Contradicting boasts from the Obama administration that it is winning the war on terror, a new terrorism report reveals that there was a 650-percent increase in deadly terrorist attacks in Western nations – including the United States – last year.
According to statistics from the Global Terrorism Database found within the Global Terrorism Index report, the stunning figure – showing that there were six times more lethal attacks perpetrated by terrorists the West in 2015 compared to 2014 – is accompanied by some good news … the total number of deaths attributed to terrorism worldwide declined by 10 percent.
Good with the bad
The global decrease in deaths at the hands of terrorists marks the first time in six years that the overall number dropped.
The new figures, which were recently published by the Institute for Economics and Peace, show that the welcomed decline of terror-inflicted deaths globally is due to numerous military efforts waged against jihadist groups – such as the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq and Nigeria’s notorious Boko Haram.
But despite the decline last year, the number of fatal terror attacks is still alarmingly high.
“Although 3,389 fewer people were killed by terrorists in 2015 compared to those killed in 2014, there was still a global total of 29,376 terror deaths, which meant that 2015 was the second deadliest year on record,” The Christian Post reports. “But as military efforts have worked to push radical extremist groups like IS (also known as ISIS or ISIL) and Boko Haram out of their strongholds, the terror activities of both of those groups have spread into other countries and caused those nations to face new terror threats.”
The Global Terrorism Index report indicates that even though military offensives have been waged to try and take out the most notorious Islamic militants (ISIS) in the war-torn nations of the Middle East and Africa, it is effectively deploying jihad elsewhere.
“While the weakening of ISIL and Boko Haram in their central areas of operations in Iraq and Nigeria is positive, this change has coincided with two key negative trends which have driven up terrorism in the rest of the world,” the authors of the report informed. “The first is ISIL’s shift in tactics to transnational terrorism – not just to other parts of the Middle East, but to Europe as well. The second key negative trend is Boko Haram’s extension into neighboring West African countries, which has led to Cameroon and Niger rising to 13th and 16th in the GTI.”
Uncontained elsewhere
When looking outside of Iraq and Nigeria, the state of terrorism is far from being under control.
“In total, the number of people killed by terrorism in Niger, Cameroon and Chad increased by over 157 percent in 2015,” The Christian Post’s Samuel Smith indicated. “Meanwhile, a total of 23 countries experienced record highs in the number of terror deaths in 2015, as IS and its affiliates were active in 28 countries around the world and spread to 15 new countries in 2015.”
The expanded terrorist operations in nations with less resistance has a direct effect on the rising number of deaths.
“This is largely why a record number of countries recorded their highest levels of terrorism in any year in the past 16 years,” the terrorism report explains.
Waging jihad abroad has been a trend in recent years that has driven fatalities up from 2014 to 2015.
“As IS militants and lone wolves inspired by the terror group have conducted attacks and killed scores of people in Western nations in 2015 – including the United States and France – the report finds that there were a total of 577 terror deaths recorded in the 34 member nations of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development IGO,” Smith noted. “The 577 mark is 500 more terror deaths than the 77 terror deaths recorded in the OECD nations in 2014.”
Not letting its loosening grasp on its strongholds in Iraq discourage its global jihad, the Islamic State is alive and well in Europe and Turkey.
“ISIL’s role in this increase was significant, as more than half of the 577 deaths were in connection to the group,” the report maintains. “The attacks by ISIL in Paris, Brussels and in Turkey’s capital Ankara, were amongst the most devastating in the history of these countries and reflect a disturbing return of the transnational group-based terrorism more associated with al-Qaeda before and immediately after September 11.”
As jihad ramps up in France and Turkey at the hands of ISIS, the Taliban is stepping up its attacks in Afghanistan.
“While 21 of the 34 OECD countries had at least one terrorist attack, the majority of the terror killings in OECD countries took place in Turkey and France,” Smith stated. “The report also finds that while much of the international attention focused on defeating IS, that left the Taliban to record its deadliest year in Afghanistan.”
It has also been observed that the Taliban is upping its deadly numbers on two fronts.
“Both terrorist deaths and battlefield deaths committed by the Taliban significantly increased in 2015,” the global report asserts. “Terrorism increased 29 percent to 4,502 deaths and battlefield deaths increased 34 percent to over 15,000.”
Western nations might have reason to be on heightened alert, but most of the deadly attacks are concentrated in a small handful of Islamic nations.
“Although terrorism has risen over 650 percent in OECD countries, still, 72 percent of the total global terror deaths came in the five countries where terror is most prevalent – Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria,” The Christian Post announced. “Additionally, just four terrorist groups and their affiliates were responsible for 74 percent of the world’s terror killings – IS, al-Qaeda, Taliban and Boko Haram.”
When looking at the overall figures, it should be noted that the war on terror is far from being won.
“Seventy-six countries improved their Global Terrorism Index scores in the 2016 report, while only 53 countries received worse scores,” Smith summarized. “In all, the global GTI score worsened by six percent in 2015 because of the increase in the number of countries that experience record highs for terrorism.”
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Copyright American Family News. Reprinted with permission.
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