Terrorism Deaths Quadruple Under Obama
The worldwide number of annual terrorist deaths has more than quadrupled since President Barack Obama was inaugurated in January 2009.
Deaths from terrorism increased 80 percent last year to an all-time-record of 32,658 people killed, compared to 18,111 in 2013. The number is up about 426 percent from the 7,654 killed by terrorists in 2008 under President Bush, according to the latest report from ‘Vision of Humanity.’
The 2014 economic cost of 13,370 terrorist attacks in 93 countries included property damage, medical costs, lost income for victims, and the indirect costs of preventing and responding to terrorist acts. The annual “Global Terrorism Index” report estimated those costs hit an all-time-high in 2014 of $52.9 billion.
Boko Haram and Islamic State of Iraq and Levant were jointly responsible for 51 percent of all claimed global terrorist fatalities in 2014. About 57 percent of all the attacks and 78 percent of all the deaths occurred in the five nations of Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan and Syria.
But the number of nations suffering over 500 or more deaths from terrorism increased in 2014 by approximately 120 percent, to 11 countries.
Nigeria experienced the largest increase in terrorist activity with 7,512 deaths in 2014, a jump of over 300 percent over the prior year. But Iraq continued as the worst place for terrorist attacks in 2014, with 9,929 killed, setting another new all-time-record for a single nation.
The number of countries suffering at least one terrorist fatality spread significantly last year, from 59 in 2013 to 67 in 2014. Advanced Western nations suffering at least one terrorist death included Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada and France.
As the Middle East destabilized from 2011 through 2014, global terrorist attacks set a new record each year. Over the three-year period, the total number of people killed by terrorism was approximately 63,214.
The 2015 year was on track through mid-June (latest data available) to set another all-time record, with the IntelCenter tracking “5,209 terrorist and rebel incidents” that killed a total of 14,193 people.
The rapidly expanding number of terrorist attacks, nations targeted and civilians killed virtually guarantees that terrorism will continue set new records in the years ahead.
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