Over 80 Percent of Terrorism Victims are Muslims Says EP

Why is terrorism rampant, where lies the greatest blame?

 
Brussels, 24 Rajab 1438/21 April 2017 (MINA) — For the countries of the Southern neighbourhood of Europe, terrorism is an even greater concern than for European ones, according to a report released recently by the European Parliament (EP.

The 25-page report says that while the global number of deaths from terrorist attacks has increased by 80 percent between 2013 and 2014, the vast majority of these occurred in non-European countries.

It noted that 48 percent of the world’s terrorism incidences are located in the Middle East and North Africa and 72 percent of all global terrorist attacks in 2015 took place in Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Syria.

Countries that were also high on the terrorism index were Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, Israel, and Tunisia.

Although the numbers have somewhat declined compared to 2014 largely due to military operations against the so-called Islamic State (IS) and Boko Haram, 2015 was still with nearly 30,000 casualties the second-deadliest year in terrorism terms in over 15 years, it stated.

Three quarters of attacks were perpetrated by four groups only: IS, Boko Haram, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, it said.

The vast majority of the victims – between 82 and 97 percent – were consequently Muslims in Muslim majority countries, it pointed out.

The report titled “Counter-terrorism cooperation with the Southern Neighbourhood” was prepared by the Directorate-General for External Policies of the European Parliament and published recently. (T/RS5/RS1)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)