Terrorism is not a 21st-century phenomenon and has its roots in early resistance and political movements. While acts of global terrorism have increased considerably in the recent decades, in most parts of the world, it continues to be a comparatively rare event and is instead focused on particular countries or regions of instability. The visualization in slide 3 Terrorism Across the Globe shows the annual number of terrorist attacks across the globe and by country, which can be explored by using the “Flag” button or switching to the “Map” tab.

Iraq ranks first on the Global Terrorism Index with a score of 9.96 points, making it the world’s most affected country by terrorism on earth.

2000 civilians died in terrorist attacks in the year 2000. The number witnessed a humongous 550% increase in casualties in the year 2015. In the past 16 years, the worst year for terrorism was 2014 experiencing 32765 people killed.

The 9/11 attack marked a turning point in world history and the beginning of the ‘War on Terror.’ The attacks killed 3000 people making it the deadliest terrorist incident in the history of human civilization. The succeeding War on Terror led to the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. The bar graph ‘Death by terrorist attacks over the past 16 years’ summarizes the concentration of terrorist attacks pre- and post-9/11. It shows that terrorism pre-9/11 was centered in Latin America and Asia but drove to the Middle East after-9/11–Peru, Chile and El Salvador entirely vanished from the top 10. More than a quarter of all terrorist attacks between 9/11 and 2008 took place in Iraq.

The graph exhibits the shifting concentration of global terrorist activity. Terrorism post-9/11 has been concentrated in predominantly Muslim countries as a result of extremist Islamic ideologies and sectarian violence.

In the graph ‘Attacks by Region,’ we see the number of casualties from terrorist attacks aggregated by region. Over this 40-50-year of timespan, we see that some regions have particular periods of relatively high casualty numbers – for example, Central America & the Caribbean in the 1970s & 1980s. We observe that over the past decade, the number of fatalities in the Middle East & Africa has risen predominantly. In 2016, nearly 75 percent of terror-related casualties were in the Middle East & Africa, just under one-quarter in South and Southeast Asia, about one percent in Europe, and 0.5% in the America.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) or ISIS was the deadliest in 2015, responsible for 6141 deaths. Taliban, Bokoharam, Al-Shabab, and TTP follow closely killing maximum civilians in a country.

Those of citizens, military, government and the department of police are the most targeted properties by terror groups.

Global Economic Impact of terrorism reached 90$ billion in 2015 decreasing 15% from 2014. Iraq is the country with the most significant economic impact of terrorism. The 2015 economic impact of terrorism is second highest level since 2000. The total economic impact of violence reached $13.6 trillion in 2015 or 13.3% of global GDP.

With India facing eight largest number of terror attacks across the world in 2016, Sikh Extremists, CPI – Maoists, LeT, Maoists and ULFA are the groups taking the most lives in India. While Jammu & Kashmir, New Delhi, and Mumbai top the charts of cities with the deadliest attacks.

Data source

• Global Terrorism Database