Although terrorism touched 85 countries in 2012, just three - Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan - suffered more than half of 2012's attacks (54 percent) and fatalities (58 percent), according to data by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) Global Terrorism Database (GTD). The next five most frequently targeted countries were India, Nigeria, Somalia, Yemen and Thailand.

"While terrorist attacks have in large part moved away from Western Europe and North America to Asia, the Middle East and Africa, worldwide terrorism is reaching new levels of destructiveness," said Gary LaFree, START director and professor of criminology and criminal justice at UMD.