The Global Terrorism Index 2016 was published today (full text linked below) by the Institute for Economics and Peace.
From News Release/Summary
The total number of deaths caused by terrorism decreased by 10% to 29,376 in 2015, according to the Global Terrorism Index 2016, reversing a four-year upward trend.
The military interventions against ISIL and Boko Haram have resulted in a 32% reduction in deaths in Iraq and Nigeria, which contributed to an overall reduction in the global figure. However, while ISIL and Boko Haram were weakened at home, these organisations spread to other countries, increasing the impact of terrorism in the rest of the world and contributing to a 6% deterioration in this year’s overall GTI score. Source: Global Terrorism Index 2016, Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP)
The yearly report, developed by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) based on the Global Terrorism Database by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) as well as other sources, provides the most comprehensive resource on global terrorist trends. It finds that at the global level, the number of countries registering their highest number of deaths in 2015 rose to 23, six more than the previous high of 17. Countries experiencing very significant deteriorations in their GTI score include France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Tunisia. This led to large changes in rank from the previous year and accounted for the overall deterioration in the global GTI score as these falls outweighed the improvements in Nigeria and Iraq.
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In OECD countries, ISIL’s transnational tactics in combination with lone actor attacks inspired by the group contributed towards a 650% increase in the number of fatalities. 21 of the 34 OECD countries experienced at least one attack, with the majority of deaths occurring in Turkey and France. Denmark, France, Germany, Sweden and Turkey all recorded the most deaths from terrorism in a single year since 2000. More than half of the 577 deaths were in connection to ISIL, whose attacks in Paris, Brussels and Ankara were amongst the most devastating in the history of these countries.
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The global economic impact of terrorism reached US$89.6 billion in 2015: Iraq suffered the highest economic impact from terrorism, reaching 17% of its GDP in 2015. The five countries with the highest total impact from terrorism are Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Pakistan and Syria. These five countries accounted for 72% of all deaths from terrorism in 2015. Operating within these countries are the four deadliest terrorist groups that are responsible for 74% of all deaths from terrorism: ISIL, Boko Haram, the Taliban and al-Qa’ida. ISIL surpassed Boko Haram as the deadliest terrorist group in 2015 through attacks in 252 different cities that were responsible for 6,141 deaths.
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
