The number of terrorist attacks each year has more than quadrupled in the decade since 9/11, according to a study launched today.
The Global Terrorist Index showed that in 2002 there were 982 separate attacks. By 2011 that had risen to 4,564.
Researchers suggest the U.S. military interventions pursued as part of the West's anti-al Qaeda 'war on terror' may have made terrorism worse. It also said it was impossible to prove whether the policy made the U.S homeland safer.Despite the increase in attacks in the past ten years, the number of deaths in terrorists attacks has fallen.
It peaked in 2007 at the height of the Iraq war when 10,009 people died. That figure had fallen to 7,473 last year.
Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Yemen have been the most affected by terrorism in the past ten years. The rankings were based on the number of attacks, fatalities, injuries and the level of property damage caused in each country through terrorist attacks.