The Institute for Economics and Peace's annual Global Terror Index finds that the Taliban overtook ISIS as the deadliest terror group in the world in 2018, for the first time since ISIS's brutal rise in 2014.
In 2018, total deaths from terror incidents fell globally, but Afghanistan shouldered 46% of the 15,952 deaths from terror, with 7,379 fatalities from 1,443 incidents. The Taliban was, according to the GTI, responsible for 83 percent of those deaths, and for nine of the 10 deadliest terrorist attacks in the world.
The Taliban has also increased its control over land in Afghanistan; the report estimates that the Taliban controls approximately 17% of Afghanistan's 229 districts.
The Taliban perpetrated 2018's deadliest terror attack, in the city of Ghazni in August, killing 466 people. While the group often attacks military and political targets, it also attacks civilians, to a much lesser extent.
While the ISIS caliphate, which covered a swath of land across Iraq and Syria the size of Great Britain, was declared officially defeated in March of 2019, it had lost significant territory — as well as subjects, fighters, and sources of income — by 2018.
Its swift and brutal rise in 2014 put ISIS at the top of the GTI's list of deadliest terror groups from 2014 through 2017.
Last year, the GTI reports, ISIS was responsible for 1,328 deaths around the world, a 69% decrease from 2017, and an 85% decrease from 2016. ISIS's deadliest attacks occurred in Syria, including one in Deir Ezzor, Syria, which involved 10 suicide bombers and four vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDS) and killed at least 51.
Although GTI counts the terror group's affiliate, the Islamic State Khorasan chapter (ISIS-K), as a separate terror enterprise, the group has pledged its allegiance to the global ISIS enterprise, which has moved fighters to Afghanistan to stage attacks from there.
According to GTI, ISIS-K's fighting force has declined to about 600 to 800 from a peak of about 3,000 to 4,000 in 2016. The number of attacks they've staged have decreased as well — but they've become deadlier, as 2018 marked the highest number of deaths from ISIS-K attacks since the group's formation in 2014.
Last year, ISIS-K was responsible for 1,060 deaths — most of them in Afghanistan.
As of 2018, deaths from terrorism have fallen 53% from their peak in 2014, according to the GTI. That year, 33,555 people were killed in terrorist attacks.
While the decrease is impressive, it's essential to remember that terrorism thrives in places of conflict, Stephen Killelea, the founder of the Institute for Economics and Peace, stressed to Insider that 99% of all terror incidents happen in countries where conflict is ongoing.
"95% of deaths from terrorism occur in a conflict setting," he said.
"The intensity of terrorism dropped markedly," according to Killelea, but "we have an increase in the breadth of terrorism," and "it's still very real, still a major issue globally."
One surprising trend, Killelea said, was the increase in far-right terror, which has increased 320% over the past five years, the report finds. While deaths from far-right terror incidents, like the Christchurch shooting in March of 2019, make up a small percentage of all terror-related deaths — 26 people died in 2018 from far-right terror attacks — the incidents are on the rise and perpetrated almost exclusively by individuals not tied to any particular group.
"Far right terrorists are remarkably successful," Killelea said.
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