Global Terror Attacks Up, Deaths Down

Last year saw deaths from terrorism drop for the third year in a row, although the number of terror attacks was up slightly, according to the State Department's annual report on global terrorism. Some 13,186 people were killed in 11,500 terror attacks in 72 countries, down from 22,719 deaths in 2007. The decline in deaths is attributed to a fall in mass-casualty attacks and a rise in attacks that claimed no casualties, ABC News reports. Fifteen American civilians were among the dead, 13 of whom died in Afghanistan.

The report names Cuba, Sudan, Syria, and Iran as state sponsors of terrorism. Iran was the most active state sponsor of terrorism in 2010, and its "financial, material, and logistic support for terrorist and militant groups throughout the Middle East and Central Asia had a direct impact on international efforts to promote peace, threatened economic stability in the Gulf, and undermined the growth of democracy," the report states. (More Iran stories.)