Report: Al-Qaeda losing control
In its annual report on worldwide terrorism, U.S. State Department says
group remains most prominent terror threat facing U.S., its allies;
Iran singled out as most active state sponsor of terrorism
Associated Press
Leaders of al-Qaeda lost some control of the terror network last year
due to the arrests and deaths of top operational planners, but the
group remains the most prominent terror threat facing the United States
and its allies, the State Department said Friday.
In its annual report on worldwide terrorism, the department singled out
Iran as the most active state sponsor of terrorism, with its Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps and Ministry of Intelligence and Security
directly involved in the planning and support of terrorist acts.
Overall, the report tallied about 11,000 terror attacks around the
world last year, resulting in more than 14,600 deaths. That is almost a
four-fold increase from 2004, though the agency blames the change
largely on new ways of tallying the incidents.
About 3,500 of last year's attacks occurred in Iraq and about 8,300 of
the deaths occurred there, accounting for a large part of the increase
over 2004.
The report said Osama Bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders are
scattered and on the run and Afghanistan is no longer a safe haven for
the network. In addition, al-Qaeda's relations with the Taliban that
once ruled Afghanistan are growing weaker and the group's finances and
logistics have been disrupted, the report said.
"Al-Qaeda is not the organization it was four years ago," the report
said.
However, "overall, we are in the first phase of a potentially long
war," it said. "The enemy's proven ability to adapt means we will go
through several more cycles of action/reaction before the war's outcome
is no longer in doubt. It is likely we will have a resilient enemy for
years to come."
A new generation of extremists, some of them getting training through
the internet, is emerging in cells that are likely to be more local and
less meticulously planned, the report said. These small groups,
empowered by technology, are very difficult to detect or counter, it
said.
Safe havens for terrorists where they plan and inspire acts of
terrorism tend to be located along international borders between and
among ineffective governments, the report said. It cited the
Afghanistan border, the intersection of Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil,
the Celebes Sea in Southeast Asia, and Somalia.
East Asian countries made significant progress in 2005 creating a
regional environment inhospitable to terrorists, the report said.
But Venezuelan cooperation in the international campaign against
terrorism remained negligible.
President Hugo Chavez persisted in public criticism of U.S.
counterterrorism efforts, publicly championed Iraqi terrorists,
deepened Venezuelan collaboration with such state sponsors of terrorism
as Cuba and Iran and was unwilling to deny safe haven to members of
Colombian terrorist groups, the report said.
In Iraq, which the report called a key front in the global war on
terror, a system of clandestine support networks funneled in foreign
terrorists from the Middle East, Europe, North Africa,
South and Central Asia and the Caucasus.
'Libya taking significant steps to cooperate in war on terror'
In 2004, the government's National Counterterrorism Center, which
monitors terrorism, counted 3,192 terror attacks worldwide, including
more than 28,000 people wounded, killed or kidnapped.
Officials have said the government last year changed its system of
counting global attacks and devoted more energy to finding reports of
violence against civilians. Even so, the higher figures underscore how
terrorism around the world has grown since the attacks of Sept. 11,
2001.
Six countries - Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria -
remain classified as state sponsors of terror. Libya and Sudan, though,
were credited with continuing to take significant steps to cooperate in
the global war on terror.
But the report cited allegations that Libyan officials played a role in
an attempt to assassinate then-Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah in 2003 and
said the United States continues to evaluate Libya's assurance to halt
the use of violence for political purposes.
Libya began working last year with Britain to curtail terrorism by the
Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and extradited a suspect in a Cairo
bombing to Egypt, the report said.
In Israel and Palestinian-held territories, a range of groups,
including Hamas, used a variety of tactics, including suicide bombs.
The number of victims killed in Israel was less than 50, down from the
almost 100 people killed in 2004, the report said.
The report noted the reluctance of the European Union to block assets
of charities linked to Hamas and the Lebanese group Hezbollah.
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