Over 11,000 terrorist incidents occurred worldwide in 2005, nearly four times the total in 2004, according to a State Department report. 

The data was released on April 28, 2006, in the annual State Department Country Reports on Terrorism, which includes statistical information compiled by the National Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC). 

The NCTC, the primary center for U.S. government analysis of terrorism, attributes the increased total to a more aggressive effort to count incidents and to broader criteria for defining terrorism.  The NCTC defines terrorist attacks as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets,” but acknowledges that the term is “open to interpretation.”

In its strategic assessment, the 2005 report, which replaced the previously published Patterns of Global Terrorism in 2004, concluded that “Al Qaeda is not the organization it was four years ago,” but that its “core cadre” are “adaptive and resilient.”

The report noted an increase in “small, autonomous cells and individuals” that draw on “advanced technologies and the tools of globalization such as the Internet, satellite communications, and international commerce.”

More than 14,600 noncombatants were killed, the majority of them in Iraq, according to the data.  The report also noted an increase in suicide bombings and the “growth of strategically significant networks that support the flow of foreign terrorists to Iraq,”

As in previous years, the report cited Iran as “the most active state sponsor of terrorism.” 

Nearly 3,200 terrorist incidents worldwide were tallied by the NCTC in 2004. 

The creation of the NCTC was recommended in July 2004 by the 9/11 commission.  A month later, President Bush signed an executive order establishing the Center.