[FREE ACCESS] Intelligence Analysis: Global Terrorism Index 2025 Reveals Sahel Crisis and Evolving Threat Landscape
Ujasusi Blog’s Terrorism Monitoring Desk
🎯 Executive Intelligence Summary
The Global Terrorism Index (GTI) 2025, published by the Institute for Economics & Peace in partnership with Dragonfly Intelligence, presents a strategic inflexion point in global terrorism patterns. This twelfth edition of the Index reveals critical shifts in the geographic distribution, operational methodologies, and technological sophistication of terrorist organisations worldwide, with profound implications for intelligence services, security analysts, and policymakers.
Key Strategic Findings:
Geographic Expansion: Terrorism affected 66 countries in 2024, the highest number since 2018, representing a 14% increase from 58 countries in 2023
Sahel Dominance: Sub-Saharan Africa’s Sahel region now accounts for 51% of all global terrorism deaths, marking a tenfold increase since 2019
Casualty Figures: Total terrorism deaths declined 13% to 7,555, though this reduction is entirely attributable to the 2023 Hamas October 7 attack anomaly; excluding this outlier, deaths remained constant
Western Resurgence: Terrorist incidents in Western nations increased 63% from 32 to 52 attacks, with Europe experiencing a doubling of incidents to 67 attacks
Attribution Challenge: 36% of terrorist attacks remain unclaimed, complicating intelligence assessment and strategic attribution
🌍 Strategic Geopolitical Shift: The Sahel as Terrorism’s New Epicentre
The most consequential finding of the GTI 2025 is the categorical transformation of the Sahel region into the global epicentre of terrorist activity. This strategic shift represents a fundamental reorientation of transnational jihadist operations from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to sub-Saharan Africa.
Statistical Evidence of Regional Transformation
In 2024, the Sahel region recorded 3,885 terrorism deaths—51% of the global total—representing a nearly 1,000% increase since 2019. This compares starkly with Iraq, which has experienced a 99% reduction in terrorism deaths since 2007, falling from 6,249 fatalities to just 59 in 2024. The data demonstrates a clear migration of jihadist activity from traditional Middle Eastern theatres to West African operational zones.
Five of the ten countries most impacted by terrorism are located in the Sahel: Burkina Faso (ranked #1), Mali (#4), Niger (#5), Nigeria (#6), and Cameroon (#10). Burkina Faso alone accounts for approximately 20% of all global terrorism deaths, despite recording a 21% decline in fatalities and a 57% reduction in attacks compared to 2023. This suggests that while attack frequency may be declining in certain Sahel nations, the lethality and strategic impact of individual operations remain elevated.
Intelligence Analysis: Drivers of Sahelian Instability
Multiple intersecting factors explain the Sahel’s emergence as a terrorism nexus:
1. Governance Fragmentation and State Weakness
The formation of the Alliance of Sahelian States (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger) and their subsequent withdrawal from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has created governance vacuums exploited by terrorist organisations. The alliance’s pivot away from Western security partnerships toward Russian and Chinese support has fundamentally altered the regional security architecture.
2. Resource Competition and Illicit Economies
Gold mining has emerged as a critical revenue source for both state and non-state armed actors. Niger, the world’s seventh-largest uranium producer, has attracted intensified great power competition as China seeks to secure nuclear fuel supplies. This resource contestation provides financial sustenance for terrorist groups while simultaneously incentivising external intervention.
3. Geopolitical Realignment
Russia’s information operations across the Sahel, particularly campaigns targeting French counterterrorism efforts, have successfully reshaped local perceptions. Russian military advisors’ withdrawal from Burkina Faso to support Ukraine operations demonstrates Moscow’s strategic overextension, creating potential opportunities for terrorist expansion. Conversely, France’s continued military withdrawal from West Africa signals a broader Western disengagement from regional security provision.
Niger Case Study: Fragility of Progress
Niger exemplifies the volatility of counterterrorism gains. After recording the second-largest improvement in terrorism deaths in 2022, the country experienced a 94% increase in 2024, reaching 930 fatalities—the largest single-year deterioration globally. This reversal underscores the transitory nature of security improvements without sustained governance reform and economic development.
