The origin of terrorist threats: Religious, separatist, or something else?

Recent studies indicate that the number of terrorist incidents is declining while their lethality is increasing. This trend in casualty rates has raised the rhetoric on terrorism leading to claims that a new form of terrorism has emerged over the last thirty years. The "new terrorism" is defined by a tendency towards maximum destruction and a pronounced religious motivation. The question is whether or not the new terrorism is actually driving current trends in terrorist violence? This study examines casualty rates by terrorist groups categorized by their ideologies and finds that trends in terrorist violence are not being driven by the new terrorism per se. Instead, all forms of terrorism are more violent generally, and variations of ethno-national terrorism are the most violent specifically