Violence in Iraq is skewing international terrorism statistics, according to a new Canadian study.
A Canadian-based research group report finds that there has actually been a decline in global terrorism, if civilian fatalities in Iraq are taken out of the equation.
The Human Security Brief for 2007 said that without the civilian casualties from Iraq, fatalities from terrorism have decreased by about 40 per cent since 2001.
Project director Andrew Mack, a Simon Fraser University professor, said that "when we look a little bit more closely at this data, the incidence of terrorism is declining.''
The new report, by the Canadian-based research group Human Security Report Project, analyzed and compared data from three major U.S. government-funded terrorism research institutions.
The U.S. studies counted fatalities in Iraq as terror deaths, where it could be argued that the deaths should be classified as causalities of war, Mack told Canada AM.
"(But) there's nothing wrong about doing that . . . because there is no correct definition (of terrorism)," he said of the American studies.
He said that similar deaths in African conflicts were not counted as terrorism fatalities. Terror deaths rose according to the U.S. studies following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, because many deaths were attributed to terrorism.
According to one of those studies, he said, 80 per cent of all terror-related fatalities worldwide took place in Iraq.
But using the same data while omitting Iraq, the study shows a sharp decline in terrorism deaths after terrorism fatalities peaked in 2001.
Mack added that even if Iraq is kept in the equation, there has been a decrease in terrorism violence since 2007, according to the U.S. studies.
Al Qaeda support decreases
Support for al Qaeda has actually decreased in the Muslim world, the Human Security report also finds.
There are three reasons for this, Mack said.
"(Al Qaeda) has an extraordinarily extreme ideology that very few Muslims support," he said. "Secondly, it seeks to impose that ideology by very harshly repressive policies, which generate an enormous amount of resentment."
"And finally, and most importantly, its indiscriminate violence targets primarily other Muslims."
He said support for al Qaeda in the Muslim world is declining at an "enormous" rate.
