Terrorist Attacks to Essential Services, Infrastructures and Facilities in G7 Countries During the Period 2000-2020

For over 20 years, starting from the attack to the “Twin Towers” in New York in 2001, a global intense research and analytical activity has been performed in western countries, focusing on the topic of protection of critical infrastructures, essential services and strategic facilities [1-5] and plants through the identification of means to reduce both the risk and the impact of the effects caused by a potential terrorist attack.

Research activity on the issues of protecting these infrastructures and facilities has also led many technical bodies of institutions to produce very detailed directives and documentation in what have been considered the 'critical sectors' to be most protected from terrorist attacks. In particular, in the U.S., since 2006 the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has produced a series of National Infrastructure Protection Plans and recommendations [4], the most recent published in 2013 [5] and cascaded 16 specific National Plans in the following critical sectors [6]: Chemical; Commercial Facilities; Communications; Critical Manufacturing; Dams; Defense Industrial Base; Emergency Services; Energy; Financial Services; Food and Agriculture; Government Facilities; Healthcare and Public Health; Information Technology; Nuclear Reactors, Materials, and Waste; Transportation Systems; and Water and Wastewater.

In a similar way the European Union (EU), Council Directive 2008/114/EC [7] provided at a first shared procedure for designating European critical infrastructure in the energy and transport sectors the disruption or destruction of which would generate a significant cross-border impact on at least two Member States. The most recent EU Directives, NIS2 (Network and Information Security) [8] and CER (Critical Entities Resilience) [9], define the EU framework for European critical infrastructure protection. Both NIS2 and CER Directives were enacted at the end of 2022 in the EU and need to be transposed into national law in Member States until 2024. In particular, NIS2 regulates cyber security in the EU, extending the scope and requirements for operators, while the CER Directive lays down obligations on EU Member States to take specific measures, to ensure that essential services for the maintenance of vital societal functions or economic activities are provided in an unobstructed manner in the internal market.

The non-exhaustive list of essential services to which the CER Directive applies is as follows: Energy; Transport; Banking; Financial market infrastructure; Health; Drinking water; Waste water; Digital infrastructure; Public administration sector; Space; Production, processing and distribution of food sector.

For the reasons discussed up above in this introduction, with reference to the period from 2000 to the present and starting from the latest data collection made public by one of the world's most important databases of terrorist attacks, the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) maintained by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) and the University of Maryland [10], in this paper an analysis was conducted on the evolution of terrorist attacks on specific targets related to critical infrastructures, essential services and strategic installations. Furthermore, in light of the availability of only technical articles or more generalist articles or even devoted solely to the single State [11] with regard to terrorist attacks to critical infrastructures, the focus in this work, as discussed below, will be on all G7 countries (USA, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan).

Using the GTD database, in the paper the results of the number of attacks on specific targets (indicated as TargetType) are presented. Hereinafter we will define as ‘macro-target’ ESIF (Essential Services, Infrastructures and Facilities) the strategic industrial assets, infrastructures and services of a country, and, with reference to the GTD, this macro-target will be described by the following 8 TargetType categories: Business, Airports & Aircraft, Food or Water supply, Journalists & Media, Maritime (including ports and maritime infrastructure), Telecommunication, Transportation (other than aviation) and Utilities.

These TargetTypes, 8 in total, were selected from the 22 different TargetTypes [12] categorized in the GTD starting from the “Target/Victim Information” defined variable.

It is important to note that the ESIF macro-target, on which the analysis has been made, takes into account both attacks on structures and personnel who allow the structures themselves to function and provide the service offered.

The analysis of the above defined ESIF Macro-Target refers to the period 2000-2020 for the G7 countries, with the aim of carrying out - for this area and for this specific targets - an initial comparison between the different situations recorded in the most developed countries of the world and to intercept possible trends, also verifying the type of weapon used for the attack and focusing the analysis on CBREI (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Explosive and Incendiary) attacks which constitute the most destructive and impactful terrorist aggressive actions mentioned in GTD.

Finally, the “Scudo Italia” Protocol has been introduced very shortly for the definition of specific anti-sabotage/anti-terrorism risk mitigation plans for ESIF macro-targets.

This analysis is focused on all events of terrorist nature, also below referred simply as ‘attacks’ or ‘events’, which affected infrastructures, plants and people involved in the provision of services for those countries belonging to the G7.

The considered targets, also referred here as TargetType, are extracted from the GTD variable called Target/Victim Information, originally made up of 22 different target types [12].

Of the 22 starting TargetTypes, 8 were selected for this work. These TargetTypes are indicated in Table 1 and represent the ESIF macro-target (Essential Services, Infrastructures and Facilities).

Table 1. Macro-target ESIF

It is important to remember that, in this analysis, the ESIF macro-target also collects attacks on personnel employed in those facilities/organizations linked to the provision of the service or the operation of the infrastructure/plant.

For further details on the ESIF macro-target, the detailed declinations (SubType) of each type of ESIF Targets are shown in Table 2, according to the taxonomic characteristics described in the GTD codebook [12].

For the 2000-2020 time span, the analysis on the ESIF macro-target consisting of the 8 TargetTypes reported above, was conducted for the G7 countries in order to start, for this area of terrorist possible targets, a comparison between the most developed countries in the world.

Table 2. ESIF macro-target and declination in TargetSubType

Table 13. Number of attacks on ESIF targets in Italy per year with CBREI weapons (2000-2020 period)

Table 14. Number of attacks on ESIF targets per year for Italy with CBREI weapons, up to the analysis level of TargetSubType (2000-2020 period)

Starting from the latest data made publicly available from one of the most important global terrorist attack databases, the Global Terrorism Database, maintained by the START consortium and Maryland University, a detailed analysis on the evolution over the last 21 years of terrorist attacks on specific targets related to critical infrastructure to essential services and strategic facilities was conducted for G7 countries.

Specifically, the results of developing a set of specific targets (TargetType) extracted from the GTD, referred to in the document as the ESIF (Essential Services, Infrastructures and Facilities) macro-target, with a focus on G7 countries, were presented. This macro-target typically contains most of a country's industrial assets, infrastructures and strategic services.

In particular, the analysis on the ESIF macro-target was conducted in a timely manner for the period 2000-2020 for the seven G7 countries, in order to carry out a comparison of the different situations recorded in the most developed world countries, intercept possible trends, also verifying the type of weapon used for the attack, focusing the analysis on CBREI attacks, which constitute the most destructive and impactful terrorist attacks found in the GTD.

Among the various results obtained, the analysis showed for CBREI attacks over the period 2000-2020 for G7 countries that type E attacks account for 90.8% of the total terrorist events for CBREI attacks, while type I attacks reach 8.87% of the total value, relegating the cumulative percentage of CBR attacks in G7 countries to the value of 0.33% over the 21 years considered in the analysis.

For the ESIF-Type objectives the results obtained for CBREI attacks in the G7 countries show a total number of 534 events in the period 2000-2020, with the top of the rank for the 154 attacks (28.8%) related to the United Kingdom, followed by the USA and France ones, both with 129 (24.2%) CBREI attacks on ESIF targets. Finally, the main objective targeted by terrorists for CBREI attacks in the G7 countries appears to be "Business" followed by "Transportation" and "Telecommunication".

The methodology defined with this study (definition of target categories and sub-categories, identification of the various types of events, extrapolation and processing of data, identification of time intervals) aims to specific situational updates in an efficient way, allowing comparable and organic periodic evaluations.