Indonesia out of extreme terror risk list

Tuesday, 16 February 2010

The Jakarta Post

A global ranking, revealing the countries that are most at risk of terrorist attacks, has rated Indonesia outside the extreme risk category despite last year’s twin bomb attacks targeting international-chain hotels.

The latest Terrorism Risk Index (TRI) developed by London-based Maplecroft, for companies to assess terrorism risks to their international assets, saw Southeast Asian neighbor Thailand join the rank of most dangerous countries for the first time. Thailand ranked 11th last year.

Iraq (1), Afghanistan (2), Pakistan (3) and Somalia (4) top the ranking of 162 countries and are rated, along with Lebanon (5), India (6), Algeria (7), Colombia (8) and Thailand (9), as the only extreme risk nations.

The index measures the risk of an attack and mass casualties.

To provide a comprehensive picture of worldwide terrorism risk, Maplecroft analyses the frequency and intensity of and the number of victims involved in terrorist incidents every six months, plus the proportion of 'mass-casualty' attacks in each nation.

A country's history of terrorism also factored in along with threats made against it by groups such as al-Qaeda.

Following the Jakarta twin hotel bomb blasts in July last year, Indonesian counterterror squad conducted a thorough crackdown on terror suspects, killing long-time top fugitive Noordin M. Top and his close accomplices in the process.

The court is trying two suspects in the terror attacks.