US says 1,907 people died in international terror last year

More than 1,900 people died in international terrorist attacks last year according to US data released today. It was triple the figure for 2003 but officials said this reflected more aggressive government efforts to track such violence.

According to the data, 1,907 people died in "significant" international terrorist attacks last year, up from 625 in 2003, and 6,704 people were wounded, up from 2003's 3,646. The number of such attacks surged to 651 last year from 175 in 2003.

While the statistics at first glance suggest international terrorism dramatically increased last year, US officials said the numbers could not be meaningfully compared to previous years when they did not track such violence as extensively.

The numbers are politically sensitive because the Bush administration last year used erroneous statistics to argue that it was winning the war on terrorism and then revised them upward amid sharp criticism by Democratic members of Congress.

Officials said the 2004 numbers could not be meaningfully compared to those of 2003 or earlier because - after the embarrassment of last year's revised numbers - they devoted more resources to counting terrorism attacks and, as a result, had tallied many more incidents than were noted in the past.

Ten US analysts were assigned to counting the 2004 numbers, up from three part-time employees the year before.

"This increased level of effort allowed a much deeper review of far more information and, along with Iraq, are the primary reasons for the significant growth in (the) number of terrorist incidents being reported," said John Brennan, the interim director of the National Counterterrorism Centre.

The number of attacks in Iraq increased to 201 from 22 in 2003 and the number of people killed rose to 554 from 117.

The number of Kashmir-related attacks in Pakistan and India rose to 284 from 52, and the people killed to 434 from 111. But State Department Counsellor Philip Zelikow said this partly resulted from analysts studying reports of attacks in local newspapers, a source previously neglected.

In releasing the numbers, the Bush Administration hoped to quell a controversy sparked when it sent mixed signals last week about whether the statistics would be released at all after the State Department decided to stop publishing them and the Central Intelligence Agency would not commit to doing so.

Congressional Democrats suggested the department's decision to cut the numbers might have been politically motivated because they showed more attacks, making it harder for the Bush administration to claim success in the war on terrorism.

Saying there was no pressure on NCTC to suppress the data, Brennan said his group would release more detailed terrorism statistics in June and would abandon definitions long used for State Department reports that gave a misleading picture.

Under those definitions, international terrorist attacks must involve the citizens or territory of two or more nations. As a result, of two Russian airliners blown up on the Aug. 24, one was counted because an Israeli was killed while the other was not because only Russian passengers were aboard.

Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, called it a "good development" that Wednesday's numbers were released but said he believed there was an actual increase in terrorism last year.

"There was clearly a significant increase in global terror last year. This increase was real and can't be explained away as a mere methodological artifact," Waxman said. "And it raises serious questions about the effectiveness of US policies. "

Brennan said the newly created NCTC, whose primary mission is to scan intelligence to try to prevent future attacks, had not wanted to use "very precious resources" to revise the 2003 numbers and to make them comparable to the 2004 figures.

- REUTERS