Predicting Suicide Attacks: Integrating Spatial, Temporal, and Social Features of Terrorist Attack Targets

by Walter L. Perry, Claude Berrebi, Ryan Andrew Brown

As part of an exploration of ways to predict what determines the targets of suicide attacks, RAND conducted a proof-of-principle analysis of whether adding sociocultural, political, economic, and demographic factors would enhance the predictive ability of a methodology that focused on geospatial features. This test case focused on terrorist bombing incidents in Israel, but the findings indicate that the methodology merits further exploration.

112 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 15, 2013