Bangladesh ranks 22nd in Global Terrorism Index

Bangladesh has risen three points in the Global Terrorism Index done by the Institute of Economics and Peace, which means the situation has deteriorated.

Bangladesh’s score at 6.479 places it at 22 out of the 163 countries listed in the index.

Last year, Bangladesh scored 5.921 and stood at 25th position. In 2014, it scored 5.25 to rank at 23rd.

The 2016 index scores were calculated using reports of terrorist activity and attacks in 2015.

Of the 163 countries included in the study, 129 reported incidents of terrorism.

The report calls 2015 “a difficult year” for Bangladesh, as it witnessed several assasinations of local secular personalities by Islamist jihadis .

According to the report, Bangladesh recorded 459 attacks and 75 deaths as a result of terrorist activity in 2015.

The report says that terrorism in Bangladesh has historically been carried out by Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen and other local groups, but it insists that attacks by al-Qa’ida in the Indian Subcontinent and a local ISIL affiliate led to 11 deaths in 2015.

Next year’s report will include the July Holey Artisan Bakery attack that resulted in the death of 29 in Dhaka.

According to the reports, an estimated four percent of 2015 terrorist attacks across the world occurred in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh was also included in a group of countries that saw “dramatic increases” in number of deaths from terrorism.

Syria, Yemen, Kuwait, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, France, Turkey, Chad, Cameroon and Niger were the other countries on the list.

The report says the large scale attacks in Bangladesh were either inspired by or directly related to the Islamic State or its affiliates. 

Global Terrorism Index 2016

>> The index is done on a range of 10 and is calculated on the total number of terrorist incidents in a given year, the number of fatalities and injuries caused by terrorism and the approximate level of total property damage from terrorist incidents.

>> Since last year’s report, 76 countries improved their GTI score, while those of 53 countries , including Bangladesh, got worse.

>>Approximately half of the terrorist attacks in the world occurred in five countries – Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Pakistan and Syria. Attacks in these countries account for approximately 72 percent of deaths in 2015.

>>As many as 29,376 deaths from terrorism were recorded in 2015, a 10 percent decrease since 2015. It is the first recorded decrease in deaths since 2010.

>>The global economic impact of terrorism was $89.6 billion in 2015, a 15 percent decrease from the previous year’s level.

>> 274 known terrorist groups carried out at least one attack last year and 103 of these groups did not kill anyone.

Terrorism around the globe

The top five slots in the GTI were occupied by the same countries as the 2015 report. Iraq took the top spot with a score of 9.96. Afghanistan, Nigeria, Pakistan and Syria retained their positions in the top five.

Slots four to ten were occupied by Yemen, Somalia, India, Egypt and Libya.

India and Thailand witnessed improvements, the former dropping from 6th to 8th and latter from 10 to 15 in the rankings. A deteriorating situation in Egypt led to it being ranked 9th from the previous year's 13th.

In the rest of South Asia, Afghanistan ranks 3rd, Pakistan 4th, India 8th, Nepal 39th, Sri Lanka 53rd and Bhutan 119th.

The Institute for Economics and Peace reports that terrorist attacks in OECD countries have increased by 650 percent in 2015 since the previous year.

According to the report China ranks 23rd in GTI in the world, France 29th, Saudi Arabia 30th, UK 34th and the US 36th.