National Counterterrorism Center: Sunni Muslim terrorists responsible for nearly 70% of terror-related deaths
According to a report by the US Government's National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), Sunni Muslim terrorists were responsible for nearly 70 percent of the world's 12,533 terror-related deaths during 2011.
According to NCTC's 2011 Report on Terrorism, "Sunni extremists accounted for the greatest number of terrorist attacks and fatalities for the third consecutive year."
Not only did the Sunni jihadists account for the lion's share of deaths, they also were responsible for 56 percent of all the world's 5,700 terror attacks.
Classified by the NCTC as Sunni extremists, Al-Qaida and its affiliates were "responsible for at least 688 attacks that resulted in almost 2,000 deaths," the report stated.
Also lumped into the NCTC's definition of Sunni extremists, the Taliban of both Afghanistan and Pakistan, "conducted over 800 attacks that resulted in nearly 1,900 deaths."
The report also cited the second largest category of terrorists during 2011 were "secular, political, and anarchist groups," which were primarily identified as Marxists, Communists and their sympathizers.
The Marxists and Communists were responsible for "conducting 2,283 attacks with 1,926 fatalities, a drop of 5 percent and 9 percent, respectively, from 2010," according to the NCTC report.