Islamists were responsible for a massive 84.27 per cent of terror killings in the West in 2017, with 66.67 per cent of the perpetrators coming to their target country from abroad.
The number of foreign-born radical Islamic terrorists carrying out attacks in Western countries was up substantially from 2016, when 40.54 per cent of attackers struck outside their country of origin, according to a report by the Henry Jackson Society.
Islamists achieved their 84 percent share of terror fatalities despite accounting for 48.53 percent of terrorist incidents overall, suggesting they tend to be more lethal than, for example, far-right terrorists — who accounted for 20.59 percent of terrorist incidents but only 12.36 percent of terror fatalities.
Europe was the Western region most impacted in 2017, suffering some 75 per cent of all types of terrorist violence compared to 22.06 per cent for North America and 2.94 per cent for Australasia.
The United Kingdom was the worst affected individual country in the Western World, taking 19.12 per cent of terror-related incidents — up from 9.26 per cent in 2016 — and a remarkable 40.45 per cent of terror-related fatalities.
The proportion of terrorism attributed to Islamists was down somewhat despite an increase in total Islamist attacks, due in large part to a increase in incidents logged as ‘far-right’.
The far-right was reportedly responsible for 20.59 per cent share of terrorism in the West in 2017 — quadruple its 2016 share of 5.56 per cent.
Unlike the majority of mainstream commentators and politicians, however, the Henry Jackson Society also highlighted the threat from the far-left, which accounted for the same 20.59 per cent share of terrorism as the far-right in 2017, and a 16.67 per cent share in 2016.
This means the far-left accounted for a larger proportion of terrorist violence than the far-right over the two-year period the Henry Jackson society examined — although the far-right incidents were more lethal.
Even more unusually, the Henry Jackson Society made the effort to record ‘Black Supremacist’ terrorism, which accounted for a more modest 3.28 per cent share of terrorist violence across 2016-17.
Black Supremacist attacks were mostly aimed at police, but a shooting in Fresno, California, which targetted white people indiscriminately is also included — although that attack also had something of an Islamist bent to it, with suspect Kori Ali Muhammad reportedly shouting “Allahu Akbar” as he struck.
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