Despite recent bombings at the Boston Marathon, terrorist acts have, overall, been rare in the United States since the 9/11 attacks, University of Otago Prof Kevin Clements says.
Prof Clements, the director of the New Zealand Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, noted although the number of terrorist incidents throughout the world had risen, annual fatalities from terrorism had actually declined 25% since 2007. During the past decade, the Middle East, North Africa and Asia had been most affected by terrorism, while North America had been the least likely region to suffer a terrorist attack.
''Because of media coverage, North America has often been perceived as a major target for terrorist attacks, but since 2002 it has been the least likely region to suffer from terrorism, with a fatality rate 19 times lower than Western Europe.''
Prof Clements is also a member of the research committee of the Sydney-based Institute for Economics and Peace.
Since 2002, the institute had been producing the Global Terrorism Index that ranks and compares 158 countries according to the impact of terrorism.
In an interview with Russian television following the Boston bombings, Prof Clements said there had been a rising number of successful attacks during the past decade.
In 2011, 91% of terrorist attacks had been successful: 4564 terrorist incidents took place globally, resulting in 7473 deaths and 13,961 injuries.
But although the impact of terrorism was ''distributed around the world'', the Middle East, India, Pakistan and Russia had been the areas most affected by terrorism in 2011.
Prof Clements told the Otago Daily Times New Zealanders rightly felt a sense of empathy with Boston residents and visitors after three people had been killed and many others injured in the Boston bombings.
But nine people had also been killed in a recent terrorist bombing in Pakistan, and about 30,000 others had died in continuing violence in Syria.
The victims of terrorism in those countries were equally deserving of compassion and efforts also needed to be made to reduce terrorism and conflict there, he said.
