Why in News?

• Recently, the report shows that Afghanistan continues to be the country most affected by terrorism for the 4th year in a row, even though attacks and deaths decreased.

Highlights

• The GTI report is produced by the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP), a think tank, using data from TerrorismTracker and other sources.
• Terrorism Tracker provides event records on terrorist attacks since 1 January 2007.
• The dataset contains almost 66,000 terrorist incidents for the period 2007 to 2022.
• Globally, deaths from terrorism fell by 9% to 6,701 deaths, marking a 38% decrease from its peak in 2015.
• Pakistan recorded the second largest surge in terror-related deaths worldwide in 2022, the toll increasing significantly to 643.
• South Asia remains the region with the worst average GTI score.
• South Asia recorded 1,354 deaths from terrorism in 2022.
• Islamic State (IS) and its affiliates were the deadliest terror group globally for the eighth consecutive year, recording the most attacks and deaths of any group in 2022.
• According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, criminals are estimated to launder up to four trillion dollars a year. Fund movements by terrorists have also been concealed through charities and alternative remittance methods.
• It taints the International financial system and erodes public trust in the integrity of the system.
• The members of the United Nations Security Council (P5) have exercised the veto power to varying degrees when it comes to identifying terrorists.
• Also, absence of universally accepted definitions for what constitutes terrorism provides terrorists with an edge and allows some countries to remain silent and veto any action at global institutions.
• Innovations in computing and telecommunications like widespread internet access, end-to-end encryption, and virtual private network (VPN) have made new types of operations possible for a higher number of radicalised individuals across the globe, contributing to the threat.