🏴 Islamic State Network: Resilience and Adaptation
Despite sustained counterterrorism pressure, the Islamic State (IS) network demonstrated operational resilience in 2024, maintaining its position as the world’s deadliest terrorist organisation. IS and its affiliates were responsible for 1,805 deaths across 22 countries, representing a 10% decline from 2023 but still accounting for approximately 24% of global terrorism fatalities.
Decentralised Operations Across Multiple Theatres
Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISK):
ISK has evolved into one of the most active and sophisticated jihadist entities globally. The group executed two of 2024’s deadliest attacks: the January Kerman, Iran bombing that killed 84 people during a commemoration ceremony for Qasem Soleimani, and the March Crocus City Hall attack in Moscow that resulted in 145 deaths. ISK’s multilingual propaganda apparatus, which produces content in Pashto, Dari, Arabic, Urdu, Farsi, Uzbek, Tajik, English, Russian, and Turkish, demonstrates an unprecedented recruitment reach across South Asia, Central Asia, and increasingly into Russia and Turkey.
Syria Theatre:
The collapse of the Assad regime in late 2024 has created conditions conducive to IS resurgence. Syria accounted for 369 of 559 IS attacks globally (66% of total IS operations) and 708 deaths. The diminished foreign influence in Syria—with Russia, China, and Iran reducing their presence while Turkey emerges as the dominant regional power—combined with the potential scaling back of US support for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), presents strategic opportunities for IS regrouping and territorial expansion.
Islamic State West Africa (ISWA):
While ISWA’s activity declined 46% to 178 deaths in 2024, the group remains locked in violent competition with Boko Haram. Notably, ISWA recorded zero deaths in Benin and Burkina Faso in 2024, territories now dominated by Jamaat Nusrat Al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM). This suggests a strategic reorientation of IS affiliates in response to competitive pressure from rival jihadist organisations.
Disrupted Attack Planning: The Intelligence Success Story
In 2024, authorities disrupted at least 24 publicised plots linked to IS or affiliated groups, including high-profile operations targeting the Paris Olympics and a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna. Additional plots were foiled in Israel (5), the United States (4), Iran, Turkey, Germany, France, Sweden, and Russia. Intelligence professionals should note that publicly disclosed disruptions likely represent a fraction of total interdictions, as most intelligence services maintain operational security by not publicising successful preventions.
📊 The Four Dominant Terrorist Organisations
Beyond the Islamic State, three additional organisations constitute the primary drivers of global terrorism: Jamaat Nusrat Al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM), Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and al-Shabaab. Collectively, these four groups were responsible for 4,204 deaths in 2024, an 11% increase from 2023, and operated across 30 countries.
JNIM: Expanding Operational Reach
JNIM recorded a 46% increase in deaths to 1,454 fatalities in 2024, making it the second-deadliest terrorist organisation globally. The group’s attacks are characterised by exceptional lethality, averaging ten deaths per incident—the highest rate among major terrorist organisations. JNIM has successfully expanded operations beyond the Sahel into coastal West Africa, with Togo recording its worst year for terrorism since the Index’s inception.
The September 2024 JNIM attacks on government targets in Bamako, Mali, following the collapse of the 2015 Algiers peace agreement, demonstrate the group’s capacity for symbolically significant operations targeting state legitimacy.
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP): Resurgence in South Asia
TTP experienced the largest proportional increase among major terrorist groups, with deaths rising 90% to 558 fatalities. This resurgence corresponds with Pakistan’s overall 45% increase in terrorism deaths, positioning it as the second-most affected country globally behind Burkina Faso. TTP’s operational revival suggests renewed sanctuary access in Afghanistan following the Taliban’s 2021 return to power and potential tactical coordination with other regional jihadist networks.
Al-Shabaab: Sustained East African Operations
While specific casualty figures for al-Shabaab were not provided in the executive summary, the group’s continued inclusion among the four dominant organisations indicates sustained operational capacity in Somalia and the broader East African region. Somalia ranks seventh globally on the GTI 2025, underscoring al-Shabaab’s enduring strategic impact.
