US report shows rise in Iran-sponsored terrorism

The United State is facing an increasingly decentralized and geographically broader terrorist threat, according to a State Department report that showed an uptick in Iran's state-sponsored terrorism. The State Department's annual assessment of trends and events in international terrorism released late Thursday indicated that as more Al-Qaeda leaders are killed, affiliate groups have become more independent, setting their own goals and picking their own targets. Some have even engaged in kidnapping and other crimes to sustain themselves financially. Though Al-Qaeda is continuing to plot and launch regional attacks from western Pakistan, the report showed it has suffered "serious setbacks" in Libya and Mali where African-led international counterterrorism missions there contained the threat. The terrorists group in Pakistan is also showing signs of weakening as more leadership continues to be killed by counterterrorism operations, according to the assessment. In the Middle East and North Africa, uprisings and civil wars are "complicating the counterterrorism picture", according to the report. It cites the power vacuum in Libya and the civil war in Syria have enabled terrorist groups to operate and noted an uptick in rocket attacks in Gaza prompted Israel to target more than 1,500 terrorist sites. However, Iran's state sponsored terrorism and support of Hezbollah's terrorist activities have reach "a tempo unseen since the 1990s, with attacks plotted in Southeast Asia, Europe, and Africa," according to the report. Both Iran and Hezbollah have supported Syria's regime. The report states the U.s. must work with its international partners to disrupt terrorist financial networks, strengthen rules of law and capabilities in countries which harbor terrorist groups, while addressing recruitment and eliminating safe havens. The report concluded, that while attacks occurred in 85 countries world-wide Most terrorist attacks occurred in geographically concentrated areas, with more than half of all attacks, 55 percent, and fatalities, 62 percent, and injuries 65 percent, occurring within Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan.