Seemingly random terrorist attacks are being predicted by US Army computers.

Scientists at The University of Alabama in Huntsville have been looking into asymmetric threats by developing computer models that identify trends in the behaviours of the adversaries. Researchers reviewed the behavior of terrorists during 12,000 attacks since 2003 to calculate relative probabilities of future attacks on various target types.

They created a database of past attacks, searched for trends, looked for correlation between attacks and use analysis to calculate the probabilities of future attacks and their location. So far, the model does not predict that an attack targeting civilians at a public market will take place tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. However a commander on the ground could concentrate resources at those locations that have higher probabilities of attack.

So far the computer model has come up with some interesting statistics on sectarian violence.

More here.