North America is Least Likely Region to Suffer Terrorism
North America is the least likely region of the world to suffer from terrorism, according to the Global Terrorism Index, launched Tuesday, as reported by NBC News.
The body behind the index, the Australia-based Institute of Economics & Peace, said in a statement that since the 2003 Iraq invasion, the number of terror attacks worldwide has increased fourfold, but the number of fatalities has fallen by 25 percent from a peak in 2007.
The institute produced an interactive map that shows the extent to which different countries were affected. The U.S. was 41st on the index, which covers 2011, the article notes.
Iraq was in first place with 1,798 fatalities and 1,228 incidents, followed by Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Yemen. Russia was the only European country in the top 10, which also included Somalia and Nigeria from Africa and Thailand and the Philippines from Asia, the article says.
“North America is the least likely region to suffer from terrorism, with a fatality rate 19 times lower than Western Europe,” says a statement from Economics & Peace.
Countries with no terrorist incidents in 2011 included Brazil, Iceland, Poland, Mongolia, Vietnam, Liberia and Botswana, according to the list. Only 31 of the 158 countries ranked on the index had not had a terrorist attack since 2001, NBC reports.
The institute’s statement says the index scores countries by aggregating several factors, including the number of terrorist incidents, fatalities, injuries and property damage, as well as other issues such as human rights and group grievances associated with terrorism, the NBC article says.
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