2012: The most active year for terrorism on record

Rodrigo Sermeno writes that Congress has been getting reports from terrorism experts that

According to data compiled by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, more then 6,800 terrorist attacks killed more than 11,000 people in 2012, making it the most active year of terrorism on record.

Bill Braniff, a terrorism analyst at the University of Maryland, said the six most lethal groups in 2012 – the Taliban, Boko Haram, al-Qaeda in Iraq, Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and al-Shabaab – were responsible for approximately 5,000 deaths.

One of these Salafi jihadist groups, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), recently seized control of parts of the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi located in Iraq’s Anbar province – the site of a long and bloody battle for U.S. forces during the Iraq war.