United Nations Radio

A study released Wednesday at the UN says there has been a decline in the number of victims of terrorism worldwide.

The Human Security Brief issued annually by researchers in Canada, says previous data showing sharp increases were distorted due to the inclusion of killings in Iraq, which do not qualify as terrorism. Andrew Mack, director of the Human Security Report Project told reporters that when the Iraq fatalities are excluded, there has been a substantial decline in the global terrorism toll.

"In 2004, one of the data sets counts 2,500 victims of terrorism in Iraq that year, but it counts no victims of terrorism in Darfur, in Sudan. So the case for removing Iraq from the data set is first that there's this unusual definition of terrorism, which includes people being killed in civil wars, and secondly that there is inconsistent counting."

Mr. Mack added that even in Iraq recently there has been a sharp decline in attacks, leading to a 40 percent decline of terrorism globally since 2001.

Reporting for UN Radio, I'm Bissera Kostova.

(duration: 1'05")