The number of terrorist attacks attributed to the group also fell to the lowest level since it was formed, with incidents attributed to the group in Twenty-seven countries experienced a terrorist attack caused by ISIL or one of its affiliates. These countries are also facing various ecological threats, are amongst the countries with the highest population growth and suffer from low societal resilience.
The largest increase in deaths from terrorism occurred in Burkina Faso, where deaths rose from 86 to , a per cent increase. Sri Lanka recorded the second largest increase in , with the Easter Sunday bombings accounting for the entirety of this increase. Sri Lanka recorded the deadliest attack of when eight coordinated suicide attacks across the country targeted churches and hotels on Easter Sunday, killing people and injuring at least South Asia remains the region most impacted by terrorism in , despite the improvements in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
This is the second year in a row that South Asia has recorded more deaths from terrorism than any other region. Terrorism comes with a heavy financial cost. Whilst this figure is a small percentage of the total impact of violence on the global economy, it should be noted that the figures for terrorism are highly conservative as they do not account for many items, including the indirect impacts on business and investment, insurance costs, lost opportunity and the costs associated with security agencies in countering terrorism.
One of the more worrying trends in the last five years is the surge in far-right political terrorism, even though the absolute number of far-right attacks remains low when compared to other forms of terrorism.
In North America, Western Europe, and Oceania, far-right attacks have increased by per cent since , with deaths increasing by per cent over the same period. There were 89 deaths attributed to far-right terrorists in , with 51 of those occurring in the Christchurch mosque attacks in New Zealand.
There have been over 35 far-right terrorist incidents in the West every year for the past five years. Far-right terrorism tends to be more lethal than far-left terrorism, but not as lethal as Islamist terrorism in the West. There have been 13 far-right terrorist attacks that have each killed more than ten people over the past 50 years, compared to 24 Islamist attacks, and three from other ideologies.
Far-right terrorism is also more likely to be carried out by individuals unaffiliated with a specific terrorist group. Nearly 60 per cent of far-right attacks from to were carried out by unaffiliated individuals, compared to under ten per cent for both far-left and separatist terrorist groups. There are some signs that political violence is becoming more publically acceptable, as the level of polarisation in society continues to rise. Last year people were killed and 1, injured in incidents.
The deadliest group is the Khorasan Chapter of Islamic State, which accounted for of the deaths last year. It was followed by Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan which killed people. Another group which had been very active in the past, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, was relatively quiet last year, carrying out just two attacks and killing six people. Alongside that, there were injuries from the terrorist incidents.
Aleppo was the worth affected part of the country, followed by Idlib, the capital Damascus and Deir es-Zour in the east. The fall in deaths is in part a result of the largely successful campaign against Islamic State — last year the group was responsible for the lowest number of deaths since However, Islamic State remains the most lethal group in the country.
The deadliest group, Boko Haram, continues to be put under pressure by a multinational task force set up by the government of Nigeria with assistance from Cameroon, Chad and Niger and, as a result, it was responsible for fewer deaths last year than the year before. However, the danger from other groups is rising. The IEP says the increase in deaths across the country in was a result of extremist Fulani groups who have become more active and were responsible for 1, deaths last year compared to for Boko Haram.
Military commanders inspect arms and ammunition recovered from Boko Haram jihadists on display at There was a dramatic improvement in terms of the impact of terrorism in Iraq last year.
There was also a fall in the number of terrorist incidents, from 1, in to 1, last year, and the lethality of attacks fell from 2. While things have improved substantially, Iraq remains a dangerous country, with 1, deaths and 1, injuries at the hands of terrorists in However, the improvements have meant that, for the first time since , Iraq is no longer the worst country in the world for terrorism.
In the longer-term the threat from terrorism remains high and analysts warn there is still the chance of a revival of Islamic State, or something worse.
After a couple of years in which things seemed to be stabilizing, the situation in Afghanistan sharply deteriorated in Last year, 16 of the 20 worst terrorist attacks around the world happened in Afghanistan, 12 of them carried out by the Taliban. Also active was the Khorasan Chapter of Islamic State, particularly in the east of the country. Afghan security personnel escort alleged Taliban and Islamic State militants arrested during an This is a BETA experience.
You may opt-out by clicking here. This is not straightforward. Despite considerable discussion, the formation of a comprehensive convention against international terrorism by the United Nations has always been impeded by the lack of consensus on a definition.
The key problem is that terrorism is difficult to distinguish from other forms of political violence and violent crime, such as state-based armed conflict, non-state conflict, one-sided violence, hate crime, and homicide.
