More than 5,000 people were killed around the world in about 664 jihadist attacks in November, portraying Islamist extremism to be "stronger than ever," according to a new study published on Thursday.
Despite al-Qaeda's declining role in terrorist activities, 14 countries were attacked last month, with Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Syria accounting for 80 percent of fatalities, according to the joint report by the BBC World Service and the International Centre for the Study of Radicalization (ICSR) at King's College London.
"The data makes it clear that jihadists and Al-Qaeda are no longer one and the same," Peter Neumann, director of ICSR, said, according to BBC.
In a total of 5,042 deaths, 2,079 were civilians, 1,723 were military personnel and about 1,000 were jihadists, according to the research, which stated that at least seven people died every hour in November.
Specifically, the Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria conducted 308 attacks, killing 2,206 people, around half of the violence, Agence France-Presse reported. On the other hand, al-Qaeda and its subsidiaries conducted 22 attacks, which resulted in 168 deaths.
Additionally, about 60 percent of the attacks were initiated by groups with no direct association with al-Qaeda, pointing to "an increasingly ambitious, complex, sophisticated and far-reaching movement".
"Sixty per cent of jihadist deaths were caused by groups that have no formal association with al-Qaeda, and they are the ones who will vie for leadership of the movement."
"It seems obvious that the jihadist movement... (is) stronger than ever and that countering (it) will be a generational challenge," the research said.
Last month, a senior Kurdish leader revealed that at least 200,000 Islamic State militants are reportedly fighting in Iraq and Syria against the international coalition, far larger than what has previously been estimated by the CIA.
While intelligence officials had reported the terrorist organization as having up to 31,500 fighters, it is now being speculated that ISIS has recruited an army hundreds of thousands strong, further proven by their ability to simultaneously cover and attack multiple widely separated fronts in Iraq and Syria, The Independent reported.
