On 20 November the London Institute for Economics and Peace published their Global Terrorism Index for 2019, which measures the impact of terrorism in 162 countries. The South Caucasus countries were classified as countries with a low impact of terrorism with Azerbaijan being the safest (103rd position globally), followed by Armenia (94th) and Georgia (90th). The three countries all made progress on the ranking, with Armenia moving 11 places, Azerbaijan 5 places, and Georgia 1 place in comparison to 2018.
In its study the report stated that the total number of deaths from terrorism declined for the fourth consecutive year in 2018, falling by 15.2 per cent to 15,952 deaths. Nine of the ten countries most impacted by terrorism improved, but despite the fall in total deaths, the number of countries affected by terrorism remained high. The global economic impact of terrorism in 2018 amounted to $33 billion in constant PPP terms, which was a decline of 38 percent from its 2017 level. One of the more worrying trends is the surge in far-right political terrorism over the past five years, although the absolute number of far-right attacks remained low when compared to other forms of terrorism.
The report on the Eurasian region stated that nine out of twelve countries in the Russian and Eurasian region improved last year, while two maintained their score of ‘no impact of terrorism’ and only Tajikistan’s score decreased. Kazakhstan, Armenia, Ukraine, Russia and Azerbaijan had the largest improvements in the region. Seventy-two per cent of attacks in the region were not attributed to any specific group. Most attacks attributed to a group were carried out by Chechen separatists, or by groups in Ukraine after the war in Donbass. Of nearly 2,500 attacks between 2002 and 2018, roughly 700 have known perpetrators. In 64 percent of those cases, or just over 450 incidents, the attack is attributed to one of three separatist groups in Russia or the Ukraine: ‘Chechen rebels’, the Donetsk People's Republic, or the Luhansk People's Republic. The report further read that there has been an increasing overlap between these conflicts, and violence driven by Islamist extremism prominent outside the region. For example, the Caucasus Emirate, which was responsible for at least 42 attacks and 227 fatalities between 2008 and 2016, grew out of a schism in the Chechen separatist movement. The group was founded with the goal of building an independent Islamic state in the North Caucasus region of Russia, but by mid-2015, many of the group’s commanders had defected to ISIL. This move prompted the creation of the Caucasus Province of the Islamic State. While terror attacks by Chechen separatists have declined significantly in recent years, ISIL and/or the Caucasus Province of the Islamic State were responsible for at least 30 attacks and 90 fatalities in the region from 2015 to 2018.
Russia and Iran were classified as countries with a medium impact of terrorist attacks, while Turkey was classified amongst the countries with high impact of terrorist attacks. The countries that were the most impacted by terrorism in 2019 were Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria and Syria (classified as countries with very high impact of terrorism).
