Afghanistan suffered the worst year so far in its war with the Taliban, resulting in nearly 18,000 deaths from the conflict in 2015. As a result it is ranked number two in the world on the terrorism index, the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) said in its latest Global Terrorism Index (GTI) report.
In the fourth edition of the index, IEP said «while the international community’s focus has intensified on ISIL (Daesh) and its activities in Iraq and Syria, last year recorded the deadliest year for the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The increases in Afghanistan highlight the resurgence of the Taliban in a war that has now lasted 15 years, the report read.
It said: «Both terrorist deaths and battlefield deaths committed by the Taliban significantly increased in 2015. Terrorism increased 29 percent to 4,502 deaths and battlefield deaths increased 34 per cent to over 15,000.»
The 2016 GTI report reinforces the fact terrorism is a highly concentrated form of violence, mostly committed in a small number of countries and by a small number of groups. The five countries suffering the highest impact from terrorism as measured by the GTI; Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Pakistan and Syria, accounted for 72 per cent of all deaths from terrorism in 2015.
It said: «Effective military interventions appear to have reduced the impact of terrorism in Iraq, however the increasing intensity of violent conflicts in Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan have led to rises in the number of terror related fatalities.»
The Global Terrorism Index (GTI) is a comprehensive study analyzing the impact of terrorism for 163 countries, covering 99.7 percent of the world’s population.
Meanwhile, deaths from terrorism also increased to the highest recorded levels overall, with 5,312 deaths recorded in 2015, up by 18 percent from the previous year. Deaths from terrorism and conflict in Afghanistan have increased every year for the past five years.
«The Taliban was responsible for the majority of terrorist attacks and in 2015 they were responsible for 85 per cent of all deaths from terrorism carrying out 1,094 attacks that killed 4,502 people. Police remain the main target of attacks by the Taliban and accounted for half of all attacks and deaths. There were 543 attacks on police resulting in 2,259 deaths.
«The majority of these attacks are armed assaults that target checkpoints, outposts, patrols and other regular policing activities. There were also 30 suicide bombings targeting police that resulted in 193 deaths,» the GTI reported.