From time to time to time, I have looked at the issue of whether criticism of Islamic fundamentalism, and the Afghan and Iraq campaigns, are counter-productive in the sense that they breed more terrorists.  So far the answer seems to have been that the increases in terrorist incidents have been almost entirely in Iraq, and that critics of Operation Iraqi Freedom (and the subset in the media) like to have it both ways, touting these increases when reported by our government, but declining to call those who commit them terrorists in favor of terms like “insurgents” or “militants.”

So when the media ran stories this past week with scary headlines like “US reports 40% rise in terror deaths,” I thought it would be useful to break down the numbers.

According to the National Counterterrorism Center, incidents of terrorism worldwide increased from 11,153 in 2005 to 14,338 in 2006; that’s an increase of 3,185 incidents.  Incidents of terrorism in Iraq increased from 3,468 in 2005 to 6,630 in 2006; that’s an increase of 3,162 incidents.  So you can see where this is headed.  Incidentally, there was an increase in Afghanistan of 258 incidents.

So here’s the bottom line vis terror attacks against Western interests outside the war zones:

The number of reported incidents in 2006 fell for Europe and Eurasia by 15 percent from 2005, for South Asia by 10 percent, and for the Western Hemisphere by 5 percent. No high casualty attacks occurred in Western Europe, and only two occurred in Southeast Asia, in the southern Philippines. There were no high casualty attacks and 95 percent fewer victims of terror in 2006 in Indonesia that was attributable, at least in part, to enhanced Indonesian security measures.

That’s right: Terror attacks decreased.

And what of those bad Iraqi numbers?  A look at the numbers compiled by iCasualties suggests that the increase is due to the spike leading up to and away from Ramadan last year.  At the time, the debate was whether this spike should have been called “sectarian violence” or “civil war.” For the purpose of this analysis, however, it really doesn’t matter which label is applied, because both labels denote essentially domestic terror attacks.  The vast majority of the spike was not international, AQ-style jihadi terror.  To the contrary, it is during this period that Sunnis in Anbar began turning against their former AQI allies in large numbers.  Moreover, the primary effect of the start of the new security plan for Baghdad was to reduce the sectarian violence, more clearly revealing the background level of AQI-based terror.

In sum, despite this week’s breathless headlines, the story really hasn’t changed.  As far as Western targets go, the picture was slightly better this year.  The increase in terror incidents is attributable to the fighting in Iraq, and that was largely domestic terror.  The start of the so-called “surge” has driven that violence down; additional troops, along with the increasing number of Sunni tribes fighting AQI, may be able to send the overall numbers down in 2007.