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Number
of Global Terror Victims up 40% The
Financial Times The number of
victims of terrorism worldwide rose 40 per cent last year to more than
20,000, largely because of the escalating violence in Iraq, according
to a US State Department report.
The annual report on terrorism for 2006 concluded that Iran was still the "most active sponsor of terrorism". But it warned that al-Qaeda and its affiliates posed the greatest threat to the US and international community. The report found there were more than 14,000 incidents of terrorism in 2006, an increase of 29 per cent from previous years. Excluding Iraq, however, the number of incidents increased by only 23 cases. Echoing the White House mantra that Iraq is "the central front" in the "war on terror", the report said Iraq "remained at the centre of the "war on terror". During his confirmation hearing last year, Robert Gates, the incoming US defence secretary, said he believed Iraq was only one front in the campaign to eradicate terrorism. The report comes just months after the US intelligence community concluded that elements of the conflict in Iraq amounted to civil war. According to the report - which defines terrorism as "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by sub-national groups of clandestine agents" - almost 39,000 people were killed, injured or kidnapped because of terrorist incidents in Iraq. In a sign of the escalating violence in Afghanistan that has forced the US and Nato to increase troops levels, it concluded that the number of cases of terrorism in the war-torn country rose 91 per cent to almost 3,000. "To defeat the resurgent threat, the international community must deliver promised assistance and work with Afghans to build counterinsurgency capabilities, ensure legitimate and effective governance, and counter the surge in narcotics cultivation," the report said. The report listed Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria as the five countries on its state-sponsored list of terrorism. The US recently agreed to start the process of removing North Korea - which it concedes has not committed a terrorist act since 1987 - as part of the February six-party agreement towards denuclearising the Korean peninsula. In line with recent US accusations about Tehran, the report says Iran "continued to play a destabilising role in Iraq". The Iranian Revolutionary Guard "was linked" to explosives that killed coalition forces in Iraq, it said. The report also concluded that Sudan was a "strong partner in the war on terror", but warned that Osama bin Laden and other senior al-Qaeda members have urged the movements to expand in Sudan. It added that al-Qaeda was in transition from "expeditionary" to "guerrilla" terrorism by using more nationals of the country of any given target. |