Isis now has support from 42 different international groups in countries ranging from the Philippines to Egypt, it has been revealed.
The map, produced for The Independent by statistics agency Statista, shows the 30 groups to have pledged formal affiliation to the terrorist group and 12 more that have pledged their support, as identified in a Global Terrorism Index report.
Isis is the richest and most violent terrorist group in modern history, the report states, and part of its strategy is to attract foreign fighters.
Attacks have been carried out by the Ansar al-Sharia group in Libya, the Okba Ibn Nafaa Battalion in Tunisia, and the Ansar Beit al-Maqdis group in the Egyptian Synai, while the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and the Indonesian Abu Sayyaf group have also pledged their allegiance to the terrorist group.
Pro-Isis factions have been seen in Algeria and Gaza, while “splinter factions from Afghanistan and Pakistan have sent fighters to the Syria-Iraqi battlefields,” the report stated.
The Global Terrorism Index, created by The International Institute if Economics and Peace (IEP), measures the scale and impact of terror attacks across the world. The report, released last month, found that global terrorism has reached its highest level and is continuing to rise at an “unprecedented pace”.
Despite the rise of terrorism incidents globally, the majority of people killed in terrorist attacks are in five Muslim-majority countries: Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria.
Boko Haram, which was the deadliest terrorist group of 2014 and this year pledged its allegiance to Isis, while engaging heavily with the group through “military training, funding channels and social media”.
The five most deadly terrorist groups – Boko Haram, Isis, the Taliban, the Fulani militants and al-Shabaab – were found to be responsible for the 74 per cent of all terrorist deaths in 2014, killing a total of 18,444 people collectively.
