Jihadist attacks killed more than 5,000
people in just one month, an
investigation by the BBC World Service
and King's College London has found. Civilians bore the brunt of the violence,
with more than 2,000 killed in reported
jihadist incidents during November 2014.
Islamic State carried out the most
attacks, adding to the spiralling death toll
in Iraq and Syria. Explore the map to find out more.
iFrame Four countries suffer 80% of losses The data gathered by the BBC found that
5,042 people were killed in 664 jihadist
attacks across 14 countries - a daily
average of 168 deaths, or seven every
hour. About 80% of the deaths came in just
four countries - Iraq, Nigeria, Syria and
Afghanistan, according to the study of
media and civil society reports. Iraq was the most dangerous place to be,
with 1,770 deaths in 233 attacks, ranging
from shootings to suicide bombings. In Nigeria, 786 people, almost all of them
civilians, were killed in 27 Boko Haram
incidents. These tended to be large and
indiscriminate bombings and shootings
such as the attack on the central mosque in the northern city of Kano, which left 120 dead. Boko Haram also struck over the border in
Cameroon, killing 15 people. Meanwhile,
in East Africa, al-Shabab took 266 lives in
Somalia and Kenya. Afghanistan suffered almost the same
number of deaths as Nigeria (782) but
they tended to be in smaller, targeted
attacks, such as the shooting of the
deputy governor of Kandahar. In war-ravaged Syria, 693 people were
killed; Yemen had 410 deaths in 37
attacks. Of the 16 jihadist groups involved in the
bloodshed, Islamic State was the most
deadly, killing 2,206 people across Iraq
and Syria - 44% of the total death toll. The director of the International Centre
for the Study of Radicalisation, Prof Peter
Neumann, said Islamic State "has rivalled
- if not replaced - al-Qaeda as the leader
of global jihadism". Read Prof Neumann's full analysis. How the data was gathered. [513k] Civilians the main victims Civilians bore the brunt of the attacks
with a total of 2,079 killed, followed by
1,723 military personnel. But the proportions varied significantly
between countries. In Nigeria, almost 700
civilians were killed, at least 57 of them
children, whereas just 28 deaths were
from the military. In contrast, in Syria and Afghanistan,
more than twice as many military
personnel died as civilians. Of the 146 police officers who died, 95
were in Afghanistan. Politicians and
other officials were also targets in
Afghanistan, and in Somalia, where 22
were killed. Jihadists themselves were also killed in
large numbers: 935 died in clashes or by
blowing themselves up. iFrame Bombs and bullets kill most Taken together, bombs accounted for the
most deaths, with 1,653 people killed in
241 explosions. These included 38 suicide
blasts, which took 650 lives and 128 other
bombs, such as improvised explosive
devices (IEDs), which killed 555. Some explosions were large and aimed at
the public while others were highly
targeted, such as the man who got inside a police headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan, before blowing himself up. Read Richard Galpin's account: Anatomy of a suicide Gun attacks took at least another 1,574
lives, while a further 666 deaths were
described as ambushes, many of which
are likely to have involved shootings. It is estimated that 426 people were
murdered in execution-style killings,
including 50 who were reported to have
been beheaded in Syria, Yemen and
Libya. Among these were captured US aid
worker Peter Kassig, who was beheaded along with a group of Syrians in the middle of the month. Mortars and shelling killed 204 people and
49 were attacked with knives. Prof Neumann said the range of tactics
and methods of attack reflected "the
increased emphasis on holding territory
and confronting conventional forces". Data journalism by Christine Jeavans and
Nassos Stylianou, web development by
Richard Bangay and Aidan Fewster,
design by Charlotte Thornton. Data
gathered by Paul Brown and colleagues at
BBC Monitoring and Haidar Lapcha and Sophia Khan at the ICSR. Data was also provided by ACLED, Iraq
Body Count, South Asia Terrorism Portal,
Syrian Network for Human Rights and
Violations Documentation Centre in Syria.

May God save Nigeria.