Modern trauma: New mechanisms of injury due to terrorist attacks

Terrorism has increasingly become an integral part of the reality in many regions of the world. In the past few decades, there has been a surge in the number and in the intensity of terrorist attacks all over the globe, and the treatment of terror-related mass casualty incidents presents a special challenge to the medical teams involved. According to the Worldwide Incidents Tracking System (WITS) of the American National Counterterrorism Center (National Counterterrorism Center 2006), there were 3, 204 terrorist incidents worldwide in the year 2004 with 6, 110 fatalities and 16, 257 wounded. Many of the casualties resulted from suicide bombings in Iraq, Chechnya, Uzbekistan, Israel, and Pakistan. Unfortunately, the numbers are expected to increase further and the world has realized that terrorist attacks are no longer confined to certain locations.