Study finds terrorism in decline

22/05/2008 14:50:55

A new Canadian study has found there's been a sharp decline in the number of people killed by terrorists around the world.

Researchers from the Simon Fraser University in Vancouver say the decline is around 40 per cent.

They've looked at three sets of data collected in the United Sates on domestic and international terrorism and they've found there's been a drop in the number of civilian fatalities from terrorist attacks.

Andrew Mack, director of the Human Security Report project, has told Radio Australia's Connect Asia program much of the research which has shown an increase in terrorism related deaths relies on broad definitions which include civilian deaths in Iraq.

"There's no agreed definition of terrorism, and therefore if you want to include civilian deaths in civil war situations, you can," he said.

"This is rather unusual, normally speaking, when we talk about civilians being killed in civil wars, we use the term war crimes or crime against humanity, or even genocide. We don't normally call it terrorism."

Mr Mack says if the data does include the Iraq casualties, it should also include civilian casualties in parts of Africa also engaged in civil wars.

And he says even if the Iraq data is taken in to account, a decline still occurs, but not until 2007 - a decline which has coincided with a sharp drop in support for terrorist groups in the Muslim world.

"Al-Qaeda, as a global institution, is in real trouble, and it's in real trouble, primarily because it's lost support in every Muslim country in the world to a devastating degree," he said.

"If you actually look at the public opinion poll figures, you'll see that the level of support for al-Qaeda and groups like it in Muslim countries is incredibly low now - about one per cent, two per cent in many countries."

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