Turkey ranks 12th on terrorism list, records largest fall across Europe

ISTANBUL

Turkey recorded the largest fall in terrorism across Europe last year, a global terrorism ranking list said.

The Global Terrorism Index 2018 said fatalities from terrorism in the country fell from 659 in 2016 to 123 in 2017.

With this fall, Turkey ranked 12th on the list, between Democratic Republic of Congo and Libya. Turkey had ranked 9th in last year's index leaded by Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Syria and Pakistan.

 The list based on 163 countries was released by Australia-based think tank Institute for Economics and Peace.

Turkey also showed a reduction in ISIL and PKK presence by 81 percent.

“Europe recorded the largest percentage decrease in deaths from terrorism of any region in the world in 2017, with total deaths falling by 75 percent. The majority of this fall in terrorist activity occurred in Turkey, where deaths from terrorism fell from 659 in 2016 to 123 in 2017, an 81 percent decrease,” said the newly released 2018 Global Terrorism Index report.

The deadliest terror attack in 2017 was the New Year’s Eve nightclub armed attack that killed 39 people in Istanbul, according to the report. The next deadliest attacks were a suicide bombing in the U.K. at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England that killed 23 people and injured an additional 119 and a vehicular attack in Barcelona, Spain that killed 23 people and injured 101 more. All three of these attacks were claimed by ISIL.

The PKK was the deadliest terror group in 2017 in Europe, the report said, adding that it staged only one attack outside Turkey in 2017, an arson attack on a mosque in Germany.

As for total deaths from terrorism worldwide, the figure fell for the third consecutive year, after peaking in 2014, the report said. The total number of deaths fell by 27 percent between 2016 and 2017, with the largest falls occurring in Iraq and Syria. There were 18,814 deaths in 2017, the report said.