More than 5,000 people died worldwide last month as a result of jihadi violence, a BBC report claims. The four worst countries were Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Syria, which account of 80 percent of all deaths in November.
The investigation, which the BBC conducted in conjunction with the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR), said that there was an average of 22 attacks per day last month, with 168 people being killed. Nearly seven people died per hour thanks to Islamism.
The most deadly single group was the self-proclaimed Islamic State, who killed over 2,000 in Iraq and Syria during November.
The majority of the 5,042 people killed worldwide were civilians, with nearly 2,000 military personnel dying and another thousand being jihadi fighters themselves.
Iraq was the worst country for jihadi killings, accounting for nearly a third of all deaths. Second was Nigeria, which suffered the deadliest single attack when 120 died in the bombing of the Grand Mosque in the city of Kano.
Afghanistan was third thanks to ongoing Taliban violence, while Syria was fourth.
Peter Neuman of the ICSR said that the research shows that the Islamist movement is fragmenting, with jihadists no longer gravitating around Al Qaeda but different, rival groups.
“The data makes it clear that jihadists and al-Qaeda are no longer one and the same,” he said.
“Sixty per cent of jihadist deaths were caused by groups that have no formal association with al-Qaeda, and they are the ones who will vie for leadership of the movement.
“The overall picture is that of an increasingly ambitious, complex, sophisticated and far-reaching movement.”
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