Terrorist attack deaths soared 61 percent last year, new study finds
The number of deaths linked to terrorism reportedly climbed 61 percent in a single year – from 11,133 in 2012 to 17,958 in 2013.
The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) nonprofit organization released its 2014 Global Terrorism Index on Tuesday, characterizing the upsurge of terrorist violence as a “global phenomenon.”
“Terrorism sprouts in areas of larger conflict, in communities with political instabilities or state-sponsored violence, such as torture,” Michelle Breslauer, director of IEP for the Americas, told Yahoo News. “Those environments are conducive to terrorist ideologies.”
The organization found that 82 percent of last year’s nearly 18,000 terrorism-related fatalities occurred in just five countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan and Syria.
Iraq, in particular, continues to be a tinderbox of terrorist activity and suffered the largest surge in deaths of any country in the world – soaring 164 percent to 6,362.
Experts said that more than 90 percent of terrorist attacks take place in countries with extreme human rights violations.
Although terrorism is on the rise, Americans are 64 times more likely to be the victim of homicide than terrorism, according to the study.
Four murderous groups were collectively responsible for 66 percent of the year’s terrorism-related deaths: ISIS, Boko Haram, al-Qaida and the Taliban.
“The spike in attacks has been motivated by the Syrian civil war,” Breslauer said. “Looking at the rise of ISIL and others, there is religious extremism at the core of many of these groups.”
The institute produces the report with information from the Global Terrorism Database compiled by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), at the University of Maryland.
Steve Killelea, the executive chairman of IEP, argued that long-term policies that address key factors associated with terrorism could help undermine environments that foster its growth.
“The most significant actions that can be taken are to reduce state-sponsored violence, reduce group grievances and hostilities, and improve effective and community-supported policing,” he said in a release.
The Global Terrorism Index defines terrorism as “the threatened or actual use of illegal force and violence by a non-state actor to attain a political, economic, religious or social goal through fear, coercion or intimidation.”
To learn more, visit the IEP's Vision of Humanity interactive map.
