A Study on the Status and Characteristic of Drone Terror

Abstract

Recently, drones have been used as a major means of terrorism and interest in drone terrorism has increased through the North Korean drone incident and the war in Ukraine, but empirical research on drone terrorism is lacking. In this regard, this study analyzes current status and characteristics of drone terrorism around the world using GTD data from the START in the United States. From the data collected from 1970 to 2021, only 315 cases of drone terrorism using drones as a means of terrorism were extracted and analyzed. According to the analysis, the number of drone terrorism incidents by year has been increasing since 2018, with the highest level of 131 incidents in 2021. By region, the Middle East and North Africa region is the most concentrated with 291 incidents, and by country, Saudi Arabia is the highest with 148 incidents, followed by Yemen and Iraq. Among drone terrorist organizations, Houthi extremists have attempted the most drone attacks (211), while ISIL has the highest success rate (91.7%). More than 90% of drone attacks utilized explosives. Finally, in terms of targets, ISIL had the highest percentage of attacks against military, civilian, and property targets. Based on this study, we hope that various studies on drone terrorism and active discussions on drone terrorism prevention and response will be conducted.