Terrorism

Documents & Texts from America.gov

30 April 2008
New Report Showcases Global Progress Against Terrorism

By David I. McKeeby
Staff Writer

 • Full text of the Country Reports on Terrorism 2007
 • Officials Brief on Release of Terrorism Report
 • United States Identifies 42 Foreign Terrorist Organizations
 • Report Says Iran Is Most Significant State Sponsor of Terrorism

Washington -- International gains against terrorist cells in 2007 highlight the continuing need for a complex, comprehensive and collaborative strategy against terrorism.

“Working with allies and partners across the world, we've created a less permissive operating environment for terrorists, kept leaders on the move or in hiding and degraded their ability to plan and mount attacks,” said State Department counterterrorism coordinator Dell Dailey upon the April 30 release of Country Reports on Terrorism 2007.

An annual report developed jointly by the State Department and the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), Country Reports on Terrorism 2007 provides Congress with information on progress in the fight against al-Qaida and other U.S.-designated foreign terrorist groups active in the Americas, Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

In 2007, there were 14,499 terrorist attacks worldwide, according to the report, a slight decrease from 14,570 in 2006. But progress against terrorism cannot be measured by numbers alone, says NCTC Deputy Director Russ Travers.

“Last year, almost 9,400 police officers were injured or killed. We also saw a growth in the number of attacks against schools,” Travers said. “We also have reporting indicating upwards of 2,400 children were killed. The number is undoubtedly far higher, but that's [what] we can document.”

TERRORISM REMAINS COMPLEX THREAT

Since 2001, improvements in border and transportation security, new banking and legal codes and expanded intelligence cooperation among nations have weakened terrorists, said Dailey, citing foiled terrorist plots in the United Kingdom, Germany and Denmark in 2007.

But terrorism remains a complex threat, Dailey added. Cells operating from safe havens in unstable corners of the world are working to circumvent new security measures by forging alliances with regional affiliates and waging an increasingly Internet-based propaganda campaign to exploit local grievances and recruit a new generation of youth onto the path of radicalism.

“The terrorists’ message of hate and death holds no promise for anyone’s future,” Dailey said.

Countering radicalization is a top priority, said Dailey, and is taking a variety of forms, from Colombia’s delivery of services and security in confronting the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, to Saudi Arabia’s initiative to rehabilitate former radicals, to the newly elected Pakistani government’s renewed effort to bring peace and security to its tribal regions bordering Afghanistan.

COMPREHENSIVE ATTENTION TO STATE SPONSORS

Confronting terrorism also means continued attention to state sponsors of terrorism Iran, Syria, Sudan, Cuba and North Korea, Dailey said.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps actively provided arms, training and support to Shia militias in Iraq during 2007, said Dailey, as well as to Palestinian militants and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. It also aided militant groups in Afghanistan that target civilians and NATO-led peacekeepers.

As many as 90 percent of foreign fighters entering Iraq arrived through Syria, Dailey said, while Cuba has provided aid to the FARC, among others, and North Korea has yet to resolve questions about past bombings and kidnappings.

While Venezuela is not officially considered a state sponsor of terrorism, its recent moves in support of the FARC are a cause for concern, he added.

In the case of Iran and North Korea, a comprehensive approach to counterterrorism overlaps international concerns about the potential spread of chemical, biological and even nuclear weapons to terrorists.

“All nations that fail to live up to their counterterrorism and nonproliferation obligations deserve greater scrutiny as potential facilitators of [weapons of mass destruction] terrorism,” Dailey said.

INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION PROGRESSING

Terrorists transcend international boundaries, making regional and global cooperation a must, said Dailey, as seen in 2007 in successes by the Philippines and Indonesia in confronting, respectively, the terrorist groups Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah, as well as in Africa, where Mauritania and Somalia confronted al-Qaida-linked insurgencies.

The United States is encouraging a collaborative approach to counterterrorism through its Regional Strategic Initiative, an effort to bring together diplomats and U.S. government experts with their foreign counterparts across a region to share information and work together against terrorists by providing aid and development assistance, health care and education or police and military training to give states the tools they need to safeguard their citizens.

“Over time, our global and regional cooperative efforts will reduce terrorists’ capacity to harm us and our partners, while local security and development assistance will build our partners’ capacity,” Dailey said.

Country Reports on Terrorism 2007 is available on the State Department Web site.

For more information, see Confronting Terrorism.

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