July 4, 2016: The U.S. State Department revealed in mid-2016 that by its calculation worldwide terrorist attacks declined (13 percent) in 2015. This was the first annual decline since 2012. The main cause of the decline was much less Islamic terrorist activity in Iraq, Pakistan and Nigeria. In Iraq the counteroffensive against ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) reduced the number of bases and personnel ISIL had available. That plus better security throughout the country brought a reduction in terror activity. In Pakistan the reduction was largely the result of major army campaign to shut down Islamic terrorists operating in North Waziristan. This place had long (since the 1990s) been a major Islamic terrorist sanctuary. In Nigeria there was a large, and successful campaign against Boko Haram, the major Islamic terror group there and responsible for a major amount of the Islamic terrorist violence in 2014. Still, the State Department counted 28,328 terrorism related deaths in 92 countries during 2015. The number of American terrorism related deaths declined from 24 in 2014 to 19 in 2015. Since 2001 annual American terrorism deaths has averaged 27. This excludes member of the military engaged in fighting Islamic terrorists.