The number of global terrorist attacks dropped for the third year in a row, a new report by the U.S. State Department announced last week. The study found that there were about 8,600 terrorist attacks in the past year, which is roughly a quarter less than the previous year.

The number of deaths dropped to 18,753, a drop on par with the overall downward trend of 2017. A majority of those deaths — seven out of ten — were concentrated in five countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia and Syria.

Iran was spotlighted as a top threat in the report, in line with the Trump administration’s hardening position against the country. President Trump is doubling down on this tough stance, which is part of a wider pivot happening across the State Department. The Bureau moving away from a decades long focus on fighting foreign extremist groups to concentrating on state adversaries.

source: statista