Study: Iraq Sustained Most of 2016’s Deadliest Terrorist Attacks

Iraqi had the lion’s share of the deadliest terrorist bombings in 2016, according to a study by the University of Maryland.

Alone, Iraq witnessed nine of the 11 deadliest attacks in 2016, all claimed by ISIL militants, said a study by the university’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), Iraqi News reported.

“More than half (55%) of all terrorist attacks in the Middle East, North Africa in 2016 took place in Iraq, which saw a 22 percent increase in terrorist attacks since 2015. Likewise, total deaths due to terrorist attacks in Iraq increased 38 percent from 2015 to 2016, comprising nearly two thirds (64%) of all deaths from terrorist attacks in the Middle East & North Africa in 2016,” the study said.

It added that despite a decline in terrorist attacks worldwide between 2015 and 2016, the Middle East region saw a 2% increase in attacks, coupled with a surge in deaths resulting from those attacks by 8 percent.

“Ten of the 11 deadliest terrorist attacks in 2016 took place in the Middle East and North Africa, including nine in Iraq and one in Syria,” the study added. It said Iraq’s deadliest attack was the one which took place in July 2016 in which a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle at a shopping center in the Karada neighborhood of Baghdad, killing at least 382 people and wounding 200 others.
 [farsnews.com]
24/8/17