Pakistan Tops Global Terrorism Index 2026 With 1,139 Deaths in 2025

Pakistan has been ranked the country most affected by terrorism in the Global Terrorism Index 2026, overtaking Burkina Faso and moving to the top position for the first time since the index began. According to the report by the Institute for Economics and Peace, Pakistan recorded 1,139 terrorism-related deaths, 1,595 injuries, and 1,045 incidents in 2025, with the death toll rising by nearly 6 per cent from the previous year. The report said this was the sixth consecutive year in which terrorism deaths increased in Pakistan, even though the total number of attacks dipped slightly from 1,098 in 2024 to 1,045 in 2025.

The Index said Pakistan’s worsening security environment has been shaped by a sustained rise in militant violence since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021. It noted that militant groups operating from Afghanistan have intensified attacks, particularly along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, with Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa emerging as the worst-affected regions. Together, those two provinces accounted for more than 74 per cent of terrorist attacks and 67 per cent of terrorism deaths in Pakistan in 2025, underlining how heavily the violence is concentrated in the country’s western border belt.

The report identified Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) as the deadliest militant organisation operating in the country for the fifth consecutive year. It said the TTP was responsible for 56 per cent of all terrorism-related deaths in Pakistan in 2025 and carried out 595 attacks, which caused 637 deaths. That represented a 13 per cent increase from the 555 deaths attributed to the group in the preceding year. The report also said the TTP has continued to evolve tactically, including the use of newer technologies such as drones in targeted attacks on both security personnel and civilians.

One of the most dramatic incidents of the year involved the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), which the report said was responsible for Pakistan’s largest terror attack of 2025. In that incident, armed militants seized control of a passenger train after bombing the tracks near Quetta railway station, taking 442 people hostage. The report said 21 hostages, four military personnel, and 33 terrorists were killed in the episode. It also highlighted a sharp jump in hostage-taking overall, with the number of hostages in Pakistan rising from 101 in 2024 to 655 in 2025.

While Pakistan moved to the top of the ranking, the broader global picture was more mixed. The Global Terrorism Index said terrorism deaths worldwide fell by 28 per cent in 2025 and incidents declined by 22 per cent, while 81 countries recorded improvements in their scores and only 19 countries deteriorated. Even so, the report cautioned that terrorism remains deeply concentrated in a handful of conflict zones, noting that 70 per cent of global terrorism deaths occurred in just five countries: Pakistan, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Niger, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The report also said Pakistan has now remained among the ten countries most impacted by terrorism every year since the inception of the Index, a sign of how persistent the problem has been despite repeated military and security operations. It added that Pakistan’s strained ties with Afghanistan, the escalation of cross-border militancy, and rising violence by groups such as the TTP and BLA have left the country facing a broad and complex security challenge that cannot be addressed by force alone.

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Source:
Global Terrorism Index 2026 report (full PDF, Institute for Economics & Peace / Vision of Humanity)
Global Terrorism Index 2026 briefing PDF
Institute for Economics & Peace / GTI main page
Times of India video link
Related Times of India report on the same development

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