There has been a 320 per cent increase in far-right terrorist attacks in the West over the past five years, a report has found.
According to the 2019 Global Terrorism Index, released on Wednesday, 19 countries in North America, Western Europe and Oceania were affected by attacks during this period.
"[And far-right terrorism deaths] have been increasing year on year ... from 11 deaths in 2017, 26 deaths in 2018, to 77 deaths by the end of September 2019," quoted the report, which was published by the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP).
But overall, deaths from terrorism decreased by 15.2 per cent in 2018 to 15,952 globally - the fourth consecutive year of improvement.
A vigil in Christchurch after the attacks. Source: AAP
Terrorism and Australia
Each year, the index ranks countries most affected by terrorism to least affected by terrorism.
Australia came in at 71 out of 163 countries – improving its ranking by three places from last year.
But the executive chairman of the IEP Steve Killelea said the rise of far-right terrorism presents new challenges for Australia.
"Far-right terrorism is different to Islamic-inspired terrorism … What we find with far-right terrorists is that none of them are actually aligned with a group, they are self-radicalised," he told SBS News.
"This makes it difficult for security organisations to prevent such attacks."
Mr Killelea said the number of far-right terrorist attacks globally "is still small, but it's a worrying trend".
"Security organisations need to be vigilant," he said.
The Christchurch mosque shooting that claimed the lives of 51 people in March has shifted some of the terrorism focus onto the increasing threat of the far-right in Australia.
"This threat is not something new, but current extreme right-wing networks are better organised and more sophisticated than those of the past," ASIO said in its annual report.
"Any future extreme right-wing-inspired attack in Australia would most likely be low capability and conducted by a lone actor or small group, although a sophisticated weapons attack is possible."
But Labor has urged the government to do more in addressing the far-right threat, with .
Over 2018-19, ASIO said it resolved or investigated 12,478 counter-terrorism leads of all types resulting in the disruption of three planned terror attacks.
Taliban overtakes IS
The IEP's Mr Killelea said the global drop in deaths from terrorism over the past year can be attributed to two main factors.
"There's the demise and defeat of ISIL. Their numbers have dropped off dramatically. And the other is Al-Shabaab in Somalia - US airstrikes against it has caused a large reduction in the number of deaths," he said.
The report also found the Taliban had overtaken IS to become the deadliest terrorist group in the world, recording a 71 per cent increase in terrorism deaths.
"[The Taliban] was responsible for 38 per cent of all terrorist deaths globally in 2018."
Asked by SBS News about how the global community could curb terrorist attacks even further, Mr Killelea was resolute.
The 'demise and defeat' of IS has seen deaths from terrorism drop. Source: Getty
"Ninety-five per cent of all terrorist deaths occur in a major conflict," he said.
"Governments need to really be careful about starting new wars, and if they do, they should have a clear understanding of how they're going to finish them quickly."
The top 10 countries most impacted by terrorism
1) Afghanistan
2) Iraq
3) Nigeria
4) Syria
5) Pakistan
6) Somalia
7) India
8) Yemen
9) Philippines
10) The Democratic Republic of the Congo
Source: 2019 Global Terrorism Index
