What is the point of war? To win.

How do you win? By killing and/or subduing your enemy.

So after 18 years of war how close to victory are we?

There are nearly four times as many Salafi-Jihadist militants around the world today than before 9/11: https://t.co/0B8TleXYrf pic.twitter.com/1L378hIbdD — CSIS (@CSIS) September 28, 2019

Despite nearly two decades of U.S.-led counterterrorism operations, there are nearly four times as many Sunni Islamic militants today as there were on September 11, 2001. Based on a CSIS data set of groups, fighters, and violence, the regions with the largest number of fighters are Syria (between 43,650 and 70,550 fighters), Afghanistan (between 27,000 and 64,060), Paki­stan (between 17,900 and 39,540), Iraq (between 10,000 and 15,000), Nigeria (between 3,450 and 6,900), and Somalia (between 3,095 and 7,240).





It's not just the number of terrorists. It's the number of terrorist attacks as well.



on an average, there were 19 terror attacks across the world every day between September 12, 2001 and December 31, 2017. In comparison to this, the average number of terror attacks per day was six in the 31 years before 9/11 (1970-2001). The chart below shows the yearly rise in terror attacks between 1970 and 2017. You can see that after 2001, the graph records a steep rise in the number of terror attacks in comparison to the graph in the period between 1970 and 2001.

in the 31 years before 9/11, at least 1,51,381 people were killed in terror attacks across the world. This is 36.75 per cent of the total terror-related death between 1970 and 2017. In other words, on an average 13 people were killed in terror attacks-related acts every day in this period.

In the post-9/11 era, at least 2.6 lakh people were killed in terror attacks in 16 years (between September 12, 2011 and December 31, 2017). This is 63.24 per cent of all terror-related deaths which boils down to 45 deaths every day. Thus, the average number of daily deaths due to terrorism rose from 13 in the pre-9/11 period to 45 deaths in the post-9/11 period.

So there are:

1) more terrorist groups

2) more terrorists x4

3) more terrorist attacks x3

4) more terrorist victims x3

Yet the politicians and news media never point out what an obviously disastrous failure this has been.