Sources & methodology
Compiled 2026-08-25. Fondapol cutoff 2024-04-12. TROP scrape through 2026-08-24. Every named dataset below has a URL, version, access date, license note, coverage window, and import method.
Fondapol — Islamist Terrorist Attacks in the World 1979–2024
3rd edition, October 2024 · accessed 2026-08-13 · coverage 1979-02 to 2024-04-12
- Published
- 2024-10
- License / redistribution
- © Fondapol; figures cited under quotation / research use
- Includes
- Non-state Islamist terrorism per GTD rules, extracted from GTD + ACLED
- Excludes
- State operations; Taliban-as-government after Aug 2021; ordinary crime; unattributed civil-war deaths
- Import / script
- Manual transcription of published tables
- Data hash / identifier
- workbook-handoff-2026-08-13
TheReligionofPeace.com attack lists
Site scrape 2026-08-25 · accessed 2026-08-25 · coverage 2001-09-11 to 2026-08-24
- Published
- updated daily
- License / redistribution
- TROP site content; not a redistribution of underlying news articles
- Includes
- News-visible attacks TROP judges to involve Islam, mostly deadly
- Excludes
- Ordinary crime; most conventional combat; most foiled plots
- Import / script
- HTML table parse of yearly/last30/US/Europe pages, classifier v1 2026-08-26
- Data hash / identifier
- trop-yearly-2001-2026 + incidents-2026 + last30 + us + europe
Global Terrorism Database (START / UMD)
GTD as used by Fondapol / public GTD · accessed 2026-08-13 · coverage 1970–2020 (public)
- Published
- rolling; public file through 2020
- License / redistribution
- START terms; not redistributed here as microdata
- Includes
- Systematically coded terrorist incidents, all ideologies
- Excludes
- Most post-2020 events in the public file
- Import / script
- Cited via Fondapol only
- Data hash / identifier
- not ingested as microdata in this app
ACLED
Living dataset; revises and deletes · accessed 2026-08-26 · coverage 1997–present
- Published
- weekly
- License / redistribution
- ACLED terms; event file not bundled
- Includes
- Political violence and protests with coordinates, actors, fatalities
- Excludes
- Requires actor filter to isolate Islamist militants
- Import / script
- Documented for reconciliation; Fondapol used ACLED for 2020–2024. No fake row match.
- Data hash / identifier
- not ingested
UCDP Candidate Events
Monthly candidates, ~1 month lag · accessed 2026-08-26 · coverage ongoing
- Published
- monthly
- License / redistribution
- UCDP terms; not bundled
- Includes
- Organized violence meeting UCDP fatality thresholds
- Excludes
- Sub-threshold terrorism
- Import / script
- Used as a coding rule (Sudan Janjaweed → civil war) until a join is built
- Data hash / identifier
- not ingested
IEP Global Terrorism Index
GTI 2025/2026 editions · accessed 2026-08-25 · coverage calendar year preceding each edition
- Published
- annual
- License / redistribution
- IEP; figures cited
- Includes
- Country scores, deadliest groups, terrorism deaths all ideologies
- Excludes
- Not Islamist-only
- Import / script
- Manual citation of 2024 deadliest-group figures
- Data hash / identifier
- cited totals only
Europol TE-SAT
TE-SAT 2025 and 2026 (preliminary) · accessed 2026-08-13 · coverage 2024 and 2025 EU
- Published
- annual
- License / redistribution
- EU official; figures cited
- Includes
- Jihadist attacks, deaths, arrests in the EU
- Excludes
- Non-EU Europe except as noted
- Import / script
- Manual transcription
- Data hash / identifier
- cited yearly rows
CSIS U.S. terrorism dataset
1994 – early 2025 extract · accessed 2026-08-13 · coverage 1994 – early 2025
- Published
- CSIS
- License / redistribution
- CSIS; figures cited
- Includes
- 740 attacks & plots, of which 140 jihadist
- Excludes
- Not a global file
- Import / script
- Manual transcription
- Data hash / identifier
- cited totals
GWU Program on Extremism
cited 2026-08-13 workbook extract · accessed 2026-08-13 · coverage cited total of 246 ISIS-related federal charges
- Published
- rolling
- License / redistribution
- GWU PoE; figures cited
- Includes
- Federal charging data related to ISIS
- Excludes
- Not a global casualty file
- Import / script
- Manual transcription
- Data hash / identifier
- cited totals
The Record classifier v1
v1 / 2026-08-26 · accessed 2026-08-26 · coverage Applies to last-30, 2026 YTD, high-casualty, US, and Europe TROP rows
- Published
- 2026-08-26
- License / redistribution
- Internal coding rules; not a recode of GTD
- Includes
- kind, status, confidence, target, attribution, neutralized summary, TROP year-list + Wayback links
- Excludes
- Does not invent news URLs TROP omitted; does not rewrite Fondapol tables
- Import / script
- src/lib/classify.ts
- Data hash / identifier
- rule-based regex on TROP description text
Classifier v1
Rule-based on TROP description text. Not a recode of GTD. Last verified 2026-08-25 for the scrape; coding rules dated 2026-08-26.
