US slates Iran as terror sponsor

Iranian men walk past an anti-US mural on the wall of the former US embassy in Tehran in 2007. Iran remained the world's

Iran remained the world's "most active" state sponsor of terrorism as it tries to build regional influence and drive the US from the Middle East, a US government report said Wednesday.

The State Department report added meanwhile that Al-Qaeda and associates "remained the greatest terrorist threat" to the US and its partners especially now that it has a "safe haven" in Pakistan's northwestern tribal areas.

Officials also said terrorist attacks doubled last year in frontline US counter-terrorism ally Pakistan, mainly on its northwestern border with Afghanistan, and that they also rose in Afghanistan.

The State Department report said Iran remained last year both "the most active" and "most significant" state sponsor of terrorism, though it also listed Syria, North Korea, Cuba and Sudan as terrorism sponsors.

It said non-Arab Iran provides aid to Palestinian "terrorist" groups like Hamas, the Lebanese movement Hezbollah, "Iraq-based militants," and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

Iran aided such groups to advance their "common regional goals," according to the 2007 "Country Reports on Terrorism."

The Islamic republic of Iran uses terrorism abroad as a protection strategy, report said.

It believes it does so by "deterring United States or Israeli attacks, distracting and weakening the United States, enhancing Iran's regional influence through intimidation, and helping to drive the United States from the Middle East," it said.

It said Iran is a threat both to regional stability and US interests in the region because it backs groups that reject the Palestinian-Israeli peace process and "undercut the democratic process in Lebanon."

State sponsors help terrorist groups obtain funds, weapons and materials, but some of them are capable of manufacturing "weapons of mass destruction that could get into the hands of terrorists," the report added.

"Sudan continued to take significant steps to cooperate in the War on Terror. Cuba, Iran, and Syria, however, have not renounced terrorism or made efforts to act against foreign terrorist organizations," it said.

"Iran and Syria routinely provided safe haven, substantial resources, and guidance to terrorist organizations," it said.

It said North Korea "was not known to have sponsored any terrorist acts since the bombing of a Korean Airlines flight in 1987," but still "harbored four Japanese Red Army members who participated in a jet hijacking in 1970."

In its 2006 report, the State Department also listed Iran, Syria, Cuba, North Korea and Sudan as state sponsors of terrorism.

The report also said "Al-Qaeda and associated networks remained the greatest terrorist threat to the United States and its partners in 2007."

The State Department report showed that terrorist attacks in Afghanistan rose to 1,127 in 2007, up from 969 the previous year.

The National Counterterrorism Center, which helped compile the report, said the number of attacks in Pakistan rose to 887 last year from 375 the previous year; and the number killed soared to 1,335 from 335 in 2006.

It said most of the attacks were in tribal northwestern Pakistan which is outside the control of US ally President Pervez Musharraf.

"Portions of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan have become a safe haven for AQ terrorists, Afghan insurgents, and other extremists," the report said.

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