🌐 Western Nations: The Return of Homegrown Terrorism
After years of declining terrorist activity, Western countries experienced a significant resurgence in 2024, with incidents increasing from 32 to 52—a 63% year-over-year increase. Europe proved particularly vulnerable, with terrorist attacks doubling from 34 to 67 incidents, including operations by Islamic State and Hamas-affiliated actors.
The Lone Actor Phenomenon
A distinguishing characteristic of Western terrorism in 2024 is the proliferation of lone actor attacks perpetrated predominantly by radicalised youth, often teenagers, with no formal organisational affiliations. These individuals typically undergo self-radicalisation through exposure to extremist content across multiple digital platforms: fringe forums, gaming environments, encrypted messaging applications (Telegram, Rocket.Chat), and dark web spaces.
The fragmented nature of online radicalisation presents exceptional challenges for intelligence services. Traditional signals intelligence and network analysis prove less effective when threat actors operate as isolated individuals without institutional connections, as they are often subject to surveillance. In Europe, one in five terrorism-related arrests now involves a legally classified minor, highlighting the demographic shift in Western extremism.
Seven Western Countries in Top 50
Seven Western nations now rank among the 50 countries most impacted by terrorism globally, a substantial increase reflecting deteriorating domestic security conditions. Germany ranks 27th on the Index—the highest position among Western European countries—while attacks were also recorded in Sweden, Australia, Finland, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Switzerland.
Antisemitic and Islamophobic Violence
The Gaza conflict’s commencement triggered explosive increases in religiously motivated hate crimes across Western democracies. In the United States, FBI-recorded antisemitic incidents rose 270% in the two months following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack. The overall 2024 antisemitic incident count in the US increased by over 200% compared to pre-conflict baseline levels.
Similar patterns emerged across Europe and Australia, with synagogue attacks reported throughout 2024. This represents a concerning convergence of geopolitical conflicts with domestic extremism, creating bidirectional radicalisation feedback loops where international events accelerate local violence.
🤖 Technology and the Future Terrorism Threat Landscape
The GTI 2025 identifies artificial intelligence as a transformative variable in future terrorism dynamics, presenting both significant threats to public safety and opportunities for enhanced counterterrorism operations.
AI-Enabled Terrorist Capabilities
Content Generation:
ISK’s production of AI-enhanced video content, including simulated news programs, demonstrates terrorist organisations’ adoption of sophisticated propaganda tools. Generative AI enables rapid creation of high-quality, localised content across multiple languages, enhancing recruitment effectiveness and ideological saturation.
Deepfake Technology:
The capacity to produce convincing deepfake audio and video presents operational opportunities for terrorist groups, including: impersonation of authority figures for operational deception, creation of false flag content to trigger inter-group violence, and production of immersive recruitment materials that blur distinctions between gaming, simulation, and operational planning.
Target Intelligence:
Machine learning applications can aggregate open-source intelligence for target identification, vulnerability assessment, and attack optimisation—capabilities previously requiring substantial organisational infrastructure now accessible to small cells or lone actors.
Counter-Terrorism AI Applications
Intelligence services can leverage identical technologies for defensive operations:
Real-time Radicalisation Detection: Natural language processing and sentiment analysis can identify individuals transitioning from passive consumption to active planning across monitored platforms
Malicious Content Removal: Automated systems can detect and remove extremist content faster than human moderators, reducing exposure windows
Counter-Narrative Development: AI can generate targeted counter-messaging tailored to specific demographic profiles and ideological vulnerabilities
Predictive Analytics: Machine learning models can identify attack patterns and forecast high-risk periods or locations based on historical data and current threat indicators
The strategic reality is that both terrorist organisations and intelligence services will employ these technologies. The decisive factor will be the speed and sophistication of implementation, institutional adaptation, and ethical frameworks governing use.
🔍 The Attribution Gap: 36% of Attacks Unclaimed
A critical intelligence challenge highlighted by the GTI 2025 is that 36% of terrorist attacks in 2024 were not claimed by any organisation. This attribution gap complicates threat assessment, resource allocation, and strategic planning for counterterrorism operations.
