Different Victim States of Terrorism:

It is difficult to put a pin as to when and where Global Terrorism first made its appearance
known to society as we know it today. As history has shown us, there have countless such
events wherein individuals or even groups have taken drastic measures to put forward their
views or even make known their dissatisfaction to the regimes in power.
In the modern era, terrorism is a growing phenomenon, with each nation state being either
directly or indirectly plagued by it. Terrorism is an age-old ongoing struggle by extremist
forces to assert their motives and illegitimately ensure that their demands are met. The world
outlook towards Terrorism changed post the 9/11 attack on the United States of America,
after which reforms were sought against these violent forces, individually as well as through
World Organisations such as the Untied Nations.
As far as the victims of Global Terrorism are concerned, as the Global Terrorism Index
published annually by the Institute for Economics and Peace, gives us an idea about the
nature, extent and particulars of various nation states as far terrorism is concerned. This is
done by taking into account the incidents, number of casualties, number of injuries and
damage to property, after which a weighted average is taken and a score is obtained. Based
on this score, different states are ranked and a list of the top 10 most affected states is
obtained. For the year 2018, Iraq has secured the top spot as far as Global Terrorism is
concerned, followed closely by Afghanistan and Nigeria.
Most commonly, states are affected by Global Terrorist Outfits such as the Taliban and ISIL,
who perpetrate attacks and assassination attempts all over the world in attempt to spark fear
and leverage the establishments to give in to their demands. In the recent times, countries
such as India, France, United Kingdom, United States of America, etc, are facing serious
repercussions of external terrorist threats through various violent attacks and bombings.
In addition to this external threat, terrorism also occurs largely through internal channels as
well, finding its origins in civil war issues, political rebellion and religious disputes. This is
evident in countries such as India (Maoists), Iraq (Islamic State of Iraq and Levant), Nigeria
(Boko Haram), etc. Domestic terrorism may also largely arise through what is known as the
lone wolf syndrome, wherein an individual may conduct certain acts without the overt order
or connections to different groups and organisations, as is currently being witnessed through
the mass shootings occurring in the United States of America, New Zealand and various other
states.
As is made clear from the abovementioned demographic of terrorism-affected states, it is to
be noted that countries ranging from world superpowers to even developing third world
countries are affected by Global Terrorism, which leads to large scale deaths of innocents,
displacement, damage to property and other such undesirable consequences. Therefore, all
the nation states, those affected as well as observers should come together and combat these
forces with an iron fist to rid the world of a modern plague; that is, Global Terrorism.