Global Terrorism Index(GTI)

Key highlights-

• The GTI report is produced by the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP) using data from TerrorismTracker and other sources. 
• TerrorismTracker provides event records on terrorist attacks since 1 January 2007. The dataset contains almost 66,000 terrorist incidents for the period 2007 to 2022.
• According to the tenth Global Terrorism Index (GTI) report Afghanistan remains the country most impacted by terrorism for the fourth consecutive year, despite attacks and deaths falling by 75 per cent and 58 per cent, respectively. 
• GTI reported that the Islamic State-Khorasan (Daesh) has emerged as “the most active terrorist group” in Afghanistan.
• However, the report stressed that it does not include acts of state repression and violence by state actors and, as such, acts committed by the Taliban are no longer included in the scope of the report since they took control of the government.
• Globally, deaths from terrorism fell by nine per cent to 6,701 deaths, marking a 38 per cent decrease from its peak in 2015. 
• The fall in deaths was mirrored by a reduction in the number of incidents. However, if Afghanistan was removed from the index, terrorism deaths would have increased by four per cent.
• Another stagnant trend showed that South Asia remains the region with the worst average GTI score.
• The region recorded 1,354 deaths from terrorism in 2022, a decrease of 30 per cent when compared to the previous year; however, if the improvement in Afghanistan was excluded, then terrorism deaths would have increased by 71 per cent.
• Pakistan saw a significant increase in terror-related deaths, logging a 120 per cent increase from the previous year.
• Afghanistan and Pakistan remain amongst the ten countries most affected by terrorism in 2022. 
• The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) were responsible for a third of these deaths in Pakistan, a ninefold increase from the prior year, making it the fastest growing terrorist group in the world.
• The deadliest terrorist groups in the world in 2022 were Islamic State (IS) and its affiliates, followed by al-Shabaab, Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and Jamaat Nusrat Al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM).
• It added that IS remained the deadliest terror group globally for the eighth consecutive year, recording the most attacks and deaths of any group in 2022. 
• Despite this, terrorism deaths attributed to IS and its affiliate groups, Islamic State – Khorasan Province (ISK), Islamic State – Sinai Province (ISS) and Islamic State West Africa (ISWA), declined by 16 per cent.

India’s ranking-

• India ranked 13th on the index, marking only a marginal decrease from the previous year. 
• In spite of being among the 25 worst-hit nations on the index, Indian respondents desisted from selecting war and terrorism as the biggest threat to their daily safety.

Note-  The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) has corrected the report related to GTI 2023 after the Communist Party of India (CPI) was wrongly included in the list of deadliest terror groups of 2022.