UK Named EU Country Most Affected By Terrorism

The UK has remained among the top 30 nations impacted by terrorism across the world (Picture: PA).

Terrorism is having a larger impact on the UK than any other European Union nation, according to an annual report.

The latest findings by the Global Terrorism Index says the number of lives lost in terrorist attacks fell globally by more than 15% to 15,952 in 2018 - with deaths in western Europe falling by 70% to a six-year low.

The UK is ranked 28th on the worldwide list of countries and is labelled as having felt a 'medium' impact of terror.

Lower down the list, EU nations France and Germany have been ranked 36th and 44th, respectively.

The comprehensive study considers socio-economic conditions, the changing form of terrorism and the ideological aims, strategies and tactical targets of terrorist groups.

For the first time since 2003, Iraq was not listed as the country most impacted by terrorism, overtaken by Afghanistan - while the Taliban has become the first group to take over the so-called Islamic State (IS) as the deadliest terror group since 2014.

In the UK, just under 24% of the 266 terrorism arrests were linked to far-right extremism, a proportion up 16% from the previous year.

Counter-terrorism policing's (CTP) head of CT intelligence, Detective Superintendent Gareth Rees, said: "Despite still being a relatively small percentage of our overall demand, we have seen a significant growth in the threat from right-wing terrorism to the UK.

"We have always been focused upon this threat, but an increasing amount of CTP's resources are dedicated to it since the 2017 reviews, while our partners in the Security Service have also stepped up their involvement in tackling it."

Deaths from terrorism have fallen 52% since their peak in 2014, with Iraq, Syria and Nigeria seeing the largest progress.

Terror deaths attributed to IS have continued to fall for a second year - marking what many consider to be a dwindling force.