Suicide Attacks in 2016: The Highest Number of Fatalities

CFP: 2016 was the deadliest year in suicide terrorism, a main weapon of deterrence and one of the most effective tools for promoting the political goals of terrorist organizations since its use began in the early 1980s.

According to the Terrorism and Low Intensity Conflict Research Program at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), in 2016, 469 suicide bombings were carried out by 800 perpetrators in 28 countries, causing the deaths of 5,650 people. These numbers represent bombings that were reported by at least two independent sources; many unverified reports by organizations seeking to glorify their name, headed by the Islamic State, were not counted, and coordinated bombings on a number of targets carried out simultaneously were counted as one bombing.

At first glance, these figures appear quite similar to those from 2015, when 452 suicide bombings were carried out by 735 perpetrators. In 2016, however, the number of fatalities rose sharply (approximately 5,650 in 2016, compared with 4,330 in 2015), as did the number of those injured (from 8,800 in 2015 to 9,480 in 2016). In addition, the number of countries in which suicide bombings occurred reached a new height (28 in 2016, compared with 22 in 2015). Note that the Islamic State declared that it had carried out hundreds of suicide bombings in addition to those documented in this report, but many of these bombings were neither reported in detail in the media nor supported by independent sources or evidence from the field, and were therefore not included.  more here