A new report from IHS Markit says militant attacks worldwide rose from 18,987 in 2015 to 24,202 in 2016 with Syria and Iraq accounting for 45 percent of those attacks.IHS Markit said Tuesday the Islamic State organization constituted approximately 18 percent of the global militant attacks and accounted for 39 percent of all non-militant casualties in 2016.
The findings are based on IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Center’s annual Global Attack Index and open source-based global database that covers over 250,000 militant attacks since 2009 and monitors at least 1,000 non-state armed groups across the world.
“In southeast Asia, there is an increased likelihood that the Islamic State will declare an official wilaya or province in 2017,†said Otso Iho, senior analyst at JTIC.
“The Islamic State could use the declaration as a way to project its influence globally at a time when its fortunes in Iraq and Syria are waning,†Iho added.
Matthew Henman, head of JTIC, said the Jabhat Fath al-Sham group, formerly called Jabhat al-Nusra, is likely to pose a threat in 2017.
The report noted that Jabhat Fath al-Sham claimed 687 attacks in 2016, a figure that represents a 20 percent rise from the previous year.
Militant-related violence in Ukraine rose to nearly 4,500 in 2016, while Turkey showed a 110 percent increase in insurgencies followed by Yemen at 76 percent.
The report also noted that an average of 86 militant attacks per day occurred in October 2016.
