Sri Lanka at risk of increased terrorist activity, ranks 36th in Global Terrorism Index
Friday, 21 November 2014 01:16
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Sri Lanka has been identified as one of the 13 countries that are being at risk of increased terrorist activity from current levels in the 2014 Global Terrorism Index Report released Wednesday.
The second edition of the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) report, produced by the London-based Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), has ranked Sri Lanka at 36th place with a score of 4.01 out of 10 among 162 countries.
The report, which provides a comprehensive summary of the key global trends and patterns in terrorism over the last 14 years from 2000 to 2013, has highlighted 13 countries that are not in conflict but at risk of higher levels of terrorism.
In addition to Sri Lanka, Angola, Bangladesh, Burundi, Central African Republic, Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Iran, Israel, Mali, Mexico, Myanmar, and Uganda are identified as at risk of increased terrorism due to the presence of four factors – extrajudicial killing, lack of women’s political rights, lack of intergroup cohesion and political instability.
The GTI, which was first launched in 2012, is based on data from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) which is collected and collated by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START).
It ranks countries by the impact of terrorist activities as well as analysing the economic and social dimensions associated with terrorism.
The GTI report summarises trends in terrorism over time and analyses its changing patterns in terms of geographic activity, methods of attack, organisations involved and the national economic and political context.
According to the GTI report, in 2013 terrorist activity increased substantially with the total number of deaths rising from 11,133 in 2012 to 17,958 in 2013, a 61% increase.
In 2013 more than 80 percent of the lives lost to terrorism occurred in only five countries – Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria and terrorism in 2013 was dominated by four organisations – Islamic State, Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, collectively responsible for 66 percent of all fatalities.
In South Asia India ranked at sixth place with significant terrorist activity, including on the border between India and Pakistan. Bangladesh ranked at 23rd, on the GTI, a notch above Nepal at 24th.
