US raises figures for terror attacks to 3,200 By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington Published: July 6 2005 00:29 | Last updated: July 6 2005 00:29
The Bush administration on Tuesday released new figures for global terrorism that showed there were almost 3,200 terrorist incidents worldwide in 2004.
In April the US State Department had said there were 651 "international" terrorism incidents last year. But using a broader definition to include attacks that "deliberately hit civilians or non-combatants" the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) on Tuesday raised that number to 3,192. The incidents resulted in the deaths, injury or kidnapping of almost 28,500 people.
While President George W. Bush argues that the greatest threat facing the US is terrorism, the NCTC data revealed that North America and the Caribbean suffered only 10 terrorism incidents in 2004, which included attacks by the Animal Liberation Front in the US. Iraq suffered about 875 attacks, India about 360 and Nepal about 320.
John Brennan, director of the NCTC established in December as part of the US effort to reform its intelligence community said the low number of attacks against the US represented the success of the administration in preventing attacks on US soil. "The US has done a pretty damn good job of protecting the homeland," said Mr Brennan, who added that many failed efforts to attack the US were not included in the numbers.
According to the NCTC figures, only 19 per cent of the terrorism incidents in 2004 were attributable to Islamic extremists. Of the remainder, 25 per cent were secular/political attacks, while the reasons 56 per cent were unknown.
In response to questions about how to distinguish between types of attackers such as "freedom fighters" and "terrorists" Mr Brennan emphasised that some cases were less black and white than others. But he said each incident had to be considered on its merits. Insurgent attacks on Iraqi police would be categorised as terrorist incidents because they targeted "non-combatants".
The NCTC also unveiled a new website, www.tkb.org, which allows the public to track the number and kind of terrorist incidents.