*Access 163 country rankings in the full report
- Afghanistan down: Afghanistan was the country most impacted by terrorism in 2018, replacing Iraq, which had held that position since 2004.
- Impact trend: Since 2002, all the countries have remained on the 10 most impacted list apart from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
GLOBAL RANKINGS
A Global Overview
Deaths from terrorism halved in the last four years, but the number of countries affected is growing.
- Global security threat: 71 countries recorded at least one death from terrorism in 2018 — the highest second number of countries since 2002.
- European improvement: Deaths in Europe fell by 70%, with Western Europe recording its lowest number of incidents since 2012.
- Far-right terrorism up: There has been an increase in far-right terrorism for the third year running, in Western Europe, North America and Oceania, with deaths up by 52% in 2018.
ECONOMIC IMPACT Estimating the global impact
The economic impact of terrorism model includes costs from four categories: deaths, injuries, property destruction, and GDP losses from terrorism.
What does it tell us? Deaths from terrorism are the largest category in the model, accounting for 58% of the global economic impact of terrorism — equivalent to $19.3 billion 2018.
By the numbers
- GDP losses are the second largest category contributing to 39% of the total, or $12.9 billion.
- Property destruction is estimated at 2% of the global economic impact of terrorism, with injuries at just 1% of the total.
- In 2018, all four categories in the economic impact of terrorism model decreased from 2017 levels — that's down by $20.6 billion.
KEY FINDINGS Far-right terrorism in the West
The last few years have seen a growing concern over the threat posed by far-right extremism and terrorism — particularly in the West.
The rise in-far right attacks has led some observers to state that far-right domestic terrorism has not been taken seriously enough by the West, and that security and intelligence services should be paying closer attention to this threat.
Despite far-right terrorism accounting for a tiny fraction of the worldwide total, incidents have been increasing in the West, particularly in Western Europe, North America and Oceania:
- The total number of incidents in the West have increased by 320% over the last five years — see the chart below for 1970 – 2018.
- There have been eleven far-right attacks in the last 50 years that have killed more than 50 people.
- The three largest politically motivated terrorist attacks in the West in the last 50 years have been perpetuated by far-right extremists.
Far-right terrorism in the last ten years has become increasingly associated with individuals with broad ideological allegiances rather than specific terrorist groups.