By Chaitanya Mallapur/IANS
There has been a nine-fold increase in deaths due to terrorism globally, rising from 3,329 in 2000 to 32,685 in 2014, according to the Global Terrorism Index 2015 report by the Institute for Economics and Peace, a think-tank based in Sydney, Australia.
The global economic cost of terrorism was $283bn over the past 15 years, reaching a record high of $53bn in 2014.
The prime targets of terrorist attacks have been citizens and private property. Deaths of private citizens increased 172% in 2014 over the previous year.
Nigeria-based Boko Haram and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (also known as IS, ISIS and ISIL) accounted for 51% of total deaths attributed to terrorist groups in 2014. Boko Haram has emerged as the deadliest militant outfit in 2014, killing over 6,664 people, an increase of 317% over the previous year.
Boko Haram pledged its allegiance to IS, renaming itself as Islamic State’s West Africa Province in March 2015.
Another group, Fulani militants, has emerged in Nigeria that killed 1,229 people in 2014. The top five terrorist groups were responsible for 74% of all terrorist-related deaths.
The IS claimed 6,073 deaths in 2014, the most after Boko Haram.
The Global Terrorism report highlights that IS inflicts more deaths on the battlefield (20,000) than through terrorism (6,073) attributed to the group.
Baghdad (43) has the highest fatality rate per 100,000, followed by Maiuguri (39), Mosul (29), Peshawar (25) and Donetsk (10). The French capital of Paris saw a series of terrorist attacks on November 13, killing 130 people and leaving more than 300 injured, the worst violence in France post World War II.
IS has claimed responsibility for the Paris attack. The attacks in Paris were carried out by eight terrorists, of whom seven killed themselves in suicide bombings. A suspected eighth person is still on the run.
As many as 705 bombing attacks by IS were reported in 2014. As many as 117 instances were of suicide bombings, resulting in 1,101 deaths with an average of nine people killed per attack.
Almost 78% killed in terror incidents are from five countries: Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria. These five countries also account for 57% of all terror attacks in 2014, while Iraq and Nigeria alone account for 53% of all deaths.
Deaths due to extremist incidents increased by 80% in 2014 over the previous year. These top 10 countries accounted for 88% of all deaths in 2014. Iraq tops (10) the index, heading a list of 162 nations. The country is one of the worst affected by terrorism, reporting 9,929 deaths in 2014, an increase of 55% over 2013. Iraq also accounted for 30% of all deaths in 2014.
Nigeria recorded a four-fold increase in deaths (7,512) from terrorist attacks, the largest increase ever witnessed by any country, moving up to second position from fifth in 2013. Terrorism-related activities and incidents led to a global economic loss of nearly $53bn in 2014 with an economic impact of $106bn.
The cost of counter-terror operations, led by the US against IS in Iraq and Syria, is estimated to be $5bn from August 8, 2014 to October 31, 2015, with an average daily cost of $11mn for 450 days, according to the US Department of Defence.
Maoist groups cause most terror deaths in India, while the National Democratic Front of Bodoland, a separatist organisation in the north-east, was second. India reported 416 fatalities, accounting for 1.2% of deaths, in 2014. The report said that India, for the first time, did not feature among the top 10 countries with fatalities from terrorism.
The majority of attacks in India were low intensity and 70% were non-lethal.  
 
♦ In arrangement with IndiaSpend.org, a data-driven, non-profit, public interest journalism platform. Chaitanya Mallapur, policy analyst, can be contacted at webmaster@indiaspend.org