Decline of Worldwide Terror Eludes the Violent Middle East

The worldwide decline of terrorism has not extended to the Middle East. Although international terrorist attacks last year reached their lowest levels in 23 years, terrorism by Islamic extremist groups surged, according to the State Department’s annual report on international terrorism.

“Terrorist attacks and violence instigated by Palestinians continued at a high level in 1994,” according to the “Patterns of Global Terrorism Report,” which was sent to Congress last Friday.

The report details 321 incidents of international terrorism last year, compared to 431 in 1993. The decrease marks a significant shift from 1987, when the State Department documented a record 665 terrorist acts.

But the decline did not extend to the Middle East.

“Needless to say, there has been a sharp increase in terrorist attacks against the Middle East peace process,” Philip Wilcox, the State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism, said in a briefing with reporters.

Wilcox accused the Islamic fundamentalist groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, of leading a “dangerous and vicious rear-guard action” aimed at destroying the peace process.

According to the report, 73 Israeli citizens, including off-duty soldiers, were killed in 1994 and more than 200 were wounded.

Wilcox said the actual number of Israelis killed at the hands of Palestinian terrorists was high than 73, but the report does not include attacks against active duty soldiers.

Among the worst incidents recorded were bus bombings in Afula and Hadera in April, which killed eight and five people, respectively. In October alone, the report records the random shooting at a Jerusalem pedestrian mall, which left two dead; the kidnapping and murder of an Israeli soldier, Nachshon Waxman; and a suicide-bomb attack on a Tel Aviv bus, which killed 22 Israelis.

The report includes a special 2-page section, including a full page of photos, detailing Hamas terrorist acts, which alone left 55 Israelis dead.

Calling it “a very disturbing trend,” the report states that attacks by Hamas have “increased in number and lethality.”

Perhaps foreshadowing next month’s semiannual report on the Palestine Liberation Organization’s compliance with accords with Israel, the terrorism study notes that PLO leader Yasser Arafat condemned acts of terrorism by Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.

But. the report said, Arafat, “did not do so when individuals associated with the Fatah Hawks, nominally aligned with Arafat’s Fatah organization, were responsible for a few attacks in early 1994.”

Other incidents listed in the study included the July 1994 bombing of the Argentine Jewish community’s central offices in Buenos Aires, which killed nearly 100 people, and the double bombing in London the same month of the Israeli Consulate and the Balfour House, which housed a Jewish fund-raising organization.

In the United States, there were no confirmed acts of terrorism, according to the report.

But the report notes that the FBI is continuing its investigation into two attempted bombings outside the buildings that house the New Israel Fund and the Americans for Peace Now. In each incident, both of which occurred in January 1994 in New York, small explosive devices were found. No one was hurt.