fundamentalists last year. And in 2009, two soldiers were shot at the Massereene Barracks by Irish nationalists.

53/55 = 96.36%.

The most deadly terrorist attack in Europe in the 21st century was the Madrid bombings by Islamist murderers that killed 191 Spaniards.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Madrid_train_bombings


It's an old stat, arrived at by counting property damage to political offices by Basque nationalists and Greek leftists, etc., as discrete terrorist attacks.

Now they could more reasonably have argued that, due to the Breivik attack in Norway, anti-Muslims are still responsible for more deaths than Muslims in the last 5 years. That would be a potentially interesting fact that isn't arrived at by massaging statistics.
What a strange article. The study which asserts 2% says there were over 150 terrorist attacks in Europe in 2013.

Clearly they are including incidents which the vast majority of us would not consider terrorist attacks.

If we're to look at people killed by terrorists in France in the 3 years, you have 7 people killed in an attack on Jewish schools in 2012 by an Islamic militant. You had ten people slaughtered at the Charlie Hebdo magazine a couple of weeks ago by an Islamic militant. And four people murdered at a Jewish supermarket by an Islamic militant.

So what proportion is that? 100%?

I'm sure I must have missed a Christian suicide bombing in France, or the time the liberal secular militant took a gun and attacked a Muslim school. I'm sure I forgot it, can someone remind me so I can fix that 100% figure?
Original post by Observatory

Now they could more reasonably have argued that, due to the Breivik attack in Norway, anti-Muslims are still responsible for more deaths than Muslims in the last 5 years. That would be a potentially interesting fact that isn't arrived at by massaging statistics.


How do you choose how far back to look? If you choose the last three years in France, 100% of deaths caused by terrorism have been by Islamists. The Charlie Hebdo attack, the supermarket attack, and in 2012 when 7 people including three children, were killed in an attack by Islamists (in fact, there's been a synagogue shooting as well, but it might have been in Belgium, can't recall)

Or we could stretch it back to the start of the 21st century, in which case it would probably be about 70/30. 70% of deaths caused by Islamists, 30% caused by Breivik
The survey asks the wrong question.

It should ask what percentage of terrorist attacks are committed in the NAME of muslims/Islam. Personally I don't give a **** about the race of the terrorist or his religion, I care that he's trying to blow up buildings/commit mass murder etc.

That's not to say there isn't a link between religion and terrorism, there obviously is. It certainly isn't limited to Islam though. Just ask the Buddhists in Burma and the Christians bombing abortion clinics in the US.

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