This thesis examines how civilian targeting is affected by urbanization, geography (maritime capitals versus landlocked), rough terrain and allocation of resources in the capitals of North and West Africa. The purpose is to answer questions like: is there a correlation between less urbanized countries and a safer capital? Does at least 25% of the civilian targeting occur in countries that are more than 50% urbanized? Does most of the civilian targeting occur within 25 miles from urban centers? Do maritime capitals in North and West Africa experience more civilian targeting? The thesis starts by collecting the urbanization rates for countries in North and West Africa, a total of 20 countries, and follows by analyzing the location of the civilian targeting in the period between 2000-2022 and thus coding the results either as rural or urban and the latter ones if located in the capital or not. Combining the last two outcomes, civilian targeting in the capital and the country’s rate of urbanization, the paper found that in North and West African countries the lower the urbanization rate, the less civilian targeting that the capital experiences. Surprisingly, during this study, we discovered as well that civilian targeting was more frequent in maritime African capitals than landlocked capitals. As a result of this finding, the thesis investigated three additional landlocked countries (Burundi, Central African Republic and Ethiopia) to contrast our results. Unfortunately, these results fail to provide us a meaningful answer since some landlocked African capitals outside West Africa were safe while others experienced high civilian targeting. Therefore, there must be another reason why some low urbanized and landlocked countries experience less civilian victimization in the capital. At this point, we investigated the location of natural resources as a potential explanation for the civilian targeting patters in West Africa. Our results showed that landlocked countries in the Sahel with low urbanization rates and scattered natural resources far from the capital experience significantly less civilian targeting in their capitals compared to other African countries that do not meet these three criteria. Finally, the paper unearthed the “Desert Paradox”, Landlocked countries in Africa with vast amounts of desert within their borders tend to have jihadist groups that operate in the rural areas and near the natural resources. This creates an environment where the African capitals of landlocked, low urbanized countries with vast amounts of desert within their border, have the safest capitals in Africa.