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LONDON: Afghanistan is now the deadliest country in the world for terrorism although the total number of terror attacks globally fell by a third last year.
The decrease is revealed in the latest annual report by Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Center (JTIC) Global Attack Index, published on Wednesday. The index recorded 15,321 attacks by non-state armed groups in 2018 — 33.2 percent fewer than in 2017. The figure is the lowest since 2011 and the lowest since JTIC began collecting data in 2009.
Attacks by Daesh fell by 71 percent and the number of deaths more than halved in 2018. The decrease is largely due to Daesh losing territory the previous year in Iraq, and in Syria as the government regained control over key areas in and around Damascus.
But the extremists group remains the most deadly in terms of the number of civilians it killed .
Attacks in Syria fell by almost two-thirds — 63.6 percent — meaning it is no longer the most dangerous country on the planet.
That unenviable title now goes to Afghanistan, where terrorist violence increased by 31.5 percent resulting in an 81.8 percent rise in casualties. Daesh remains active in Afghanistan — as well in Pakistan and West Africa — but the figures also indicate the increasing power of the Taliban.
“In addition to periodic mass-casualty attacks by local Islamic State [Daesh] forces, the increases in both attacks and fatalities were representative of the growing strength of the Taliban, which intensified its territorial threat to the Kabul government in both rural areas and increasingly in urban centers,” said Matthew Henman, head of JTIC.
Ukraine, which is locked in a bitter civil war between nationalist Ukrainian and pro-Russian separatists, also bucked the downward trend in 2018 with attacks up by almost a fifth from 3,735 in 2017 to 4,422 in 2018. The JTIC report attributes the rise to increased activity by two pro-Russian militant groups in eastern Ukraine and says the Donetsk People’s Republic has now overtaken Daesh as the world’s most violent group in terms of recorded attacks.
In general, however, violence by militants became less prevalent in 2018. JTIC recorded attacks by non-state armed groups in 90 countries, compared to 116 countries in 2017.
JTIC says it compiles data using local, national and international sources, government and inter-governmental reports and analytical articles and seeks to verify accuracy “through detailed examining and cross-referencing of all available sources.”