ISIS toll in one year: 7,300
Worst terror group adds to body count
THEY’VE TAKEN massive hits in Syria and Iraq, but the Islamic State remains the deadliest terrorist organization in the world as its hate-filled tentacles spread across the globe.
The University of Maryland’s Global Terrorism Database, which tracks terror attacks across the world, determined that ISIS claimed responsibility for more than 7,300 killings last year.
In 2016, ISIS “remained the deadliest terrorist organization in the world with its ‘core’ operatives carrying out more than 1,400 attacks,” the university said in a report released last week. “This represents a 19% increase in total attacks and a 39% increase in total deaths.”
ISIS claimed responsibility for 931 terror attacks in 2015, which led to 6,050 deaths, according to the U.S. Department of State.
The increase in ISIS-inspired attacks comes even as the number of terror attacks worldwide dropped by 10% in 2016, the university said.
Anti-terror forces are hacking away at the terror organization’s roots in Syria and Iraq, but the bloodthirsty jihadists have become affiliated with a handful of smaller groups, the study notes.
The group’s social media campaigns designed to reach out and inspire lone wolf terrorists have also expanded its presence — and its ability to kill.
“During this same time period, we (also) saw an increase in the number of individual assailants,” said Erin Miller, author of the University of Maryland study.
While the violence has been centered primarily in Iraq and Syria, ISIS spread its terror attacks to new countries in 2016, including Georgia, Germany, Italy, Kenya, Sweden and Tanzania, the report found.
More than 950 attacks in which 3,000 people were killed were connected to terror groups affiliated with ISIS, Miller found.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the van attack Thursday in Barcelona, Spain, that killed 13 people. The van driver, 22-year-old Younes Abouyaaqoub, was killed by Spanish police Monday following a three-day manhunt.
He was killed after shouting “Allahu akbar” while wearing a fake suicide belt in Subirats, a town about 30 miles west of Barcelona, according to El Pais newspaper.
The Islamic State also took responsibility for inspiring a knife attack in Siberia on Saturday, in which a man wounded up to eight people.
It was not clear if the group’s claims are accurate, but experts said the Barcelona attack relied on a lone-wolf tactic that the group encourages.
Since its inception in 2014, ISIS has encouraged followers to strike its enemies with any weapon available.
“If you are not able to find an IED or a bullet, then single out the disbelieving American, Frenchman or any of their allies. Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car,” spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani told the group’s followers in 2014. Adnani was killed in a U.S. air strike in Syria last September.
“These calls increased as the U.S.-led coalition continued targeting the group, with ISIS media releases and social media accounts of its fighters regularly calling for attacks in warring countries,” said Rita Katz, director of the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militant groups online.