Syria Is World’s ‘Most Dangerous Country’

Syria is the most dangerous country in the world, according to new figures.

The annual Global Peace Index (GPI), which forms part of research unveiled by the Institute for Economics and Peace, illustrated yet again how the civil war and the rise of the Islamic State have taken a devastating toll on the country and its people.

The index is based on 23 different metrics, including factors such as murder levels, perceptions of criminality, terrorism and military expenditure.

In 2008, by comparison, Syria was listed in the annual index as the world’s 88th most peaceful country out of 162 nations included in the index.

“2014 was marked by contradictory trends: on the one hand many countries in the OECD achieved historically high levels of peace, while on the other, strife-torn nations, especially in the Middle East, became more violent. This is a real concern as these conflict become even more intractable they spread terrorism to other states,” according to Steve Killelea, founder and executive chairman of the Institute for Economics and Peace.

Obama and Erdogan to Boost Cooperation on Foreign Fighters

U.S. president Barack Obama and Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan agreed during a telephone call on Wednesday to increase their cooperation to “stem the flow of foreign fighters and secure Turkey’s border with Syria,” the White House said in a statement.

The conversation followed a suspected Islamic State suicide attack in the Turkish town of Suruc near the Syrian border earlier this week that killed 32 mostly young people and injured dozens of others.

The leaders also discussed how to battle the Islamic State, which has seized large parts of Syria in part because of the influx of thousands of foreign fighters into its ranks over the past few years. Many of the fighters have crossed into Syria through Turkey.

Turkish opposition parties have also accused the Turkish government of tacitly supporting the Islamic State by giving the radical Islamists a wide berth in the country, a charge Ankara denies.

There were several other related developments:

· The Turkish military has deployed dozens of troops from the Special Forces Command – also known as the maroon berets – in the southern province of Kilis along the Syrian border following the suicide bombing, reports said.

· Syrian refugees living in camps located in the Islahiye district of Turkey’s southeastern province of Gaziantep have been banned from leaving the camps due to security concerns related to Monday’s suicide bombing, according to the Dogan news agency.

· Turkish armed forces sources told the Anadolu Agency that almost half of the 457 people detained on the Turkish–Syrian border between January 1 and June 30 are Chinese nationals. The suspects include citizens from at least 32 different countries, including one from as far away as Brazil. From the Gulf, nine suspects, all of them Saudis, were detained, according to the sources.

Recommended Reads

• Reuters: Suicide Attack Unlikely to Change Turkish Stance on Syria
• Al Arabiya News: A Syria Breakthrough? Don’t Hold Your Breath
• The Guardian: Cameron Could Be Leading Us into Another Open-ended Middle East Conflict
• Pew Research Center: A Year Later, U.S. Campaign Against ISIS Garners Support, Raises Concerns
• Al Jazeera: Is ISIL Running out of Oil?
• Al Jazeera: Yazidi Boy Recounts ISIL Camp Experience
• World Tribune: ISIL Post Warns ‘Jihadi Brides’ on ‘Romanticism’ of ISIL Propaganda, Laments ‘Pathetic’ Reality of ‘This World’
• Al Jazeera: Has ISIL Won?