Terrorist Incidents Hit Record Numbers in 2005
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James Joyner | Friday, April 21, 2006 |
Warren Strobel reports that the number of terrorist attacks in 2005 hit record levels.
The number of terrorist attacks documented by U.S. intelligence agencies jumped sharply in 2005, crossing the 10,000 mark for the first time, according to U.S. counterterrorism officials and documents obtained by Knight Ridder Newspapers.
Officials caution that much of the increase, due to be reported publicly next week, stems from a change last year in how terror attacks are counted, coupled with a more aggressive effort to tally such violence worldwide.
But the documents say, and officials confirm, that some of the rise is traceable to the war in Iraq, where foreign terrorists, a homegrown insurgency and sectarian strife have all contributed to political bloodshed. More than half the fatalities from terrorism worldwide last year occurred in Iraq, said a counterterrorism official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the data haven’t been made public. Roughly 85 percent of the U.S. citizens who died from terrorism during the year died in Iraq. The figures cover only noncombatants and thus don’t include combat deaths of U.S., Iraqi and other coalition soldiers.
“There’s no question that the level of terrorist attacks in Iraq was up substantially,” said the official, who’s familiar with the methods used by the National Counterterrorism Center to track terrorist trends. The center is part of the U.S. intelligence community.
The number is stark but, as noted, partly reflects a change in the counting methodology. That the sheer number of attacks is likely up, though, strikes me as plausible. After all, they are a constant feature of daily life in Iraq and have been for quite some time.
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and infant daughter.
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This can't be true, Don't you know that according to Kerry, Dean, Reid, Polosi, Durbin Kennedy and the rest of the pacifist democrats, all you need to do to stop terrorism is to "Talk to them"
This can't be true, we have spent untold billions of dollars to "fight terrorism" and have instituted a color chart to tell us when the terrorist threat is "elevated" (seems to only work before elections though). And Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld are still on the job, I'm shocked the terrorists have the guts to do anything other then wet themselves.
But I thought the attacks in Iraq were by "insurgents," not "terrorists."
Looks like big Repub govt. can work. Apparently the billions Bush invested in terrorist recruitment and training in Iraq has paid off.
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