According to the latest 2020 Global Terrorism Index (GTI), levels of terrorism have deteriorated in Yemen in 2019, as a prolonged conflict continues.
Yemen also experienced a 67 per cent increase in total terrorist attacks, driven primarily by an increase in violence by Ansar Allah. Despite the rise in terrorism in 2019, deaths have declined by 66 per cent from their peak in 2015.
According to the report, conflict is the primary driver terrorist activity in the ten countries most impacted by terrorism, a category which includes Yemen. The United Nations has called the Yemeni conflict “the world’s worst humanitarian tragedy”.
Since 2015, the war has resulted in over 100,000 fatalities, of which 12 per cent have been civilians killed in targeted attacks.
Approximately 23,000 deaths occurred as the result of conflict in 2019, marking a decrease of 25 per cent from 2018, but remaining the second deadliest year of the war.
Yemenis have suffered some of the worst violence in terrorism. The 2020 Global Terrorism Index shows that an attack in Aden was ranked within the 20 most fatal terror attacks in 2019.
In this attack, assailants fired missiles at a military camp during a military parade, leaving 40 people dead. The attack was attributed to Ansar Allah or Houthi extremists.
Ansar Allah was the deadliest terror group in Yemen for the fourth consecutive year, accounting for 75 per cent of deaths from terrorism. Deaths attributed to Ansar Allah increased by 65 per cent in 2019, following three years of consecutive decline.
Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) remains in an active conflict with both the forces of ousted President Hadi and Ansar Allah, to which it is ideologically opposed. The year 2019 saw a continued decline in the activity of ISIL affiliates in Yemen.
Read the complete 2020 Global Terrorism Index.
A brief look at some of the major findings in the latest report from the Institute for Economics and Peace.
While terrorist attacks can occur anywhere in the world, these ten countries suffer the most due to their proximity to ongoing conflicts.
Measuring the impact of terrorism.
