Some good news in the War on Terror:
The fights in Iraq appear to be having a positive effect on the War on Terror. Osama bin Laden has had a lot of reasons to hit the bottle of Old Jihad lately. According to a State Department report released last month, terrorism hit its lowest level in 34 years in 2003. While terrorists killed 307 individuals that year, it was still a pronounced improvement from the 725 killed in 2002. There are two likely reasons for that dramatic reduction. Over 3,400 suspected members of al Qaeda have been locked up. Many others have likely gone to Iraq. While being engaged (and being detained, and being killed) by Coalition soldiers, those terrorists are not attacking Western civilians [Source].
One good thing about Iraq is that all the jihadists are going there for glorious jihad and US Marines are better shots. I’m sure many of the terrorists are being killed. With Al-Qaida being decimated in Afganistan and being forced to scatter…with America taking it to them on two fronts (Afgansistan and Iraq)…I dare say Al-Qaida didn’t expect such a challenge.
I wouldn’t get too optimistic about the reduced terrorism stat though. It doesn’t include the Spain bombings which took place this year…and I fear there will be another big attack on the US just prior to the election :_(
Oops!
According to the LATimes:
“But on Tuesday, State Department officials said they underreported the number of terrorist attacks in the tally for 2003, and added that they expected to release an updated version soon.
Several U.S. officials and terrorism experts familiar with that revision effort said the new report will show that the number of significant terrorist incidents increased last year, perhaps to its highest level in 20 years.”
Uh, nevermind.