U.S. sees 40 percent rise in global terrorism deaths

By Arshad Mohammed

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of people killed by terrorism around the world surged by 40 percent to more than 20,000 last year largely because of greater violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, a U.S. report said on Monday.

Global terrorism fatalities rose to 20,498 in 2006 from 14,618 in 2005 with the vast majority in Iraq, according to the U.S. State Department's annual "Country Reports on Terrorism" publication.

The number killed by terrorism in Iraq rose to 13,340 from 8,262 in 2005, Russ Travers, an official with the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center that compiled the figures for the State Department, told reporters.

In the latest incident, a suicide bomber wearing a vest packed with explosives killed 32 people when he blew himself up among mourners at a Shi'ite funeral in the town of Khalis in volatile Diyala province north of Baghdad, Iraqi police said.

Since U.S. and Iraqi forces launched a security crackdown in Baghdad in February, militants including Sunni Islamist al Qaeda have increasingly staged attacks outside the capital.

The State Department said the number of such incidents worldwide rose to 14,338 last year from 11,153 in 2005.

Of these, attacks in Iraq nearly doubled to 6,630 from 3,468 in 2005 and represented about 45 percent of the total.

The report described Iraq as at the center of the U.S. "war on terror," with coalition forces battling al Qaeda in Iraq and insurgents as well as "militias and death squads increasingly engaged in sectarian violence and criminal organisations taking advantage of Iraq's deteriorating security situation."