Bangladesh among countries facing increased terror risk: Study

Bangladesh faces the risk of a substantial rise in terrorist activities in the future, according to a study by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), a media report said Tuesday.

According to the "Global Terror Index", almost 10,000 terrorist attacks were recorded in 2013, representing a 44 percent increase over the 2012 figures, the IEP said on its website.

These attacks have resulted in 17,958 deaths, representing a 61 percent increase over the previous year's numbers, bdnews24.com reported, citing the study.

The study also noted that 24 countries experienced more than 50 deaths in 2013, increasing 60 percent from 15 deaths in 2012.

The research also observed that the world not only witnessed intensified terror last year, but saw it spreading as well.

The Global Terror Index, launched by the IEP in 2012, ranks countries by the impact of terrorist activities, apart from analysing the economic and social dimensions associated with terrorism.

The index scores 162 countries, covering 99.6 percent of the world's population, and examines trends from 2000 to 2013.

The indicators used include the number of terrorist incidents, fatalities, injuries and property damage.

The index gave Bangladesh a score of 5.25 for year 2013, while strife-torn Iraq, where 6,362 people had died in 2,492 terror attacks last year, tops the list, with a score of 10.

The international research body said that Iraq has suffered the most damage on account of terrorism and militancy.

Terrorism in 2013 was dominated by four organisations -- the Islamic State (IS), Boko Haram, Al Qaeda and Taliban -- collectively responsible for 66 percent of all fatalities, the IEP website noted.

On Bangladesh, the research body said that it was among the countries "not in conflict, but at a risk of higher levels of terrorism" because of "high levels of political terror" and "low levels of intergroup cohesion".

Human rights violations, state-sanctioned killings, torture and political imprisonment were covered under the ambit of political terror, as measured by the Amnesty International and the US State Department, said the report, while defining intergroup cohesion as cooperation and respect between identity groups.

The other countries which the report said would see a heightened risk of terrorism are Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Iran, Israel, Mali, Mexico, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Uganda.