June 18 (Reuters) - Sudan and Iraq topped an independent ranking of the world's leading failed states released on Monday by Foreign Policy magazine and the Fund for Peace.

The annual Failed States Index ranked 177 countries according to 12 social, economic, political and military indicators based on data from thousands of publicly available sources.

The authors of the index said one of the leading benchmarks for failed state status is the loss of physical control of territory or a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, the erosion of legitimate authority, an inability to provide reasonable public services and the inability to interact with other states as a full member of the international community.

Foreign Policy magazine is published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington-based think tank. The Fund for Peace is an independent research group devoted to preventing and resolving conflicts.

Following are the 10 most unstable countries listed in the index:

1) Sudan

2) Iraq

3) Somalia

4) Zimbabwe

5) Chad

6) Ivory Coast

7) Democratic Republic of the Congo

8) Afghanistan

9) Guinea

10) Central African Republic

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