Washington, Dec. 6 (ANI): The number of terrorist attacks worldwide has sky-rocketed over the past decade, with the highest number of incidents taking place in Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a new study.

According to the Global Terrorism Index, produced by the Australia-based Institute for Economics and Peace, violence carried out by a "non-state actor" rose from less than a thousand incidents in 2002 to 4,564 attacks in 2011, reports The Dawn.

The other countries most affected were India, Thailand, the Philippines and Russia, the study said.

"The current global trend of terrorism can best be described as plateauing rather than decreasing" since 2002, the report said.

About 1,468 people were killed last year in attacks in Pakistan and 1,293 in Afghanistan, where the bulk of a NATO-led force is due to withdraw by the end of 2014.

During the ten-year period assessed by the study, the most lethal assaults occurred in 2004.

The study, which documented 104,000 incidents since 2002, found that terrorist attacks tended to target private citizens, government offices and police. Military installations and troops only accounted for four percent of terrorist targets, it said. (ANI)