Bangladesh was the second most improved country in terms of terrorism impact in South Asia as it has jumped down two notches to the 43rd rank among 163 countries, according to the latest edition of the Global Terrorism Index (GTI).
Bangladesh received a score of 3.827 on the GTI index. The calculation of the score takes into account the deaths, incidents, hostages, and injuries caused by terrorism, weighted over a five-year period.
The GTI scores each country on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 represents no impact on terrorism and 10 represents the highest measurable impact of terrorism. A higher rank with a lower score indicates a lower impact on terrorism. Afghanistan was on top of the list as the country with the highest impact of terrorism as it received a score of 8.822.
The GTI report is produced by the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP) using data from Terrorism Tracker and other sources. Terrorism Tracker provides event records on terrorist attacks since January 1, 2007.
Among the South Asian countries, Pakistan received a score of 8.16, India 7.173 while Nepal received a score of 4.134.
“Bangladesh was the second most improved country in regards to the impact of terrorism, followed closely by Nepal, with both countries recording two attacks and no deaths in 2022,” said the report.
The South Asia region is home to two of the ten countries with the worst GTI scores; Afghanistan and Pakistan. Of the seven countries in the region, only Bhutan has a GTI score of zero, meaning that is has not recorded a terrorist attack in the past five years.
Although Afghanistan improved in 2022, it remains the most terrorism-impacted country in 2022. Afghanistan recorded a 58 per cent decline in deaths due to terrorism, from 1,499 to 633.
Attacks mirrored this trend, falling by 75 per cent to 225 attacks in 2022. This significant decline in attacks and deaths was driven by the Taliban reclaiming control over Afghanistan, following the fall of Kabul in August 2021.
Pakistan remained the second most impacted country in the region in 2022. When compared with the previous year, Pakistan saw the number of attacks increase by 45 per cent to 298 attacks. The number of deaths mirrored this trend with Pakistan recording 643 deaths in 2022, an increase of 351 deaths.
The year of 2022 saw Pakistan overtake Afghanistan as the country with the most terrorist attacks and deaths in South Asia, a position held by the latter since 2017.