Terrorist violence is on the decline, according to a Simon Fraser University report released Wednesday.

Andrew Mack, the director of SFU's Human Security Report Project, said the findings clearly dispel the myth that global terrorism is getting worse each year.

"We've seen a big decline in Islamic terrorism everywhere except Afghanistan, Pakistan and Algeria," said Mack, a professor at SFU's School for International Studies.

In challenging the expert consensus that the threat of global terrorism is increasing, the human-security brief shows that fatalities from terrorism have declined by about 40 per cent between July and September 2007.

As well, the report indicates the terror network associated with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida has had a dramatic collapse in popular support throughout the Muslim world.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the number of conflicts more than halved between 1999 and 2006 and the combat toll dropped by 98 per cent.

The paper, released in New York, updates the findings of the 2005 Human Security Report. The project indicates the decline in the total number of armed conflicts and combat deaths around the world continues. The number of military coups has continued to decline, along with the number of campaigns of deadly violence waged against civilians.

Mack, who worked at the United Nations from 1998 to 2001, said about five people worked on the project for the past seven months. He said some data to which they had access was badly skewed.

"The data is incredibly complicated and full of inconsistencies," Mack said, of the manner in which terrorism deaths and incidents are tracked around the world.

The team analyzed the statistical trends from the National Counterterrorism Centre, the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism and the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. The team feels the report is accurate and is "confident about the broad trends," Mack said.

BYLINE: Vancouver Province; Canwest News Service