World

Muslims around the world are celebrating the start of the Eid al-Adha holiday on September 1 as some 2 million Muslim pilgrims carry out the final rites of the annual hajj in Saudi Arabia.

After dawn, hundreds of thousands of people began a symbolic ritual of stoning the devil amid tight security in the desert valley of Mina, near the holy city of Mecca, two years after a stampede killed some 2,300 pilgrims at the event.

The pilgrims cast pebbles at three large columns, chanting "God is the greatest" each time.

The final days of hajj coincide with Eid al-Ahda, the multiday festival also known as the Feast of Sacrifice. Eid al-Adha and Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, are the two most important festivals in the Islamic calendar.

It is traditional to slaughter livestock for Eid al-Adha and distribute the meat to the poor.

Most pilgrims will remain in Mina until September 4 before completing the hajj. They will then circle the cube-shaped Kaaba in Mecca, Islam's most sacred site, before departing.

Following the 2015 stampede in Mina, the Saudi government has widened some roads to try to improve the safety of the hajj. More than 100,000 security forces have been deployed there during the hajj to assist pilgrims.

Based on reporting by AP, dpa

Terrorist attacks have riveted attention in the United States and Europe, but those regions accounted for only a tiny percentage of fatalities from such attacks last year, a new report has found.

The report issued on August 23 from the University of Maryland and based on its Global Terrorism Database found that Western Europe and North America accounted for less than 1 percent of the 34,676 people killed in terror attacks in 2016, while they accounted for less than 2 percent of all attacks.

Countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen suffered the most frequent and deadly attacks, which were concentrated by region in the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa, the study found.

Attacks by the Islamic State extremist group and its affiliates, while much feared in the West, were heavily concentrated in Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nigeria, and other Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African countries, the report found.

Iraq alone suffered nine of the 11 deadliest attacks in 2016, each carried out by IS, including the single deadliest attack, where a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden truck outside a Baghdad shopping center, killing at least 382 people.

South Asia accounted for 27 percent of all attacks and 22 percent of those killed in 2016.

With reporting by AFP