The unfortunate fact of the world today is that terrorists and terrorism have become
commonplace.
It’s a part of many people’s everyday lives, and it seems to only be getting worse.
But exactly HOW bad is the current state of terrorism?
Recently, the Institute for Economics and Peace put together their Global Terrorism
report, examining terrorism across 162 countries.
They defined terrorism as “the threatened or actual use of illegal force and violence
by a non-state actor to attain a political, economic, religious or social goal through
fear, coercion or intimidation.”
And what they found is not good.
In 2013 alone, there were almost 10,000 separate terrorist attacks, resulting in the death
of nearly 18,000 people.
This is a significant increase from 2012, and five times worse than in the year 2000.
2013, specifically, saw terrorism that was highly contained.
82% of all deaths from terrorist attacks happened in only five countries: Iraq, Afghanistan,
Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria.
With Iraq being the deadliest.
Not to mention that 66% of all terrorist-related fatalities in 2013, were committed by only
four terrorist groups.
In total, there were 60 countries that experienced at least one death due to terrorism, with
24 of them experiencing more than 50 deaths.
And there is no reason to believe things are going to get better.
The GTI highlights a number of countries where they expect to see an increase in terrorism,
which includes Iran, Israel, Mexico and Uganda.
They attribute the increase to ongoing conflicts and hostilities between ethnic or religious
groups, current human rights abuses, or high levels of violence due to poor governing.
So, is there any good news to come out of the 2013 GTI?
Sadly, no.
Only 23 countries had fewer terrorism-related deaths from 2012.
Even the 5 countries with the largest decreases in terrorist-related deaths, still have dangerously
high levels of terrorist activities.
So, what does all this mean?
Well, in a nutshell - it means things aren’t getting better.
Terrorist attacks and deaths resulting from those attacks have increased, and not by a
small margin.
This is in spite of reports that the United States, arguably one of the leaders in the
war on terror, has spent over a trillion dollars on anti-terrorism operations since 9/11.
So is the US’s war on terror creating more terrorists?
Some say yes.
But major causes of terrorism are still due to conflicts between ethnic, religious or
political groups, which are trends we’ve seen for hundreds, if not thousands of years.
If you’d like to learn more about some lesser known, but still deadly Terrorists groups,
check out our video on the 3 Terrorists Groups you haven’t heard of.
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Thanks for watching.