Terror attacks increased in '06, U.S. report says

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice considered postponing release of the report.
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
WASHINGTON -- A State Department report on terrorism due out next week will show a more than 25 percent increase in terror attacks worldwide in 2006 to more than 14,000 -- almost all of it due to incidents in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. officials said Friday.
Based on data compiled by the U.S. intelligence community's National Counterterrorism Center, the reports says there were 14,338 terror attacks last year, up 29 percent from 11,111 attacks in 2005. Forty-five percent of the attacks took place in Iraq.
Five U.S. officials with knowledge of the report agreed to discuss it on the condition they not be identified.
Worldwide, about 5,800 people were killed in terrorist attacks, also up from 2005.
The figures for Iraq and elsewhere are limited to attacks on noncombatants, and do not include strikes against U.S. troops in Iraq.
The annual report's release comes in the midst of a bitter feud between the White House and Congress over funding for U.S. troops in Iraq, in which Democrats controlling both houses favor a deadline to begin a U.S. troop withdrawal.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her top aides had considered postponing or downplaying the release of this year's edition, due to the extreme political sensitivities, several officials said. But ultimately, they decided to issue the report on or about the congressionally mandated deadline of Tuesday, the officials said.
In 2005, the department was accused of playing politics with the report when it decided not to publish the document after U.S. officials concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985.