The number of deaths from terrorism rose by an alarming 44% in 2013, with Iraq being the country most affected.
During the year there were nearly 10,000 terrorist attacks from which nearly 18,000 people died. Of these 6,362 people in Iraq were killed.
Much of the increase was due to increased conflict in the Syrian civil war.
The Global Terrorism Index 2014 said that Islamic State, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram and the Taliban were responsible for 66% of the deaths. All four groups used "religious ideologies based on extreme interpretations of Wahhabi Islam", the report said.
The majority (80%) of the deaths took place in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria (14,722 deaths) but 60 countries in all recorded deaths from terrorism.
India, Somalia, the Philippines, Yemen and Thailand were the next five, with between 1% and 2.3% of global deaths by terrorism.
But it was not only religious ideology which motivated terrorism. In many places it was "far more likely to be driven by political or nationalistic and separatist" movements.
For example, Maoist groups were responsible for nearly half of all deaths from terrorism in India.
The report said three main factors correlate with terrorism:
High social hostilities between different ethnic, religious and linguistic groups
The presence of state-sponsored violence such as extrajudicial killings and human rights abuses
High levels of overall violence, such as deaths from organised conflict or high levels of violent crime
However, the report stresses that while terrorism is on the increase, it is important to keep the numbers in context.
About 50% of terrorist attacks claim no lives, while 40 times more people are killed in murders than in terrorist attacks, according to a recent UN report.
Sad and depressing statistics. A glimmer for residents in Portugal was that the report found the “state of peace” in this nation was “very high”, ranking 18th highest in the world, and above some of its fellow European countries, including Spain (27th) and the UK (44th).
