Egypt has departed the list of top 10 countries affected by terrorism this year in the 2019 Global Terrorism Index (GTI) – which measures the impact of terrorism and is devised by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP).
Last year, Egypt ranked among the top 10 in the report.
Egypt had the third largest total fall in deaths and one of the largest percentage decreases, with deaths from terrorism falling 90 percent in a single year. This fall in deaths came as the result of reduced activity from the Islamic State’s Sinai Province group, following extensive military operations by the Egyptian government.
Egypt saw the number of terror attacks fall from 169 to 45, as a result of increased counter-terrorism activities directed at the Sinai Province group, the report added.
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region also recorded a substantial advancement last year with 17 countries improving, while only Iran and Morocco deteriorated.
Lebanon, Bahrain, Kuwait, Egypt and Iraq had the largest improvements in score in the region. Terror attacks in Lebanon have fallen consistently since peaking in 2014, with only two deaths from five incidents recorded in 2018.
In 2018, Lebanon did not record a single attack by ISIS, the first year since 2013.
This is the third year in a row that the region has improved. Fatalities in the MENA accounted for 42 percent of global total deaths from terrorism since 2002. However, since the defeat of ISIS, the region’s share of the global total has dropped substantially, and in 2018 it accounted for only 15 percent of total deaths.
The GTI report is produced by IEP using data from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) and other sources. Data for the GTD is collected and collated by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland.
The GTI is a comprehensive study analyzing the impact of terrorism for 163 countries and which covers 99.7 per cent of the world’s population.
According to the report, deaths from terrorism fell for the fourth consecutive year after peaking in 2014. This decline corresponds with military successes against ISIS and Boko Haram – with the total number of deaths falling by 15.2 per cent between 2017 and 2018 to 15,952.
Iraq saw the largest fall, recording 3,217 fewer deaths from terrorism in 2018, a 75 percent decrease from the prior year.
For the first time since 2003, Iraq is no longer the country most impacted by terrorism.
The Islamic State’s decline also continued for the second successive year. Deaths attributed to the group fell by 69 per cent, with attacks declining 63 per cent in 2018, the report stated.
ISIS now has an estimated 18,000 fighters left in Iraq and Syria, a drop from over 70,000 in 2014.
Total deaths from terrorism are down over 52 percent from their peak in 2014. The fall in deaths was mirrored by a reduction in terrorism’s impact around the world, with 98 countries recording an improvement on their GTI score, compared to 40 that recorded a deterioration.
