Synopsis "Report on Terrorist Incidents- 2006"
According to open-source information, approximately 14,000 terrorist attacks occurred in various countries during 2006, resulting in over 20,000 deaths. As compared with 2005, attacks in 2006 rose by 3,000, a 25 percent increase, while deaths rose by 5,800, a 40 percent increase. As was the case last year, by far the largest number of reported terrorist incidents and deaths occurred in the Near East and South Asia. These two regions also were the locations for 90 percent of the nearly 300 high-casualty attacks in 2006 that killed 10 or more people-only a total of five high-casualty attacks occurred in Europe-Eurasia, East Asia-Pacific, and the Western Hemisphere. Of the 14,000 reported attacks, 45 percent-about 6,600-of them occurred in Iraq where approximately 13,000 fatalities-65 percent of the worldwide total-were reported for 2006.Violence against noncombatants in eastern and sub-Saharan Africa, particularly related to attacks associated with turmoil in or near Sudan and Nigeria, rose 64 percent in 2006, rising to 422 from the approximately 256 attacks reported for 2005. The number of reported incidents in 2006 fell for Europe and Eurasia by 15 percent from last year, for South Asia by 10 percent, and for the Western Hemisphere by 5 percent. No high-casualty attacks occurred in Western Europe, and only one occurred in Southeast Asia, in the southern Philippines. In Indonesia, there were no high- casualty attacks and 95 percent fewer victims of terror in 2006. The approximately 750 attacks in Afghanistan during 2006 are 50 percent more than the nearly 500 attacks reported for 2005 as fighting intensified during the past year.The overall number of people injured in terrorists incidents rose substantially in 2006-by 54 percent-with most of the rise stemming from a doubling of the reported number of injuries in Iraq since 2005. Although kidnappings in Iraq during 2006 rose sharply by 300 percent, kidnappings overall declined by more than 50 percent in 2006 because of a steep drop of approximately 22,000 kidnappings in Nepal. For over 9,000 of the terrorist attacks in 2006, open-sources did not include identifying information on the perpetrators of these attacks. Of the remaining incidents, nearly 300 various subnational groupsâ "many of them well-known foreign terrorist organizations such as al-Qa'ida in Iraq (AQI)â "or clandestine agents were reported by open sources or assessed by NCTC to be connected to an attack in various ways, including being reported as the claimant, as the accused, or in our judgment, as the possible or probable perpetrator. Sunni terrorist, more than any other subnational group, claimed that they conducted the largest number of incidents with the highest casualty totals.Sunni terrorists in various countries carried out about the same number of high fatality attacks in 2006 but with deadlier results, and were involved in more kidnappings than these terrorists reportedly carried out last year.As was the case last year, in 2006 most attacks were perpetrated by terrorists using conventional fighting methods, which included the use of bombs and small arms. Bombing incidents increased by 30 percent from 2005, and death tolls in these incidents during 2006 rose by 39 percent and injuries by 45 percent. The use of suicide bombing attacks overall fell 12 percent, most notably in the use of suicide car bombers. As was the case in 2005, Muslims again bore a substantial share of being the victims of terrorist attacks in 2006. Approximately 58,000 individuals worldwide were either killed or injured by terrorist attacks in 2006. On the basis of a combination of reporting and demographic analysis of the countries involved, well over 50 percent of the victims were Muslims, and most were victims of attacks in Iraq.
