Even though terrorism is no longer concentrated in the Middle East and governments in the region are doing more to prevent terrorist attacks, some of Israel’s neighbors continue to be an area of concern.
The report cites Iran and Syria as continuing to support regional terrorist groups that want to destroy the Mideast peace process.
The Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security provides training, financial and political support directly to Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives. These and other terrorist organizations are based in Damascus, and Syria continues to provide a “crucial link” in the terrorist threat from the region, the report charges.
State sponsors of terrorism listed in the report are Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.
The list is unchanged from recent years but is “not unchangeable,” Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said upon release of the report Monday.
Governments “know what they need to do” to get off the list, she said.
A Middle East peace agreement could lead to Syria’s removal from the list, the report noted.
In Egypt, for the first time in years, there were no terrorism-related deaths. Nor were there major international terrorist attacks in Jordan.
The report praised the Palestinian Authority’s efforts in counterterrorism, noting that the Palestinians’ security forces pre-empted several terrorist attacks and sought to develop leads about Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad activity.
Still, there are deficits in the Palestinians’ counterterrorism program, mainly the inability to uproot the financing and recruitment infrastructure of Hamas, according to David Schenker of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank.
Terrorists routinely escape from Palestinian prisons or elude capture in Palestinian territory, Schenker said.
The report acknowledged that the Palestinian Authority’s program “continued to face challenges from the resilient terrorist infrastructure of groups” that oppose peace in the Middle East.