Skip to content
Terrorism PortalConflict, Terrorism & Geopolitical Analysis

Visual Timelines

Visual chronologies of global terrorism

A graphic, interactive reading of how terrorism and armed violence took shape in each country and region: context, actors, turning points and their consequences up to today. Every date is sourced.

5 published timelines · 26 countries in preparation

Explore by continent

AfricaMiddle EastAsiaEuropeAmericas

Click a continent or use the tabs. Red marks a country with a published timeline.

Aerial view of brown and green land with river beds and scattered clouds.Latest timeline · 2015–2026Burkina FasoFrom the first attacks of 2015 to a divided countryUntil 2015 Burkina Faso had been spared the jihadist violence of neighbouring Mali. The fall of Blaise Compaoré in October 2014 and the dissolution of his presidential guard weakened a security apparatus that had kept armed groups away. Within two years the country had suffered a rare kidnapping of a foreigner, a deadly siege in the capital and the birth of its own jihadist group in the northern province of Soum.Explore the timeline

Select a country

Africa A continent under pressure

From the Horn to the Sahel and Mozambique, armed groups have grown out of local wars, weak states and foreign intervention. Each timeline traces how one country's threat took shape.

Africa overview

Published timelines

Aerial view of brown and green land with river beds and scattered clouds.Africa · West Africa and the SahelBurkina FasoFrom the first attacks of 2015 to a divided country2015–2026 · 25 eventsA brightly painted wooden boat in the foreground of a wide river, with low city buildings and a long bridge on the far bank.Africa · West Africa and the SahelNigerFrom the Sahara kidnappings to the Islamic State at the gates of the capital2008–2026 · 25 eventsAerial view of a winding green river through brown semi-desert.Africa · West Africa and the SahelMaliFrom the 2012 rebellion to the siege of Bamako2012–2026 · 32 eventsSatellite view of Lake Chad: green marshes and open water surrounded by brown semi-desert.Africa · West Africa and the SahelNigeriaFrom Boko Haram to ISWAP: how an insurgency transformed2002–2026 · 20 eventsAerial view of a coastline and a sprawling city under clouds.Africa · East Africa and the HornSomaliaFrom state collapse to regional threat1991–2026 · 16 events

How these timelines are built

Each timeline selects the events that changed the structure of a conflict — the collapse of institutions, the birth or split of a group, a new front, a foreign intervention — rather than listing every attack. Each entry carries its date, a category, a certainty label and the documents it rests on.

Figures are given only when an identified source publishes them, and estimates are labelled as such. Maps show places where events happened, never lines of territorial control that no open source can establish reliably.

Methodology · Source & Confidence · Corrections Policy

Event categories

  • Political crisis collapse or contest of state institutions, transitions, elections.
  • Emergence of groups founding, mergers, splits and pledges of armed groups.
  • Expansion new fronts, territory or reach beyond the original theatre.
  • Attacks attacks on civilians or symbolic targets attributed to a non-state group.
  • State operations military and security operations led by national governments.
  • International intervention foreign or multilateral forces, mandates, sanctions and designations.
  • Humanitarian toll displacement, hunger and deaths beyond the battlefield, as measured by UN agencies.