TERRORISM RISES BY 25%+ IN 2006May 1, 2007The Middle East Newsline reports: “The United States, pointing to the increasing use of suicide car bombs and chemical weapons, has determined that attacks deemed terrorist have risen by more than 25 percent worldwide in 2006.The State Department, citing figures from the National Counterterrorism Center, said casualties from terrorist strikes rose 40 percent last year as compared to 2005. The report pointed to a 91 percent increase in attacks in the Middle East and South Asia, including the new use of c
rine bombs.‘By far the largest number of reported terrorist incidents occurred in the Near East and South Asia,’ the report, citing regions that include Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq, said. ‘These two regions also were the locations for 90 percent of all the 290 high-casualty attacks that killed 10 or more people.’Entitled ‘Country Reports on Terrorism, 2006,’ the 335-page report, citing an increase in global attacks from 14,618 in 2005 to 20,498 in 2006, termed Iran the biggest supporter of terrorism. The department reported Iranian assistance to Islamic and other insurgency groups throughout the Middle East, including Hamas, Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad and networks in Iraq…”--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