The Institute for Economics & Peace developed a machine learning model to assign unclaimed incidents to likely perpetrators based on tactical patterns, geographic location, target selection, and weapon systems employed. The model’s findings reveal substantial underestimation of major groups’ activities:
Islamic State: Likely deaths 58% higher than claimed attacks suggest
JNIM: Likely deaths 176% higher than claimed attacks suggest
This methodological innovation provides more accurate threat assessment but underscores the fundamental challenges intelligence services face in real-time attribution without post-attack analysis. The strategic implication is that policymakers and security planners may be systematically underestimating specific organisations’ operational capacity and geographic reach.
📈 Regional Analysis: Divergent Trajectories
Middle East and North Africa: Historic Decline
The MENA region, once terrorism’s primary theatre, continues its multi-year decline. Iraq’s 99% reduction in terrorism deaths since 2007 represents one of the most successful sustained counterterrorism campaigns in modern history, though this success must be contextualised within the broader sectarian stabilisation following IS’s territorial defeat and demographic exhaustion from years of conflict.
South Asia: Persistent Instability
Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India collectively recorded 2,108 terrorism deaths in 2024. Pakistan’s 45% year-over-year increase positions it as the second-most affected country globally, while Afghanistan ranks ninth despite the Taliban’s territorial control. This suggests that Taliban governance has not eliminated terrorist operations but rather reconfigured them toward different targets and tactical approaches.
Russia and Iran: Deteriorating Security Environments
Both Russia (197 deaths) and Iran (163 deaths) experienced substantial terrorism increases in 2024, marking notable deteriorations in states typically characterised by robust internal security apparatus. The ISK attacks in both countries—Crocus City Hall in Moscow and Kerman bombing in Iran—demonstrate that even authoritarian regimes with sophisticated intelligence services face vulnerability to well-planned operations by determined adversaries.
🎓 Conclusion: Strategic Implications for Intelligence Services
The Global Terrorism Index 2025 documents a terrorism landscape characterised by geographic dispersion, technological sophistication, and organisational resilience. Several strategic conclusions emerge for intelligence and security professionals:
1. The Sahel Requires Sustained International Attention:
With 51% of global terrorism deaths concentrated in a single region, the international security architecture must prioritise Sahel stabilisation through governance support, economic development, and multilateral security cooperation. The current great power competition threatens to exacerbate rather than resolve underlying instability.
2. Attribution Capabilities Must Advance:
The 36% unclaimed attack rate indicates that traditional intelligence collection and analysis methods require augmentation through advanced analytics, machine learning, and enhanced open-source intelligence (OSINT) fusion to achieve accurate threat attribution in near-real time.
3. Western Nations Face Renewed Domestic Threats:
The 63% increase in Western terrorism demands reorientation of counterterrorism resources toward prevention of self-radicalised lone actors, particularly minors, who operate outside traditional organisational structures and evade conventional surveillance methodologies.
4. Technology Will Define Future Advantage:
The AI revolution in terrorist capabilities and counterterrorism operations will determine strategic outcomes over the next decade. Intelligence services must invest aggressively in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and digital forensics while developing ethical frameworks that preserve civil liberties.
5. Islamic State Remains Globally Resilient:
Despite territorial losses and leadership degradation, IS and its affiliate network demonstrated continued operational capacity across 22 countries. The Syrian security vacuum and ISK’s expansion into Central Asia suggest the organisation retains strategic depth and adaptability.
The terrorism threat landscape documented in the GTI 2025 is not trending toward elimination but rather transformation. Intelligence services, policymakers, and security analysts must adapt analytical frameworks, resource allocation, and operational methodologies to address an increasingly diffuse, technologically sophisticated, and geographically dispersed threat environment.
ABOUT THIS ASSESSMENT:
This intelligence brief was produced by Ujasusi Blog’s TerrorismMonitoring Desk based on open-source intelligence (OSINT) from the Institute for Economics & Peace Global Terrorism Index 2025. All data is derived from Dragonfly Intelligence TerrorismTracker database, the most comprehensive dedicated open-source terrorism incidents database available.
SOURCES:
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