About This Statistic
The statistic shows the list of countries with the highest number of deaths caused by terrorist activities in 2015. The majority of deaths from terrorism in 2015 occurred in Iraq, accounting for 23.7 percent of all deaths. In that year alone, terrorist incidents worldwide resulted in approximately 29,376 fatalities.
Additional information on the targets of terrorism
Although terrorism is a worldwide problem, its victims are highly concentrated in certain areas of the world. The most prominent area to have fallen victim to terrorist attacks in recent times has been the region encompassing the Middle East and North Africa.
Following military invasions in both Afghanistan and Iraq respectively, the instability brought about by conflict allowed an opportunity for a number of terrorist groups to gain a strong foothold in the region. But groups committing terrorist acts are not solely concentrated in the Middle East as shown by 23 percent of terrorism related deaths worldwide in 2014 occurring in Nigeria. The rise of Boko Haram alongside Islamic State also heavily contributed to the number of terrorist attacks worldwide increasing considerably in 2014.
Terror attacks such as the bombing of the World Trade Centre in New York on September 11, 2011 gain the most attention in global media and generally result in increased counter terrorism efforts at home and abroad. However, the vast majority of attacks occur in the countries where the major terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda and Islamic State are based. The lack of security and order present in places like Iraq and Afghanistan affords more opportunities to terrorist groups to commit more obvious acts of terrorism including armed assaults, the most common form of terrorist attack.