The lines between these different forms of violence are often blurry. Here, we take a look at standard criteria of what constitutes terrorism, as well as how it might be distinguished from other forms of violence. Violent actions are usually categorised according to the perpetrator, the victim, the method, and the purpose. A few key distinguishing factors are common to most definitions of terrorism, with minor variations.
The following criteria are adapted from the definition given by Bruce Hoffman in Inside Terrorism. To be considered an act of terrorism, an action must be violent, or threaten violence. As such, political dissent, activism, and nonviolent resistance do not constitute terrorism. Human rights groups, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch , publish reports on such cases of censorship. The inclusion of damage to private and public property in the definition of terrorism is a point of contention, but it is generally accepted in legal and statistical contexts.
An action must also be carried out for political, economic, religious, or social purposes to count as terrorism. For example, the terrorist organisation Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ISIL has clearly stated its political goal to establish itself as a caliphate. Likewise, attacks perpetrated by white extremists have discernable sociopolitical motivations, and so are considered acts of terrorism. To be classified as terrorism, actions must be designed to have far-reaching psychological repercussions beyond the immediate victim or target.
Additionally, targetting noncombatant, neutral, or randomly chosen people — generally, people not engaged in hostilities — is a necessary but not sufficient condition to constitute terrorism. Finally, the action must be perpetrated by a subnational group or non-state entity. Based on the criteria above, we can begin to separate terrorism from other types of violence based on some very simplified distinctions:.
But even with these distinctions in mind, there is not always a clear-cut boundary between terrorism and other forms of conflict like civil war and violence targeting civilians. Given the difficulty of excluding such cases in a systematic way, this database includes them wherever they meet the basic criteria that form the definition of terrorism. You can explore this by downloading the full GTD dataset at their website.
As such, there is a partial overlap between common definitions of terrorism and certain other types of conflict. Another way in which conflict researchers distinguish between different types of violent acts is in terms of the number of victims. Therefore many, but not all, of the events recorded in GTD will also be counted in the UCDP data, which are the basis of our charts of non-state and one-sided violence.
As an example, the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York City are included as both a terrorist attack in the GTD , and an episode of one-sided violence in the UCDP data, because the perpetrators were members of the organised group Al-Qaida, and it resulted in more than 25 deaths. However, the Norway attacks on 22 July , in which a right-wing extremist killed or injured more than people, is included in GTD as a terror attack, but is not present in UCDP data, since the attacker was acting independently, and did not represent the government of a state.
We are therefore aware that there can be overlap between the data we present on terrorism and that which we present on conflict. This fact is a crucial point in understanding the definition of terrorism and what the term means to people. Many of the terrorist attacks that take place today are events which many people would think of as a different form of violence or conflict.
In fact, most terrorism actually happens in countries of high internal conflict, because ultimately terrorism is another form of conflict. In , an estimated 26, people died from terrorism globally. Over the previous decade the average number of annual deaths was 21, However, there can be significant year-to-year variability. Over this decade the global death toll ranged from its lowest of 7, in to the highest year of 44, in Terrorism often dominates media coverage.
We are informed about attacks as soon as they happen and many attacks claim the headlines. Whilst our attention is drawn to these events — just as the terrorists intend — such intense coverage can make it difficult to contextualize the true extent of terrorism. This is because the availability heuristic : our perceptions are heavily influenced by the most recent examples of it.
In this chart we see global terrorism deaths in the context of deaths from all causes. The size of the big rectangle corresponds to the number of deaths in The share of deaths from terrorism are shown in red. A very small fraction. Close to 56 million people died in ; just over 26, of them from terrorism. But terrorist activity can vary a lot from year-to-year.
Maybe was a particularly low or high year. When we look at the trend — also shown in chart form — over the past few decades we see it hovered from 0. It was therefore a relatively high year for terrorist deaths, but not the peak. Globally, over 26, people died in terrorist attacks in Where in the world did terrorists kill most people? In this chart we see the number of deaths from terrorism by region in This is also true when we look at the number of incidents , rather than the number of deaths.
As we will see in the following section, not only is there a strong regional focus but this is also heavily concentrated in only a few countries within these regions. Guerrilla movements in Central and South America, for example, dominated terrorism in the s. Terrorism is often regionally-focused. The Middle East and North Africa had by far the largest number of deaths in ; but not all countries were affected.
We see the number of terrorism deaths by country in this map. This was one-in-four terrorism deaths globally. But some countries in the region — such as Nepal — had almost none. Looking at the where in the world terrorism happens highlights an important point: it tends to be in countries with high levels of internal conflict.
Here we discuss in detail the challenges of separating terrorism from other forms of conflict such as civil war or homicide. This proves difficult because often there is a strong overlap. If we look at a recent list of terrorist incidents across the world — take June as an example — we see the majority are events that most people would understand to be terrorism: roadside bombings; car detonations; attacks on religious or political institutions.
