A total of 5,042 people were killed in 14 countries over the month, with Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Syria accounting for 80 percent of attacks, said the report titled "The New Jihadism: A Global Snapshot," conducted by BBC along with the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR). The research project published Wednesday recorded a daily average of 22 attacks and 168 fatalities.
"The data makes it clear that jihadists and al-Qaeda are no longer one and the same," the director of ICSR Peter Neumann said, as quoted by the BBC on Thursday. "Sixty percent of jihadist deaths were caused by groups that had no formal association with al-Qaeda, and they are the ones who will vie for leadership of the movement," he added.
Bombings were found to be the most frequent type of attack, claiming 1,653 lives. Shooting was a close second, followed by ambush, execution and shelling. A majority of those killed were civilians, though nearly 1,000 jihadists were also killed.
