Lebanese firefighters arrive at the scene of a car bomb in Beirut, Lebanon, Dec. 27, 2013. Bilal Hussein/AP
Terrorist Attacks Have Increased By 43 Percent in the Last Year
A decentralized al-Qaeda focused on less global objectives, while Syria honed its reputation as both factory and battleground for new fighters. By Kedar Pavgi and Ben Watson
The number of terrorist attacks, kidnappings, deaths and injuries across the globe rose by 43 percent last year, according to the State Department’s Country Reports on Terrorism 2013 .
The annual report, released Wednesday, outlines the trends and events in global terrorism every year, tallying country-by-country efforts in counterterrorism and up-to-date terrorist safe havens, foreign terrorist organizations and state sponsors of terrorism.
The steady rise in access to social media platforms also gave a boost to various terrorist causes, the report said. And the conflict in Syria continues to attract would-be terrorists in alarming numbers, including a ten-fold leap from 2012. Despite a core leadership which suffered “significant setbacks,” al-Qaeda benefited from a rise in “increasingly aggressive and autonomous [al-Qaeda] affiliates and like-minded groups in the Middle East and Africa who took advantage of the weak governance and instability” of last year.
Read the full report here .