Each TROP line item gets a kind (attack, insurgency, civil war, honor killing, hate crime / lone actor, state-adjacent, plot), a status (completed / failed / foiled), a confidence tag (confirmed / probable / disputed / unverified), a target class, an attribution, a neutralized summary, and links to that year’s TROP list plus a Wayback URL. Source count is 1 unless the write-up names a wire (Reuters, AFP, AP, BBC, Al Jazeera, CNN, Xinhua, dpa).
Strict terrorism = attack, insurgency, or hate-crime/lone-actor. Civil war, honor killing, state-adjacent, and plots drop out of strict. The scope bar applies only to classified TROP line items (last 30 days, 2026 YTD, high-casualty, US, Europe). Fondapol published tables are never re-filtered.
TROP’s HTML tables do not expose the underlying news URL. The evidence drawer therefore cannot invent an article link. Original TROP wording is preserved next to the neutralized summary.
This database covers
- Non-state actors
- Clear or strongly indicated Islamist / jihadist motivation
- Acts meeting terrorism criteria (political/religious objective via fear)
- Attacks, plots, and attributed campaigns by designated or self-identified jihadist groups
This database does not cover
- Ordinary crime by Muslims
- All civil-war deaths in Muslim-majority countries regardless of motive
- State military operations
- Purely tribal, ethnic, or criminal violence
- Pre-modern historical conquests mixed into modern totals
- Unverified maximalist tallies without primary sourcing
Fondapol limitations (acknowledged by the authors)
- Figures are minimum estimates only.
- Injuries heavily under-counted; deferred deaths usually missing.
- Under-reporting in remote areas and during Algeria’s Black Decade (1991–2002).
- Post-August 2021 Taliban actions after seizing power are not counted as terrorism.
- Some Muslim-minority conflict zones (southern Thailand, Mindanao, parts of Kashmir, Xinjiang) partially or fully excluded.
- Motivation is not always clear in complex civil-war settings.
Known revisions and deletions
ACLED revises and deletes living records. Until an ACLED join exists, those revisions are not tracked here. TROP pages are overwritten in place; we keep the scrape date on every classified row.
2026-08-26
Trust layer v1
Classifier, scope bar, evidence drawers, aligned comparison windows, ISO country rollup, regional inclusion switches. ACLED/UCDP/GTD microdata still not ingested.
2026-08-25
TROP full scrape
Yearly 2001–2026 totals, last-30-days feed, U.S. and Europe incident pages, 2024–2026 country and monthly aggregates. Kept on a separate TROP sheet. Fondapol headline unchanged.
2026-08-13
Initial compilation
Workbook from Fondapol 2024, CSIS, GWU, GTD/ACLED methodology notes. Europe sheet added. Definitional boundaries established.
What is still missing
Event-level ACLED and UCDP files are not bundled. A reconciliation layer that deduplicates TROP against those sources would be the next honest upgrade — not matching on country-year totals.
GTD public microdata through 2020 is cited via Fondapol only. Civilian / security-force / perpetrator casualty splits are not in the TROP table; the classifier infers a coarse target from wording.
Direct article URLs, archived article URLs, and independent source counts beyond “wire named in the TROP cell” cannot be reconstructed from the scrape.