Global Terrorism Index: Impact of terrorism ‘low’ in Bangladesh

The impact of terrorism in Bangladesh has been reported to be "low" on a terrorism scale as per the tenth edition of the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) 2023 report, which provides a comprehensive summary of the key global trends and patterns in terrorism over the last decade.

Bangladesh scored  3,827 points on the GTI index where the impact of terrorism in each country is evaluated on a scale from zero to 10, where zero represents no impact of terrorism and 10 represents the highest measurable impact of it. 

The calculation of score takes into account the deaths, incidents, hostages, and injuries caused by terrorism, weighted over a five-year period. A higher rank with a lower score indicates a lower impact of terrorism.

Bangladesh has moved two steps forward in 2022 ranking 43rd among 163 countries in the latest edition of the Global Terrorism Index  (GTI), released last month.

The progress in the GTI index came with a slight change of - 0.579 in 2023 compared to the previous year, according to Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), a think-tank based in Sydney, Australia. 

Besides, the score change for the country in a decade was recorded at -0.627 between 2012 and 2022.

Slowly but steadily, Bangladesh has been making improvements in tackling terrorism since 2017, according to the index based on data from TerrorismTracker, which monitors daily terrorist activities and assesses terrorism threats and risks across the globe.

As per the latest GTI report, Bangladesh was the second most improved country in regards to the impact of terrorism in South Asia, followed closely by Nepal, with both countries recording two attacks and no deaths in 2022. 

In the region, five countries registered an improvement in the score including Sri Lanka which recorded the highest improvement, with no attacks or deaths for the second consecutive year.

Meanwhile, only Bhutan has a GTI score of zero which means it has not recorded a terrorist attack in the past five years.

South Asia, despite an improvement in its GTI score, recorded the highest average GTI score of any region, a position it has held throughout the last decade. The region is home to two of the ten countries with the worst GTI scores - Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

However, its average regional GTI score improved for the first time in four years, driven by a decline in terror attacks and deaths in Afghanistan.  In 2022, Afghanistan recorded a 58 per cent decline in terrorism deaths, from 1,499 to 633. Attacks mirrored this trend, falling by 75 per cent to 225 attacks in 2022. Despite this, Afghanistan continues to be the most impacted country in the world for terrorism. 

On the other hand, Pakistan was the only country in the region to record a deterioration in score in 2022, with its score improving by three per cent to 8,160.  

In 2022, some 20 terror groups were active in the region, with ISK accounting for the most attacks of any group with 138 attacks. ISK were also the deadliest group in the region in 2022, recording 498 deaths. Overall, 39 per cent of attacks and almost a quarter of all deaths were not claimed by any terror group. 

Global trend of terrorism

Deaths from terrorist attacks fell by nine percent  to 6,701 and are now 38% lower than at its peak in 2015. However, if Afghanistan was removed from the index, terrorism deaths would have increased by four percent.

There was also a reduction in the number of incidents, with attacks declining by almost 28% from 5,463 in 2021 to 3,955 in 2022.

The deadliest terrorist groups in the world in 2022 were Islamic State (IS) and its affiliates, followed by al-Shabaab, Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and Jamaat Nusrat Al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM).

Climate change and terrorism: Potential implication

The Sydney-headquartered think-tank Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP) has underlined there is no straightforward correlation between a country or region experiencing climate change impacts and terrorism.

Citing Germanwatch's Long-Term Climate Risk Index (2000-19), the report noted that the list of countries most affected by climate-related extreme events features both countries experiencing significant terrorism-related challenges – including The Philippines, Mozambique, Bangladesh and Pakistan – and countries such as Haiti, The Bahamas, and Nepal, where terrorism is a minimal issue.