This is the second edition of the Global Terrorism Index
(GTI) report which provides a comprehensive summary of the key global trends and patterns in
terrorism over the last 14 years beginning in 2000 and ending in
Produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), the GTI is
based on data from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) which is collected and collated by the
National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). The GTD is
considered to be the most comprehensive dataset on terrorist activity globally and has codified over
125,000 terrorist incidents.
The report summarises trends in terrorism over
time and analyses its changing patterns in terms of geographic activity, methods of attack,
organisations involved and the national economic and political context. The index has also been
compared to a range of socio-economic indicators to determine the key factors most closely
associated with terrorism.
In 2013 terrorist activity increased
substantially with the total number of deaths rising from 11,133 in 2012 to 17,958 in 2013, a 61 per
cent increase. Over the same period, the number of countries that experienced more than 50 deaths
rose from 15 to 24. This highlights that not only is the intensity of terrorism increasing, its
breadth is increasing as well.
Terrorism is both highly concentrated as
well as a globally distributed phenomenon. Over 80 per cent of the lives lost to terrorist activity
in 2013 occurred in only five countries - Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria. However,
another 55 countries recorded one or more deaths from terrorist activity.