Posted on 05/01/2003 8:16:45 PM PDT by Gamecock
WASHINGTON -- The number of terrorist attacks around the world dropped sharply last year, the State Department reported Wednesday.
The 44 percent decline -- from 355 attacks in 2001 to 199 in 2002 -- can be attributed to various factors, including the arrest of thousands of suspected terrorists, the freezing of money flowing to terrorist groups, increased security measures in virtually every nation and a sharp drop in the number of oil pipeline bombings in Colombia, the report said.
"Terrorist cells have been broken up, networks disrupted and plots foiled," said Secretary of State Colin Powell. "The financial bloodlines of terrorist organizations have been severed."
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, about 3,000 suspected members of al-Qaida have been arrested in more than 100 countries, said Cofer Black, the State Department's chief of counterterrorism.
The latest, Tawfiq Attash Khallad, was arrested in Pakistan on Tuesday. Khallad, wanted for alleged involvement in the bombing of the USS Cole and for ties to the attacks on Washington and New York, was arrested during a pair of raids in Karachi with five other men linked to al-Qaida, according to government officials there.
President Bush said the arrest was "a significant find" in the war against terrorism.
"He's a killer. He was one of the top al-Qaida operatives," Bush said.
The State Department report also said that terrorist attacks against the United States and its interests declined 65 percent -- from 219 in 2001 to 77 in 2002. The drop was largely because of fewer oil pipeline bombings in Colombia, which dropped from 178 in 2001 to 41 last year.
Black said that last year marked the lowest level of terrorism in more than 30 years, but warned that the world has not yet "turned a corner."
Thirty U.S. citizens were killed in terrorist attacks last year, including seven who died in the worst terrorist strike since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks -- the October bombing of a resort in Bali, Indonesia. The attack killed more than 200 people from 24 nations, the report said.
"Even as I speak, terrorists are planning appalling crimes and trying to get their hands on weapons of mass destruction," Powell said. "We cannot and will not relax our resolve, our efforts and our vigilance."
In Pakistan, officials told reporters that police had arrested Khallad, who is Yemeni.
Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat told the Reuters news agency that police also had arrested a nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks who was captured in March. Officials believe Mohammed was Osama bin Laden's chief operational planner and the No. 3 leader in al-Qaida.
Authorities suspect that Khallad met with two of the Sept. 11 hijackers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in January 2000. In addition, he is wanted in connection to the Oct. 12, 2000, bombing of the USS Cole, where 17 U.S. soldiers were killed by two suicide bombers who approached the Navy vessel in a small boat in the Yemeni port of Aden. The U.S. blames the attack on al-Qaida.
In related developments Wednesday, the FBI sent a classified bulletin to 18,000 state and local law enforcement agencies advising officials to pay attention to suspicious activities around nuclear power plants, including anyone photographing them or flying aircraft near them, Time magazine reported. FBI officials said they have no specific intelligence that these plants are imminent targets of a terrorist attack, the report said.
A 30 year low! Go Dubya!
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