LONDON – As Western governments grapple with heightened apprehension about the spread of Islamic militancy, an independent study Tuesday offered little solace, saying the number of fatalities related to terrorism soared 60 percent last year.
Pointing to a geographic imbalance, the report by the nonprofit Institute for Economics and Peace said five countries — Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan and Syria — accounted for four-fifths of the almost 18,000 fatalities attributed to terrorism last year. Iraq had the bloodiest record of all, with more than 6,300 deaths.
At the same time, the statistics in the organization's Global Terrorism Index suggested that the world's industrialized nations — often the target of threats by groups such as Al-Qaida and ISIL — had suffered relatively few attacks on their soil since the Sept. 11, 2001, onslaught in the United States and the July 7, 2005, suicide bombings in London.
Four groups — ISIL, Boko Haram in Nigeria and the Taliban, which is active in both Pakistan and Afghanistan — took credit for two-thirds of worldwide deaths related to terrorism in 2013, the report said, describing radical variants of Islam as "the key commonality for all four groups."
New York Times
