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Wreaths laid down in front of the synagogue in Halle remind of the right-wing extremist attack on October 9, 2019
Photo: Hendrik Schmidt / dpa
Utøya, Christchurch, Munich, Charlottesville or El Paso: right-wing extremist attacks have increased massively in recent years.
Researchers counted for the international Global Terrorism Index 2020: In North America, Western Europe and Oceania, the number of these crimes has increased by 250 percent since 2014.
In the case of fatalities, the increase was over 700 percent within five years.
In 2019, a total of 89 people were killed in such acts.
There are now more right-wing attacks than at any other time in the past 50 years, the researchers write in the report.
It is published annually by the Institute for Economics and Peace, a European think tank.
Total number of terror victims has fallen
“As a new decade begins, we see new terrorist threats.
The rise in right-wing extremism in the West and the deterioration in the Sahel are prime examples, "said the Institute's Executive Director, Steve Killelea.
The Islamist side is currently seeing more attacks by smaller groups who sympathize with the so-called »Islamic State« (IS) - as in Sub-Saharan Africa, but also in Europe, for example in the recent incidents in France and Austria.
Overall, however, the number of deaths from terrorism has fallen again: in the past five years it has fallen by almost 60 percent.
In 2019, it was a little less than 14,000 fatalities worldwide.
Compared to the previous year, this was a decrease of 15 percent.
In addition, fewer and fewer countries are affected by terrorism at all: Last year, 63 countries recorded at least one victim of terrorism - the lowest number since 2013.
Fewer Taliban victims
The resilience of many highly developed Western societies has declined in recent years, write the study authors.
The corona pandemic could exacerbate this trend and lead to more political instability due to the uncertain economic outlook.
Measures would therefore have to be taken to deprive terrorist organizations of their media presence and funding and to prevent them from gaining new supporters.
Although the number of victims from Islamist terrorist attacks is still in the thousands, the authors of the study recorded a significant decline.
The influence and power of IS is steadily declining.
For the first time since the terrorist militia became active, the death toll was below 1,000, according to the report. The organization responsible for most of the victims of terrorist attacks remains the Taliban - although the trend is downwards here too.
According to the study, persistent crises are still the main drivers of terrorism.
More than 96 percent of terrorist attacks occurred in countries with ongoing conflicts such as Afghanistan, Syria, Nigeria, Somalia or Yemen.
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