A new study released Tuesday said that international terrorist attacks have gone up 460 percent since 9/11.
Produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace, the Global Terrorism Index "is the first index to systematically rank and compare 158 countries according to the impact of terrorism."
The index is based on data from the Global Terrorism Database, which is collected and collated by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), headquartered at the University of Maryland.
Here are some of the highlights:
- In the decade since 9/11, fatalities from terrorist attacks have increased by 195 percent, incidents by 460 percent and injuries by 224 percent
- Only 31 of the 158 countries ranked have not experienced a terrorist attack since 2001
- North America is the least likely region to suffer from terrorism
- Western Europeans are nineteen times more likely to be killed in a terrorist attack than North Americans
- Since 2002, only 6 percent of all fatalities have been terrorists, highlighting the effectiveness of terrorism
- In 2011, Iraq was the country most impacted from terrorism, followed by Pakistan and Afghanistan.
According to the report, "global terrorism only started to increase after the escalation of the Iraq war. This was subsequently followed by further increasing waves of terrorism in Afghanistan and then in Pakistan eighteen months later."
Also of note, "North America is the least likely region to suffer from terrorism, with a fatality rate 19 times lower than Western Europe. The U.S. has had the largest improvement in GTI score from 2002 – 2011, dropping from 1st to 41st in the index, as the effects of 9/11 dissipated."
In fact, "The U.S., Algeria and Colombia had the biggest improvements over the last ten years."
Of great concern however are the increases in terrorist activity in Syria and Yemen.
According to the report, in recent years Yemen has seen a dramatic upsurge in activity directly linked to al Qaeda.
Meanwhile, the rebels in Syria have increasingly turned to suicide attacks and bombings.
