My employer sends out a security briefing newsletter every quarter, which usually has some juicy information. Unfortunately, it's all proprietory and I'm not supposed to cut and paste for you. However, an article entitled "State Dept. Reports Surge in Global Terrorism" deserves a diary, even if I have to go googling for alternate sources.
The State Department has been on a wanking spree regarding reporting actual numbers of terror incidents and casualties over the last few years. ::cough::especiallyaroundreelectiontime::cough:: First they under-reported the numbers for 2003:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. government acknowledged Thursday [June 10, 2004] that a recent report declaring a decline in terrorism in 2003 was wrong.
The report, released in April and touted by top administration officials as a sign of the success of the war on terrorism, was based on faulty data, said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.
In fact, he told reporters, the corrected report will show "a sharp increase over the previous year." The corrected version is not yet completed, he said.
Secretary of State Colin Powell denied the errors were the result of an effort to make the administration look good.
"Of course not," he told reporters. "I'm very disturbed that there were errors in the report."
Then, they decided to stop publishing numbers altogether. According to
Larry Johnson last April:
Just when you thought the Department of State could not top last year's debacle in failing accurately to count the number of international terrorist incidents, it appears that the State Department is going one step better--they reportedly have decided to not issue a report to the public. This move has been prompted by the Department's discovery that the new methodology used by the recently formed National Counter Terrorism Center has produced statistics that shows an enormous jump in the number of international terrorist attacks. For example, in 2003 there were about 172 significant attacks. The numbers for 2004 have jumped to at least 655. At least 300 of those incidents occurred in India in the Kashmir region. NCTC, I'm told, is still tweaking the numbers. For Secretary of State Rice these numbers are a disaster. It is tough to argue we are winning the war on terrorism when the numbers in the official Government report will show the largest number of incidents ever recorded since the State Department started reporting on terrorist incidents. In the Secretary's defense, however, the sharp jump in numbers has more to do with a change in methodololgy of counting rather that an actual surge in Islamic extremist activity. In fact, if you take time to parse the numbers, the actual scope of terrorism by Islamic extremists in 2004 appeared to decline relative to the attacks during 2003 (except for Iraq). Rather than run from the numbers the State Department and the Intelligence Community should seize the opportunity to really get their hands around the issue and provide Congress and the American people with a clear, apolitical assessment about the reality of the terrorist threat we face.
(Apologies for quoting almost the whole thing.)
Of course, Larry's numbers are still low. The State Department's latest numbers for 2003 are 208 incidents, 625 killed and 3646 wounded. (From Wiki or the State Dept.) According to my newsletter, the 2004 numbers were 3168 incidents with 1907 killed. It also contains the obligatory language about how this dramatic increase really isn't a dramatic increase because LOOK, A TAP-DANCING MONKEY! OMG that's so cute!! Look! He has a little hat!
Ahem.
Since the State Department was required to publish something about terrorism for 2004, they started doing a report called "Country Reports on Terrorism" - without counting the incidents. This year, they published the same kind of report, but stuck the numbers back in via a "Statistical Annex." All the reports are viewable here. The 2005 numbers are as follows:
Incidents of Terrorism Worldwide, 2005*
Incidents of terrorism worldwide 11,111
Incidents resulting in death, injury, or kidnapping of at least one individual 8,016
Incidents resulting in the death of at least one individual 5,131
--Incidents resulting in the death of zero individuals 5,980
--Incidents resulting in the death of only one individual 2,884
--Incidents resulting in the death of at least 10 individuals 226
Incidents resulting in the injury of at least one individual 3,827
Incidents resulting in the kidnapping of at least one individual 1,145
Individuals worldwide killed, injured or kidnapped as a result of incidents of terrorism 74,087
--Individuals worldwide killed as a result of incidents of terrorism 14,602
--Individuals worldwide injured as a result of incidents of terrorism 24,705
--Individuals worldwide kidnapped as a result of incidents of terrorism 34,780
Incidents of Terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan, 2005*
Incidents of terrorism in Iraq 3,474
Incidents in Iraq resulting in death, injury, or kidnapping of at least one individual 2,839
Individuals in Iraq killed, injured, or kidnapped as a result of incidents of terrorism 20,711
Incidents of terrorism in Afghanistan 489
Incidents in Afghanistan resulting in death, injury, or kidnapping of at least one individual 365
Individuals in Afghanistan killed, injured, or kidnapped as a result of incidents of terrorism 1,533.
*In all cases limited to incidents targeting noncombatants.
That's a lot of attacks. A lot of people killed and families destroyed. And very unfortunately, it also represents a lot of bad guys taking advantage of chaos we helped to create in order to hone their bombing and kidnapping skills.
In looking through different tags to find whether this had been diaried, I found this from January. It has Rand Corporation numbers for 2004 and 2005, but they're both a lot lower than those in my newsletter and in the State Department's report published in April. I'm sure it's all because Rand Corporation is using a different tap-dancing monkey methodology.
weldon berger also posted a diary about Scott McClellan's reaction to the increased numbers:
The difference is, now, that we've got them on the run. We've got them playing defense. We're taking the fight to them... and if you don't believe me you are a terrorist-hugging America hater!
Okay, so I made that last little bit up.
[Updated to add link for Larry Johnson's article.]