WASHINGTON - The U.S. State Department on Tuesday said that Israel had made Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority less effective by destroying its security infrastructure, and it absolved Arafat and his senior associates of responsibility for attacks on Israelis in 2001.
According to the annual "Patterns of Global Terrorism 2001" report, IDF operations in the Gaza Strip and West Bank damaged Arafat's ability to reign in terror, and contributed to an increase in terror attacks against Israel. The attacks sometimes faced criticism from the United States. "Certainly the military activity there did do a great deal to damage the security capability and the security apparatus of the Palestinian Authority," Taylor said. The report went on to state that weakening the PA had assisted Hamas and other terrorist organizations in rebuilding terrorist infrastructure.
In its report the State Department said members of Arafat's Fatah movement had taken part, however, in attacks on Israel through the Tanzim organization and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.
It said Tanzim was "made up of small and loosely organized cells of militants drawn from the street-level membership of Fatah." "Some Tanzim militants also were active in Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade," it added. "That's not a secret, but we have not been able to determine or to make final judgment on how far up and who in the PA may be or could be and had been directing this activity," added State Department counterterrorism coordinator Frank Taylor, briefing reporters on the report.
"That is why we have been very straightforward with Chairman Arafat that within the Palestinian areas that he has control over and over the Palestinians that he has control over that we believe that he can do much more to control the activities of those groups," he added.
The State Department's attitude on the alleged links between Arafat and attacks on Israelis has irritated supporters of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Israel and in the United States, especially in Congress. Israel blames the Palestinian Authority for not doing enough to prevent suicide bombings and other attacks that have killed dozens of Israelis.
In its six-month reports to Congress on the conduct of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the State Department has repeatedly refrained from saying Arafat and his close associates ordered or approved attacks on Israelis.
Most of the attacks have traditionally been by the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which contest Arafat's leadership and are outside his immediate control.
When Sharon visited the U.S. this month, he brought stacks of Palestinian documents that allegedly proved Arafat gave money to extremists.
Taylor said: "We don't have any question about the authenticity of the documents... We are continuing to study those documents and to draw our own conclusions about what they mean. We have not completed that."
The annual report, which covered events to the end of December 2001, said the Palestinian Authority had taken only sporadic measures against extremists. But it added, "Israel's destruction of the PA's security infrastructure contributed to the ineffectiveness of the PA."
The report noted attacks on Palestinian civilians and properties in Gaza and the West Bank by Jewish extremists and settlers in 2001, saying at least five people were killed. "Investigations into many of these attacks produced inconclusive results, leading to several arrests but no formal charges," it added.
Syria, Iran on State Dept. list of 7 states that sponsor terror
Syria and Iran are among the seven countries on a U.S. list of designated "state sponsors of terrorism," the State Department said in a report released on Tuesday.
The list of seven "state sponsors" - Cuba, Libya, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Sudan and Syria - remained unchanged for the eighth year running but Bush's demand for international cooperation gave them a chance to placate Washington.
The report again described Iran as "the most active state sponsor of terrorism."
"Although some within Iran would like to end this support, hard-liners who hold the reins of power continue to thwart any efforts to moderate these policies," it said.
Countries on the list cannot buy U.S. arms and are ineligible for U.S. aid. The United States votes against loans to them by the World Bank and other financial institutions.
The annual report says 2001 was the deadliest year for terrorist attacks because of the 3,000 people killed by suicide hijackers in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
But the overall number of attacks declined during the year, to 346 from 426 in 2000. Excluding bombings of a Colombian pipeline, the numbers would be 168 attacks against 274.
The report by the U.S. State Department is the first to appear since U.S. President George W. Bush launched his "war on terrorism" and told foreign governments that they must choose between cooperation and being ostracized.
"While some of these countries appear to be reconsidering their present course, none has yet taken all necessary actions to divest itself fully of ties to terrorism," the report said.
"Sudan and Libya seem closest to understanding what they must do to get out of the terrorism business and each has taken measures pointing it in the right direction," it added.
It said Libya appeared to have curtailed its support for "international terrorism" but may have maintained residual contacts with a few groups.
The United States says Libya has not yet complied fully with UN resolutions related to the bombing of a Pan Am airliner over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988.
On Sudan, it said the Khartoum government had increased cooperation with U.S. agencies and had arrested extremists suspected of "involvement in terrorist activities."
But militant Islamist groups such as al Qaida continued to use Sudan as a safe haven, primarily for logistical and other support activities, the report said.
On the controversial question of whether an Iraqi intelligence officer met one of the Sept. 11 hijackers in Prague last year, the report is completely silent.
Czech intelligence sources reported the meeting last year but U.S. authorities said earlier this month they had no evidence of the alleged meeting between hijacker Mohammed Atta and Iraqi diplomat Ahmed al-Ani in April 2001.
The meeting would have been the only piece of evidence linking Iraq with the Sept. 11 attacks, giving the Bush administration another reason for a possible military campaign to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
The report showed U.S. determination to crush even the most obscure Islamic militancy, adding several small groups across three continents to a watch list of "other terrorist groups."
They included groups in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Europe, Indonesia, Kashmir, Libya, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Somalia, Turkey and Yemen.
But the new list of "foreign terrorist organizations" - a category subject to legal sanctions - merely reflects the additions made in the last three months of last year in response to the September 11 attacks.