The United States State Department has announced that terror attacks and consequent deaths globally have decreased despite the threats still remaining potent. The number of global terrorist attacks fell 23% in 2017 from the year before, and deaths linked to these attacks decreased by 27%, according to the department’s report dubbed Country Reports on Terrorism for 2017.
Moreover, the report said that the decrease can be attributed to a significant drop in attacks in Iraq especially because about 60 percent of all attacks took place in five countries: Afghanistan, India, Iraq, Pakistan, and the Philippines.
An international campaign to root out the Islamic State has caused the terror organization to relinquish 99 percent of its territory in Syria and Iraq. The final push to kick ISIS militants out of their last strongholds in Syria began last week.
While it is good news, the drop also means that the terror organizations have morphed to change with the ever-developing counterterrorism tactics. Some of the complex developments among them being more dispersed and clandestine, turning to the internet to inspire attacks by distant followers which has made them less susceptible to conventional military action.
The US department has however warned that despite the drop, it is important to keep at the counterterrorism effort as being less lethal outwardly could only mean that the groups especially ISIS and al Qaeda could be re-establishing themselves in new territory especially as seasoned foreign fighters return home.
