In November alone, those who claim to be Islam’s Sunni holy warriors killed 5,000 people in the name of their God, according to a BBC study.
The study found that in November, 5,042 people were murdered in 664 separate jihadi onslaughts, and the attacks took place in 14 different countries.
The Islamic State ranked #1 in terms of killing in the name of jihad, with over 2,000 killings committed at the hands of the Sunni terror group. Nigeria-based Boko Haram slaughtered some 786 people in 27 different attacks. The Afghanistan and Pakistan-based Taliban carried out jihadist attacks that resulted in the deaths of around 700. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula took out almost 500 in Yemen. Rounding out the top five is al-Qaeda-linked Al Shabab, which operates out of Somalia and Kenya and killed 266 people in November.
Civilians were the most affected group, accounting for 2,079 killed, followed by 1,723 affiliated with a country’s military.
The study only focused on Sunni jihadist attacks, leaving out all the murders committed in the name of Islam by Shiite radicals. In 2013, the Shiite Islamic Republic of Iran executed around 700 of its own citizens. Its proxy terror group Hezbollah murders rivals daily in Syria, and the Houthi insurgency that Iran backs in Yemen have killed thousands over the past few years. Additionally, Iran-backed Gaza Strip terror group Hamas, which follows Sunni Islam, is responsible for the deaths of 66 Israeli soldiers and 6 civilians during the Israel-Hamas war this summer. Furthermore, some estimates state that as many as 25 percent of Hamas’s rockets backfired or fell short and killed Gaza civilians.
The study also left out a November terror attack committed by Uyghurs in Xinjiang, China, which resulted in the deaths of fifteen.