Although usually performed by one or a small group of individuals, most are affiliated with well-known terrorist groups, such as Islamic State, Taliban, Boko Haram, and Al-Shabaab. Again, most people would clearly associate these with terrorism violence. But where the lines become blurred is that many of these groups are rebel or insurgency groups in various domestic conflicts. Islamic State, for example, is a key instigator in the Syrian civil war; Al-Shabaab in internal Somalian conflict.
This means that most terrorism occurs in countries of high conflict because the internal conflict is — to a certain extent — terrorism. The map below which shows terrorism as a share of total deaths for each country. In most countries — particularly across Europe, the Americas and Oceania — deaths from terrorism accounted for less than 0. They are rare in most countries of the world today. This is not true everywhere. In a number of countries across the Middle East and Africa, terrorist deaths reach up to several percent.
Iraq was the most affected 4. These are countries where overall conflict — of which terrorist activity is a part — is high. In fact, as we discuss here , the boundary between terrorism, conflict, one-sided violence or civil war is not always clear-cut.
This map shows an overview for The extent of terrorism in most countries is very low. But — as we mentioned in the global-level data — this can change from year to year [you can see this on the map above using the timeline on the bottom of the chart].
Attacks can be non-existent for many years before an unexpected rise or spike. What effect does this have? The United States provides an important example. Terrorism deaths in most years are very few: typically below 0. It claimed lives, accounting for 0.
We should therefore be aware of this volatility: having few deaths from terrorism in one year is not a predictor for the next. Overall we see that terrorism deaths globally — and in most parts of the world — are relatively rare. Much more common risks — often ones that we can influence — kill many more people.
An estimated 7 million deaths each year result from smoking; 4. The dominance of terrorism in the daily news cycle can mean that we lose perspective of this. But is this really true? In this visualization we shown terrorism deaths in Western Europe since Another useful resource which cross-references well with this database for Western Europe is the Wikipedia entry : you can find further context of particular events there. Here we see annual deaths from terrorism in the order of hundreds, and reaching over deaths in some years.
The United Kingdom was home to the largest share of deaths for much of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. We see quite a marked decline post with the Good Friday Agreement between British and Irish governments. Since the Millennium the annual death toll has been below 50 deaths in most years, and often below For context, compare that to how many people die on the roads : in around 70 people died every day in road incidents.
The year to year changes are nonetheless volatile. Large terrorist attacks — such as the Madrid train bombings in ; London bombings; Norway attacks; Paris attacks; the truck attacks in Nice and the Berlin Christmas market attack in ; and the Manchester and Barcelona attacks in — have occurred since the turn of the century. This trend is also reflected when we look at the number of terrorist attacks.
With exception of the s, terrorism data in Western Europe can be hard to see when bundled with other regions. This in itself is an important point: terrorist deaths in Western Europe are very low within the global context. This has changed dramatically since then. In , only 0. Between and — over almost two decades — there were just under deaths in Western Europe from terrorism. This is equal to the death toll of only two to three years during the s.
The Global Terrorism Database GTD — the most comprehensive database of terrorist incidents to date — was founded and is currently maintained from programmes in the United States. This, combined with the fact that terrorist incidents would have been covered extensively in the US media dating back to the s makes it likely that it has the most complete record of terrorist attacks in recent decades.
In this visualization we show the annual death toll from terrorism in the US since The September 11 attacks in New York stand out as the most fatal terrorist event in the world in recent history. In fact, claiming the lives of nearly people, the death toll in was almost four times higher than the combined deaths from terrorism in the US since Over the last five years there has been a small but steady increase in terrorist deaths in the US.
In most years terror attacks caused fewer than 50 deaths per year, and in many years no one died from attacks. With exception of , terrorism accounted for less than 0. For comparison, around people die in road accidents in the United States every day. When we look at the number of terrorist attacks we see a marked decline since the early s.
Airline hijackings are a very visible form of terrorism. But whilst hijackings can seem like a modern form of terrorism, they have a long history: in fact, hijackings today are very rare and much less frequent than the past. Most commonly, hijackers would demand the pilot fly to a specific location, or sometimes hijackers would attempt to fly the aircraft themselves. Incidents of hijacking have been around almost as long as human flight itself with suspected hijacks dating as far back as , and the first recorded hijacking in But they were still relatively rare until the s.
In this chart we see the annual number of hijacking incidents and fatalities globally from onwards. This data is sourced from the Aviation Safety Network , which provides up-to-date and complete information on airliner accidents across the world.
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