PNM highlights triumph over terrorism

By Shamindra Ferdinando

Top National Patriotic Movement (PNM) spokesman Dr. Wasantha Bandara yesterday (11) said that the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) 2025 recently categorized Sri Lanka as a country with the lowest terrorist threat.

The 12th annual GTI report, released in London on Wednesday (05 March) ranked Sri Lanka 100th among 163 countries considered in the GTI. Dr. Bandara pointed out that with a GTI score of zero, Sri Lanka, once wrecked by separatist terrorism shared the lowest spot on the GTI with 63 other countries.

Pointing out that Sri Lanka also shared the lowest terror threat ranking in the South Asian region with Bhutan, Dr. Bandara said that the armed forces and police paid a huge price to restore normalcy in the country.

Responding to The Island query, Dr. Bnadara said that combined forces brought the war against the LTTE to a successful conclusion in May 2009 though the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP) launched GTI a couple of years later.

The GTI report is produced based on data from TerrorismTracker and other sources. TerrorismTracker provides records on terrorist attacks since 1 January 2007. The dataset contains over 73,000 terrorist incidents for the period 2007 to 2024.

Dr. Bandara said that some of the fiercest fighting and high profile terrorist attacks took place after the launch of IEP’s GTI, 12 years ago.

According to him, since the eradication of the LTTE, 17 years ago, the 2019 Easter Sunday carnage was the only terrorist attack blamed on the National Thowheed Jaamat (NTJ) and as far as terrorism was concerned Sri Lanka could be happy. However, the National People’s Power (NPP) government shouldn’t resort to political strategies that may undermine national security, Dr. Bandara said, underscoring the responsibility on the part of the AKD administration to defend the war-winning armed forces at the UNHRC.

Dr. Bandara said that though the situation improved here, according to GTI the number of countries recording a terrorist attack increased from 58 to 66. The West that has been openly encouraging terrorism in other regions suffered due to terrorism, the civil society activist said.

According to GTI, terrorist attacks jumped by 63% in the West, and Europe was the most affected where attacks doubled to 67. In 2024, several Western countries reported one in five terror suspects as under 18, with teenagers accounting for most IS-linked arrests in Europe.

The PNM spokesman pointed out that seven Western countries were in the first 50 most impacted countries on the GTI.

According to the GTI, Islamic State (IS) remains the deadliest organisation, causing 1,805 deaths across 22 countries in 2024.

Referring to last year’s warning of foreign terrorist attacks in the East, Dr. Bandara said that Sri Lanka should never lower its guard. For want of cohesive strategy and internal squabbling, the Yahapalana government couldn’t thwart the Easter Sunday attacks, though specific intelligence was available of the imminent multiple suicide attacks, Dr. Bandara said.

The PNM spokesman said that regardless of GTI reports some countries continued to depict Sri Lanka as a country prone to terrorist attacks. Dr. Bandara said that the latest GTI report should be part of Sri Lanka’s defence as various interested parties continued war crimes allegations.