[Infowarrior] - State Dept Report says terror attacks up sharply

[Richard Forno]

 Report says terror attacks up sharply

By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 14 minutes ago

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070501/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_terrorism&printer=1
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Terrorist attacks worldwide shot up more than 25 percent last year, killing
40 percent more people than in 2005, particularly in Iraq where extremists
used chemical weapons and suicide bombers to target crowds, the State
Department said Monday.

Among countries, Iran remains the biggest supporter of terrorism, with
elements of its government backing groups throughout the Middle East,
notably in Iraq, giving material aid and guidance to Shiite insurgent groups
that have attacked Sunnis, U.S. and Iraqi forces, it said.

In its annual global survey of terrorism, the department said 14,338 attacks
took place in 2006, mainly in Iraq and Afghanistan, 3,185 more than in 2005
representing a 28.5 percent increase.

These strikes claimed a total of 20,498 lives, 13,340 of them in Iraq, 5,800
more, or a 40.2 percent increase, than last year, it said.

Despite the grim figures, State Department officials pointed to some
successes in the war on terror, including improved counterterrorism
cooperation with various nations and the thwarting of numerous plots,
notably plans to down trans-Atlantic airliners.

"Serious challenges do remain, there's no question about that," said acting
counterterrorism coordinator Frank Urbancic. "This is not the kind of war
where you can measure success with conventional numbers. We cannot aspire to
a single decisive battle that will break the enemy's back, nor can we hope
for a signed peace accord to mark victory."

The report partly attributes the higher casualty figures to a 25 percent
jump in the number of nonvehicular suicide bombings targeting large crowds.
That overwhelmed a 12 percent dip in suicide attacks involving vehicles.

In Iraq, the use of chemical weapons, seen for the first time in a Nov. 23,
2006, attack in Sadr City, also "signaled a dangerous strategic shift in
tactics," it said.

With the rise in fatalities, the number of injuries from terrorist attacks
also rose, by 54 percent, between 2005 and 2006, and the number of wounded
doubled in Iraq over the period, according to the department's Country
Reports on Terrorism 2006.

The numbers were compiled by the National Counterterrorism Center and refer
to deaths and injuries sustained by "noncombatants," with significant
increases in attacks targeting children, educators and journalists.

"By far the largest number of reported terrorist incidents occurred in the
Near East and South Asia," said the 335-page report, referring to the
regions where Iraq and Afghanistan are located.

"These two regions also were the locations for 90 percent of all the 290
high-casualty attacks that killed 10 or more people," it said.

The report said 6,600, or 45 percent, of the attacks took place in Iraq,
killing about 13,000 people, or 65 percent of the worldwide total of
terrorist-related deaths in 2006. Kidnappings by terrorists soared 300
percent in Iraq over 2005.

Afghanistan had 749 strikes in 2006, a 50 percent rise from 2005 when 491
attacks were tallied, according to the report.

However, it also detailed a surge in Africa, where 65 percent more attacks,
420 compared to 253 in 2005, were counted last year, largely due to turmoil
in or near Sudan, including Darfur, and Nigeria where oil facilities and
workers have been targeted.

As in previous years, the 2006 report identified Iran as the "most active
state sponsor" of terror, accusing the Islamic republic of helping plan and
foment attacks to destabilize Iraq and derail Israeli-Palestinian peace
efforts.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard has been "linked to armor-piercing explosives
that resulted in the deaths of coalition forces" and has helped, along with
Lebanon's radical Hezbollah movement, train Iraqi extremists to build bombs,
the report said.

Although the designation of Iran is not new, it appears in the report that
is being released as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice prepares to attend
a conference of Iraq's neighbors, at which she has not ruled out a meeting
with Iran's foreign minister.

The report said that terrorists continue to rely mainly on conventional
weapons in their attacks, but noted no let up in an alarming trend toward
more sophisticated and better planned and coordinated strikes.

For instance, while the number of bombings increased by 30 percent between
2005 and 2006, the death tolls from these incidents rose by 39 percent and
the number of injuries rose by 45 percent, it said.

The report attributed the higher casualty figures to a 25 percent jump in
the number of non-vehicular suicide bombings targeting large crowds that
more than made up for a slight 12 percent dip in suicide attacks involving
vehicles.

Of the 58,000 people killed or wounded in terrorist attacks around the world
in 2006, more than 50 percent were Muslims, the report, says with government
officials, police and security guards accounting for a large proportion, the
report said.

The number of child casualties from terrorist attacks soared by more than 80
percent between 2005 and 2006 to more than 1,800, while incidents involving
educators were up more than 45 percent and those involving journalists up 20
percent, the report said.

Twenty-eight U.S. citizens were killed and 27 wounded in terrorist incidents
in 2006, most of them in Iraq, where eight of the 12 Americans kidnapped by
terrorists last year were taken captive, it said.