MONITORING (SW) – Figures in the Global Terrorism Index – published by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) think tank – show Afghanistan had the largest increase in terror-related deaths (6,103) in 2018.
“The situation in Afghanistan in remarkable because the Taliban and the local IS chapter there are only active in that one country,” said Serge Stroobants, the IEP’s Europe, Middle East and North Africa director – adding that Afghanistan’s unstable political environment has allowed insurgency activity to flourish.
The Taliban is now the “deadliest terrorist group” in the world, according to the 2019 Global Terrorism Index, which also said that the total number of deaths worldwide from terrorism declined for the fourth consecutive year in 2018, falling by 15.2% to 15,952 deaths.
“The figures are really mind-blowing…we’ve seen an increase of 70 percent in the number of deaths the Taliban has produced – a group that’s responsible for 38 percent of all [global] deaths by terrorism”, according to the report. For the first time since 2003, Iraq is no longer the country most impacted by terrorism. Islamic State losses in Iraq and Syria have seen a tactical shift, pushing insurgents elsewhere.
“When you look, for example, at this current chapter of IS in Afghanistan, you see a clear local recruitment, and you also see a redistribution of certain assets coming from the Middle East and moving towards Afghanistan”, said the report. On the flipside, deaths attributed to IS fell globally by just under 70 percent. There were no deaths attributed to IS in Western Europe in 2018.
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