New Study Highlights Why Some Terrorist Groups Spark Insurgencies

Religious terrorist organizations, primarily Islamist groups, are far more likely than other ideologically-motivated groups to launch and fight a sustained insurgency, a new study shows.

Most terrorism analyses focus on the deadliest and mature terrorist groups, such as the Islamic State (ISIS), Hizballah, and Hamas, overlooking similar terrorist groups that die out early or pose a lesser threat. Why do some terrorist groups evolve into full-blown insurgencies, while others remain clandestine or fail to start a guerrilla war? This important question is examined in the peer-reviewed journal Perspectives on Terrorism (PoT), focusing on the role of ideology, organizational structure, and competition among rival terrorist groups.

The study is based on a quantitative analysis of 246 diverse militant organizations from the Global Terrorism Database operating worldwide from 1970-2007. Attacks carried out by assailants unaffiliated with an organization are not included in the analysis.

Most quantitative studies on terrorism categorize groups based on four broad ideologies – religious, left-wing, right-wing, and ethno-nationalist – without differentiating among specific types of religious organizations. The PoT study follows this traditional approach yet explicitly notes “all but one of the religious groups that waged sustained insurgencies in this study are Islamic militant organizations.”

This finding is important since several prominent studies highlight that religious...