Australia has recorded one of the largest slides down a global terrorism ranking index following the Bondi Beach terrorist attack, when 15 people were killed by two gunmen.
The anti-Semitic attack that targeted a Jewish Hanukkah festival at Australia’s most famous beach was the worst terror attack Australian soil.
Australia fell 14 places to 31 on the index.
The index also found a 280 percent increase in terrorism deaths in Western countries in 2025, up to 57 deaths, driven by a small number of high-casualty attacks, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace.
Attacks were largely driven by anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and political terrorism.
Youth racialisation and lone-wolf actors are spurring terrorism in the West, with children and teens accounting for two in five of terrorism-related investigations in Europe and North America in 2025, marking a threefold increase since 2001.
It correlates with what Australia is experiencing, with federal police and the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation warning of increasing youth radicalisation.
But the Western figures contrast to a global decline, with deaths from terrorism dropping to 5,582, down 28 percent, and the number of attacks declining to 2,944, a 22 percent fall to mark the lowest number since 2007.
Australia’s decrease in the ranks reflected the shift to high-impact attacks, institute founder and executive chairman Steve Killelea said.
“Although Australia remains one of the safest countries in the world, the Bondi Beach attack highlights how a single incident can significantly affect a country’s terrorism impact score,” he said.
“While global terrorism continues to be concentrated in conflict zones, the risk in stable countries increasingly comes from isolated or small-scale actors radicalised online.
“Terrorism in Western countries today is less about organised networks and more about lone actors. That makes it harder to predict and prevent.”
There have been 25 terrorism deaths in Australia since 2014, with 20 of these in the past five years, according to the Institute.
ISIS, which police say inspired the Bondi attack, remains the deadliest terrorist organisation.
They, along with affiliated groups, were responsible for about one-in-six attacks worldwide.
Iran remains a risk as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, designated a terrorist organisation in Australia after directing anti-Semitic attacks on local soil, was linked to 157 terrorism plots across 15 nations in the past five years.
Pakistan leads the ranking, with 1,139 deaths and 1,045 incidents in 2025, the highest since 2013.
