[JURIST] The US National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) [official website] on Wednesday published its 2011 Report on Terrorism [text, PDF] which concluded that the total number of worldwide terrorism attacks has dropped 12 percent from 2010 and 29 percent from 2007. The report is compiled based on data collected through the US Worldwide Incidents Tracking System (WITS), which uses specific guidelines to record and organize information on terrorism [JURIST news archive]. The report also found that Afghanistan experienced the most terrorist attacks and terror-related deaths in 2011. WITS uses the US definition of terrorism which provides that terrorism is “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.”

Terrorism has become a topic of international concern. Earlier this week, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged [JURIST report] countries to increase their efforts to counter the threat of terrorism. At a second meeting of the advisory board of the UN Centre for Counter-Terrorism (UNCCT) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Ban stated that nations have to work together to prevent and counter terrorism’s having a detrimental global effect. The UNCCT Strategy was first introduced in 2006 after UN leaders failed to meet their goal of completing it in 2005 [JURIST report].