Report details al-Qaida safe haven, carnage

WASHINGTON – Al-Qaida used a safe haven in Pakistan’s tribal areas to double the number of attacks in that country and kill four times as many people there in 2007, says a State Department report to Congress released Wednesday.

At a news briefing, Ambassador Dell L. Dailey, the State Department’s top counterterrorism official, stopped short of blaming Pakistan for the increase and said the terrorist network remained “weaker now than it was at the 9/11 timeframe.”

The annual terrorism report itself, however, says that a primary reason for the terrorist network’s resurgence is a much-criticized cease-fire last year between the Pakistani federal government and tribal leaders beyond its authority near the border with Afghanistan. The agreement enables al-Qaida to more freely travel, train and plan attacks around the world, the report says.

Overall, there were nearly the same number of terrorist attacks worldwide in 2007 as the year before – about 14,500. But many more people were killed, especially as the number of suicide bombers rose, says the 312-page report, which is required by Congress and compiled using statistics from the National Counterterrorism Center.

One such attack in the military garrison of Rawalpindi, Pakistan, last December killed at least 20 people, including former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto as she campaigned for her political party.

Overall, an estimated 22,685 people were killed by terrorists around the world in 2007, a 9 percent increase over 2006. Injuries increased 15 percent, to 44,310, the report said. The numbers do not include military personnel on active duty or anyone working in an official capacity on behalf of the U.S. government.

As in past years, the majority of terrorist attacks chronicled by the report occurred in Iraq. They dipped slightly in the last year but still accounted for 60 percent of worldwide terrorism fatalities, including 17 of the 19 Americans killed, the report said. Two other Americans were killed in Afghanistan.

The report is considered to be the U.S. government’s benchmark in measuring objective data on terrorist attacks.

In Pakistan, terrorist attacks more than doubled from 375 to 887 between 2006 and 2007, and the number of deaths jumped almost fourfold, to 1,335, the report said.

Pakistan’s newly elected government is on the verge of signing a new peace accord with Pashtun representatives in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. Dailey said the administration has confidence that it will not backfire like the previous one.