‘Terrorists Attacks in Iraq & Afghanistan Skyrocketing’

This tell-tale table in The Washington Post is based on figures compiled by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) and released with the annual US State Department Country Reports on Terrorism. However, the figures relate to non-combatants.

“The number of terrorism incidents in Iraq — and resulting deaths, injuries and kidnappings — skyrocketed between the years 2005 and 2006.

“Of the 14,338 reported terrorist attacks worldwide last year, 45 percent took place in Iraq, and 65 percent of the global fatalities stemming from terrorism occurred in Iraq. In 2005, Iraq accounted for 30 percent of the worldwide terrorist attacks.

“The report acknowledged, the invasion ‘has been used by terrorists as a rallying cry for radicalization and extremist activity that has contributed to instability in neighboring countries’.

“The report also said that since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in the fall of 2002, the country ‘remains threatened by Taliban insurgents and religious extremists’.

“The number of terrorism incidents in Afghanistan rose 52 percent in 2006 compared with 2005, and the number of people killed, injured or kidnapped nearly doubled.

“Frank C. Urbancic Jr., acting coordinator for the Office of Counterterrorism, told reporters at the State Department: ‘If the battle against terrorism isn’t Iraq, it’s going to be somewhere else. It started out in Afghanistan. The terrorists are looking for places where they can operate, and that’s what they’re doing. So we can fight them in Iraq, we can fight them somewhere else. . . . They’re expanding their scope’.”

To read my earlier report on Iraq please click here…

Meanwhile another Washington Post story says: “The deaths of more than 100 American troops in April made it the deadliest month so far this year for U.S. forces in Iraq.”