By Patrick Worsnip,
"There is no evidence that Iranian policy has changed, and
Iran continues both to provide significant support to terrorist
organizations and to assassinate dissidents abroad," the
department said in an annual report on worldwide terrorism.
The report said there were 304 acts of international
terrorism in 1997, an increase of eight over 1996 which had the
lowest total since 1971. But last year's death toll dropped to
221 from 314 the previous year.
More than one third of the year's "terrorist" attacks took
place in Colombia, but the report said most were bombings of oil
pipelines, which caused damage but no casualties.
Although incidents were fewer and more perpetrators were
brought to justice last year, "international terrorism remains
a serious, ongoing threat around the world," coordinator for
counter-terrorism Christopher Ross said in a preface.
"The most frequent target was business-related, a
percentage that continues to grow as terrorists discover
government and diplomatic installations have become more
fortified against attack," a State Department official said.
The report said Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had
designated the same seven countries as last year — Cuba, Iran,
Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria — as state sponsors
of terrorism, making them subject to U.S. sanctions.
It said there was no evidence linking Cuba, Iraq, North
Korea or Syria with "terrorist acts" last year, but those
countries continue to harbor "terrorists".
The report, "Patterns of Global Terrorism", which is
required by Congress, said the appointment of reformist
President Mohammad Khatami in Iran had not affected Tehran's
support for "terrorism", which Iran denies.
"Notwithstanding some conciliatory statements in the months
after President Khatami's inauguration in August 1997, Iran
remains the most active state sponsor of terrorism," it said.
Iran carried out "terrorist acts" both through its own
agents and through surrogates such as the Hizbollah organization
in Lebanon, and continued to fund and train known "terrorist
groups", the report said.
It said Tehran conducted at least 13 assassinations in 1997,
most of them in northern Iraq, with targets including members of
opposition groups such as the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran
and the Mujahedin-e-Khalq. The Mujahedin are themselves
designated as "terrorists" by the State Department.
It also said there was no evidence that Tehran was pressing
Iran's Fifteen Khordad Foundation to withdraw a $2.5 million
reward for carrying out a religious death sentence on British
writer Salman Rushdie for alleged insults to Islam.
A senior State Department official, briefing reporters on
condition he was not identified, said Iran's sponsorship of
terrorism "has continued into 1998". He gave no details.
Despite the assessment of Iran's record, the United States
has in recent months held out hopes that the country's
leadership might be persuaded to change its ways, and has
sought, so far unsuccessfully, to engage Tehran in dialogue.
The report said that Cuba "no longer supports armed
struggle in Latin America and other parts of the world" but
maintained close ties with other state sponsors of terrorism and
leftist insurgent groups in Latin America.
Last year's deadliest attack occurred in Egypt Nov. 17, when
gunmen of the Al-Gama'at al-Islamiyya fundamentalist group shot
and killed 58 foreign tourists and four Egyptians in the Valley
of the Kings near Luxor.
The 86-page report defined terrorism as "premeditated,
politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant
targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually
intended to influence an audience".