By "large-scale violence" I mean exploding a bomb in a public place, shooting missiles at buildings, etc. I mean "large-scale" as opposed to personal one-on-one violence, which probably exists in all places in the world at all times. But in my country you tend not to hear every day that someone just parked a car full of explosives in front of a government building, for example. Is it really still news to people in the Middle East?

So far as Afghanistan not being part of the Middle East, http://worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/me.htm Just an argument of semantics. Same conflict, same type of violence, same reasons (or lack thereof), so far as I can tell.