The terrorist events of 2015 continued to fuel speculation that most terrorism is government-sponsored and focuses on achieving political objectives. A majority of the attacks were attributed to groups located in the relatively small region of southwestern Eurasia that has been the focus of competition for resources among the world’s superpowers. The political will to drive seizure of those resources requires a fear of terrorism so that “responses” can happen without interference from the public. Maintaining the fear is what appears to be the primary objective behind the attacks.

Since 9/11, terrorist acts in Western countries have exhibited a formulaic set of common features that suggest the government might have been involved in the crimes. Here are ten such features.

Evidence against the accused is usually composed of hearsay claims or dubious documents that originate with military or law enforcement sources. The hearsay evidence typically includes vague accusations that the suspects were in contact with, had “links” to, or made recent pledges of allegiance to, terrorist leaders. The documentary evidence includes things like passports conveniently left at the scene or social media postings that imply a commitment to terrorism. There is an overly obvious attempt to associate the terrorists with Islam. The suspects are usually dead by the time the first reports come out. People who knew the accused often say they had absolutely no idea that their friend/neighbor/family member was involved or interested in terrorism in any way. The testimony of eyewitnesses is ignored as authorities provide contradictory stories that quickly become the official, media-driven accounts. Eyewitnesses often describe the attackers as armed and outfitted like highly trained, and well-supported, special operations soldiers. The attacks usually coincide with military or law enforcement exercises that mimic what happens. The incidents are used to justify rapid military attacks against countries of strategic interest before any investigation is conducted.

In 2015, two acts of terrorism in the U.S. were attributed to white men who survived and were not said to be associated with Muslims. These were the June shooting of nine African Americans in a South Carolina church and the November killing of three people at a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado. But the remaining six terrorist events in the West were all attributed to Muslims. Here are quick summaries of how those terrorist events exhibited the features listed above.

Paris in January—The Charlie Hebdo and Kosher Grocery attacks: The first of two major terrorist acts in Paris resulted in a considerable number of as-yet unanswered questions. Not the least of these was that the military-style attackers wore balaclavas to conceal their identities yet left a passport for quick identification. The attackers took pains to associate themselves with Islam yet also displayed professional training like that of special operations soldiers.

Copenhagen in February—Two people were shot dead in separate shootings that were allegedly motivated by art that was disrespectful to Muslims. Police said that Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein committed both crimes and that he died during the second attack. El-Hussein was reported to be well known to Danish intelligence and had been in and out of prison. Despite being sentenced to two years in December 2014 for “serious violence,” he was released in January 2015 and was allegedly engaged in the shootings just two weeks later. Danish citizens have raised questions about the possibility of this being a false-flag attack.

Texas in May—At an anti-Islamic art exhibit featuring images of the Prophet Mohammed in Garland, Texas, two heavily armed gunmen wearing body armor began shooting. One school security officer was shot in the ankle before both of the alleged attackers were killed. The two men had police records and one was the subject of an FBI investigation.

Australia in October—In Parramatta, a 15-year old boy was said to shoot a police employee after visiting a mosque and listening to a lecture by an extremist Islamist leader (according to police). Although Australian authorities called it an act of political terrorism, like most 15-year olds the boy was not politically active and the lecture he attended was about “charity and how to worship God and help others.” His family and friends had no idea that he had any violent tendencies.

Paris in November—In a coordinated series of attacks, terrorists killed 130 people. Just two days later, before an investigation was completed, France began a new bombing campaign in Syria. Only one of the ten suspects, Saleh Abdeslam, survived the attacks. He was first questioned and released by French authorities, even when it was known that he had rented a car used in the crimes. It was reported that Belgian authorities later let him escape. In November it was revealed that Paris police were engaged in a mass shooting exercise the very morning of the attacks.

California in December—The San Bernardino Shootings: The only eyewitness to the shootings said the perpetrators were three tall, athletic, white men in combat-style gear. The witnesses to the getaway said they saw three men in black masks fleeing the scene with rifles in hand. Another said it was three white men in military gear. The attackers got into a black SUV with tinted windows and “calmly” left the scene. Despite these eyewitness reports, the official account quickly became that two small, brown-skinned Muslim people committed the crimes. A few days later, President Obama promoted the new myth without proper investigation or trial and took pains to remind the nation that, “Al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 Americans on 9/11.”

Citizens later learned that there are glaring questions that remain unanswered about the San Bernardino shootings but the media frenzy in support of the government account had already become an entrenched myth. Even as the New York Times retracted reporting on the subject and the Washington Post admitted that American law enforcement officials were “famous for feeding contradictory and unfounded information to the media,” the myth continued to go unchallenged.

Despite the fact that government-sponsored false flag terrorism has been well documented as a fact throughout modern history, terrorism remains a powerful tool for controlling public opinion. The events of 2015 have shown that the propaganda tools for presenting terrorism are being continually refined. The formula used by government and media to report new accounts of terrorism may one day become so well tuned that it will be effective in presenting anyone as a terrorist with little or no actual evidence. It would therefore be wise for all citizens to question all acts of terrorism in order to prevent greater abuses of power.