Al-Qaeda's core leadership in Pakistan remains the most formidable terrorist threat to the U.S. homeland and al-Qaeda's growing presence across Africa challenges many states, the U.S. State Department said on Thursday.
Terrorist attacks worldwide and their death toll in 2009 were at their lowest levels in some four years, according to the U.S. State Department’s annual "Country Reports on Terrorism" publication. Terrorists carried out 10,999 attacks worldwide in 2009, killing 14,971, it said.
Al-Qaeda, the group behind the Sept 11. attacks, "has proven to be an adaptable and resilient terrorist group whose desire to attack the United States and U.S. interests abroad remains strong," it said.
Al-Qaeda and Taliban
Afghanistan’s Taliban-led insurgency, which got funding and training from al-Qaeda, "remained resilient in the south and east and expanded its presence into the north and west" and retained an undiminished ability to recruit Pashtun foot soldiers, it said.
However, the report said al-Qaeda suffered "several significant setbacks" in 2009, although its threat to Americans is more dispersed.
It said the group faced a Pakistani military onslaught, has lost many of its leaders, and has found it "tougher to raise money, train recruits and plan attacks" outside the Pakistan and Afghanistan region.
"In addition to these operational setbacks, al-Qaeda continued to fail in its efforts to carry out the attacks that would shake governments in the Muslim world," said the report.
"Yet despite these setbacks, the al-Qaeda threat was more dispersed than in recent years, which partially offset the losses suffered by al-Qaeda’s core," the report said.
NKorea not on blacklist
The Obama administration, meanwhile, declined to put North Korea back on a blacklist of countries supporting terrorism despite pressure from lawmakers to do so.
In the report, the State Department kept the same countries on the list as it did in 2008 — Iran, Sudan, Cuba and Syria — with Iran again listed as the "most active state sponsor of terrorism."
Former U.S. president George W. Bush de-listed North Korea in 2008 after it vowed to end its nuclear program, agreed to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and pledged to disable its nuclear plants.
The Obama administration has kept it off the list again after citing narrow legal definition for what constitutes support for terrorism.
In keeping four countries on the blacklist, the Country Reports on Terrorism 2009 said "Iran remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism."
The U.S. accuses Iran of actively supporting groups like the Taliban in Afghanistan, Shiite groups in Iraq and Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Palestinian territories.
On Sudan, the report said the government was cooperating with U.S. counter-terrorism efforts, but said "al-Qaeda-inspired terrorist elements as well as elements of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and HAMAS, remained in Sudan in 2009."
The report said the United States disagrees with Syria’s support for what it calls national liberation movements, groups Washington considers are terrorist.
The report complained that Cuba still gives safe haven and ideological support for three terrorist organizations.