ISIS members and supporters march in Mosul, Iraq (AP Photo, File)

Berlin (CNSNews.com) – Germany has fallen from its former top position from among 80 countries surveyed by U.S. News & World Report, achieving fourth place this year in a drop at least partly attributed to security concerns.

“The nation was rocked by a range of events – from growing public anxiety over an influx of refugees to a string of deadly terror attacks,” the “Best Countries” report said.

The news comes shortly after release of a report from the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) saying a growing number of individuals have left Germany to fight in Iraq and Syria for terror groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL) .

The BfV report stated that 910 suspected jihadists had left Germany to travel to the two Mideast countries, an increase from the roughly 800 extremists reported about a year ago.

Over half of them are German citizens, and one-third have since returned to Germany. Some 145 of the extremists are said to have been killed in Syria and Iraq.

In addition to the string of terror attacks that shook the country last year, this growing number of active and returning jihadists has become an increasing cause for alarm.

The government says people who left Germany to join terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq may have been motivated by so-called “hate preachers” based in Germany.

An earlier report by the BfV, Germany’s domestic intelligence service, warned that Islamic extremism is spreading in the country, with the number of Islamist radicals having increased from just 100 in 2013 to 1,600.

Findings reported by the German newspaper Die Welt last November found that roughly half of returning jihadists stay loyal to the terror groups they fought for, while one in four returned former ISIS fighters end up cooperating with law enforcement.

The government has two potential responses to returning jihadists – prosecution or rehabilitation – although it also briefly mulled stripping the passports from dual-nationality German citizens last year.

Germany’s Federal Prosecutor has called for returning extremists from Syria and Iraq to be prosecuted as alleged accomplices to murder, although such a charge is a complex legal matter.

Last July prosecutors succeeded in a case against a man known as Harun P., a jihadist with the Islamist group Jund-al-Sham in Syria. He was found guilty of accessory to murder both for securing supplies for fighters and being on stand-by to fight; and guilty of attempted murder for firing a mortar blindly over a wall. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Three young German citizens were also jailed in November for up to four-and-a-half years, for travelling to Syria and joining terrorist groups including ISIS.

However, not all cases have been successful, as getting the required evidence is difficult.

Kerim B., a native of the North-Rhine Westphalia state, told fellow inmates that he had killed at least 16 people. However the case was dismissed as prosecutors could not prove that he had actually fought in Syria, or establish the identities of the alleged victims.

Germany has also introduced rehabilitation programs for returning Islamist extremists, using similar methods to those used to reform neo-Nazis.

One of Germany’s rehab centers is Hayat-Germany, which is funded by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees. It grew from an earlier initiative called Exit-Deutschland, which targeted neo-Nazis and right-wing extremists.

In Germany, as long as returnees did not participate in fighting, they may have a chance for leniency. (In the U.S., by contrast, simply travelling join a group – even without fighting – is a federal offense punishable by a jail sentence of up to 20 years.)

The International Center for Counter-Terrorism has advocated rehabilitation over prosecution. It says sentenced jihadists will eventually be released, and claims studies show rehabilitation leads to higher rates of social reintegration and lower likelihood of re-radicalization.

--The top ten U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Countries” for 2017 were, in order, Switzerland, Canada, Britain, Germany, Japan, Sweden, United States (ranked fourth out of 60 in 2016), Australia, France and Norway.