Context: Recently, the Global Terrorism Index, 2026 was published by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP).
Global Terrorism Index
- It is published by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), a Sydney-based independent, non-profit think tank.
- The Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP) is headquartered in Sydney.
- It is a comprehensive study analysing the impact of terrorism for 163 countries covering 99.7 per cent of the world’s population.
- The Global Terrorism Index (GTI) report provides a comprehensive summary of the key global trends and patterns in terrorism over the last decade.
- The calculation of the GTI score considers not only deaths but also incidents, hostages and injuries from terrorism, weighted over a five-year period.
- The report is produced using event records on terrorist attacks since 1 January 2007.
Methodology:
- The GTI scores each country on a scale from 0 to 10; where 0 represents no impact from terrorism and 10 represents the highest measurable impact of terrorism.
- This produces a composite score so as to provide an ordinal ranking of countries on the impact of terrorism.
Key Highlights of Global Terrorism Index 2026:
- Deaths from terrorism fell by 28 per cent and incidents decreased by 22 per cent.
- Terrorism remains highly concentrated. Just under 70 per cent of deaths from terrorism occurred in only five countries: Pakistan, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Niger, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
- Six of the ten countries most impacted by terrorism are in sub-Saharan Africa, now the global epicentre of terrorism.
- Pakistan was the country most impacted by terrorism this year, the first time it has been ranked at number one on the Index. It has been ranked among the ten countries most impacted by terrorism every year since the inception of the Index.
- India is placed 13th on the list.
- Deadliest terror outfits (2025): IS, Jamaat Nusrat Al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM), Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and alShabaab.
Measuring the global impact of terrorism:
The GTI ranks 163 countries based on four indicators weighted over five years. A country’s annual GTI score is based on a unique scoring system to account for the relative impact of incidents in the year. The four factors counted in each country’s yearly score are:
- a total number of terrorist incidents in a given year
- a total number of fatalities caused by terrorists in a given year
- a total number of injuries caused by terrorists in a given year
- a total number of hostages caused by terrorists in a given year
Each of the factors is weighted between zero and three, and a five year weighted average is applied in a bid to reflect the latent psychological effect of terrorist acts over time.