of the World Trade Center in New York City, in 1993, and again in Dharan. But overall the loss of lives by U.S. citizens international terrorism has been very, very low, thankfully.

I'd like to show you who is doing the killing. These statistics are based upon who was suspected. In the intelligence community's judgment, based upon all source information where they made their best judgment. What is interesting about this and go back and check at some point the number of groups responsible for incidents. You'll see that the groups that are causing casualties are the groups with fewer incidents generally.

In 1996, the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, they set off a truck bomb, there were several foreigners in the crowd and the incident was recorded as an act of international terrorism.

The Irish Republican Army, in 1996, was responsible for almost 10 percent of the attacks. The Islamic Resistance Movement, HAMAS, again almost 10 percent. The Armed Islamic Group in Algeria, 4 percent. In 1997, we see a similar picture. Here HAMAS was responsible for most of the casualties last year, even though, it committed less than 1 percent of the attacks.

And the lesson from there is we can't just look at the numbers and say how many attacks, we have to look at: numbers of attacks, numbers of casualties, and who is doing them, and where they live. When you look at it from that perspective, again, you see over time casualties by region change.

Last year most of the casualties were in the Middle East, and even though, the number of incidents in the Middle East was relatively small. The Middle East, over the last 3 years, has been very high in terms of casualties. This, in my view, explains partly the public's perception that international terrorism is a phenomena of İslamic Radical Fundamentalists.

Finally, just to underscore a point that the GAO made, you can see over time the red symbolizes bombs. Bombs remain the most popular form or method of attack by groups that engage in international terrorism.

Let me just quickly make one final comment. What I see is that too many cooks spoils the broth remains the problem that we have right now. When U.S. citizens were being killed at a higher rate— when we had airplane bombings, we had three for example, from December 1988 through November 1989. Talking the bombing of Pan Am 103, the bombing of UTA 772, and then the bombing of an Avianca plane in Colombia that was carried out by Pablo Escobar.

During that period, we were not running around saying that the world was going to end and that our international terrorists were on the rise. I think actually we have international terrorists reined in. But there are some problems on the horizon. And there are two I would point you to.

No. 1, in countries like, Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey, and Algeria, you are seeing a Radical Islamic Movement that is challenging secular governments. Those groups are not looking to project international force at this time. They have not been concentrating their attacks on international citizens or foreigners. They've been concentrating their attacks on secular governments. But, in that, they represent a brand of Islam that is not mainstream. There is the

vast, vast majority of Muslims that oppose terrorism and support peace. A small group of individuals are willing to commit acts of violence that know no limits. Fortunately, they do have limits technologically, and they use the good old fashioned method of shooting, and chopping people to bits, and blowing them up.

If those groups, at some point, consolidate their power over those societies, then we will be seeing a new form of Iran. An Iran that would be more lethal and more deadly down the road. I don't see that on the immediate, imminent, horizon. But, it is something that we have to pay attention to.

A second area are the now groups that at one time were willing to rely upon money from state sponsors. They're now out as entrepreneurs on their own and are turning increasingly to drug trafficking. I would just simply say in my final remark, the findings of the GAO, in my experience, having worked the counterterrorism issue and seen it from many different perspectives is exactly on target. And with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you, first for the record, and I would like unanimous consent to insert all statements as well as these charts and have up to 3 days for additional materials. Hearing no objection, so ordered.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Johnson follows:]

TESTIMONY OF LARRY C. JOHNSON BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE

April 21, 1998

I am pleased to appear before this committee today to offer my personal thoughts on the capability of our government to deal effectively with the threat of terrorism. I have worked on the issue of terrorism in several capacities during the last 18 years—as an academic at the American University, as an analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency from 1985 to 1989, and as a policymaker in the U.S. Department of State's Office of the Coordinator for Counter Terrorism. I have continued to work on terrorism issues as a consultant since leaving Government service in October of 1993. My activities have included an analysis of the U.S. Government's databases on chemical and biological agents and scripting terrorism exercises for U.S. military forces. I also represented the U.S. Government at the July 1996 OSCE Terrorism Conference in Vienna, Austria. I appear today, however, as a private citizen. My comments are my own and are based on my previous experience.

I want to begin with the good news. The United States has robust and effective capabilities to combat domestic and international terrorism. We have an improving ability to deal with a wide range of threats, including chemical, biological, and nuclear terrorism. We have achieved dramatic improvements in operational readiness and competence since 1987, when President Reagan launched an initiative to buttress U.S. military, intelligence, and law enforcement capabilities. Since then, the incidents of international and domestic terrorism have fallen to historic lows.

The drop in terrorist incidents is not an accident. It is the result of solid and consistent bipartisan policies, good intelligence, proper coordination and preparation, and competent operations. The successes we have enjoyed, and there have been many, have been a direct consequence of good coordination and teamwork. It is also important to recognize that Americans from all points on the political spectrum-Democrats, Independents, and Republicans-agree that terrorism is evil and the Government has a responsibility to fight

it.

While terrorism has been on the decline, counter terrorism efforts have proliferated. Many U.S. Government departments and agencies have discovered that terrorism makes them relevant. Departments, which at one time only were peripherally involved in counter terrorism, now are seeking new missions and bigger budgets to play in this arena. Our challenge as a country is to create and maintain essential capabilities to detect and combat threats to our nation's security without wasting scarce resources, chasing false threats, or compromising our liberties.

My goal today is to assist this committee in its efforts to preserve our nation's strong capabilities to combat terrorism. I will share with you empirical data and analytical judgments about the changing nature of the current threat. I will then review the major components of our counter terrorism system. Next, I will identify shortcomings in the current mix of policies and programs that could undermine our national capabilities if left unchecked. I will conclude by identifying steps this committee should consider as it weighs

choices on how to keep America capable and competent to meet the threat of terrorism here and abroad.

What is the Threat?

The threat of terrorism, whether domestic or international, has dropped fairly dramatically since 1993 I was at Department of State. Yet, citing statistical declines offers no comfort to those who have lost loved ones in terrorist bombings in Israel, Argentina, and Oklahoma City, or the sarin gas attack in Tokyo. For these people, terrorism is a terrible reality. It is a reality we must remain prepared to confront. We also must constantly assess whether we are doing the right things and how we are organized to deal with the threat.

The following charts provide an overview of where we have been and where we are today: 1. International terrorist incidents have fallen more than 50% since 1987. Things

indisputably are better today than they were in the mid-1980s when we saw airplanes blown from the sky, embassies bombed, and ships hijacked. Yet, a sizeable portion of these incidents are directed against the United States. (Chart 1 and 2).

2. Domestic terrorist incidents have fallen 80% since 1981. Effective law enforcement is the major factor, in my judgment, behind these results. The FBI has been very effective in discovering and arresting groups involved with terrorist activity. (Chart 3)

3. Latin America and Europe, not the Middle East, have been the regions with the most international terrorist incidents. (Chart 4)

4. The number of groups engaged in international terrorism also has declined. MarxistLeninist inspired, rather than Islamic Radical Fundamentalists, are the most numerous groups. What is particularly interesting is that the number of Islamic Radical Fundamentalist groups has not increased significantly during the last ten years. (Chart

5)

5. Most international terrorist attacks are carried out by a small number of groups. In 1996 five groups carried out 51% of all international attacks. Two of these operate in Colombia and the other three operate in Turkey. In 1997 three groups were responsible for 39% of all attacks—with the groups in Colombia accounting for 34% of the attacks. It is no mere coincidence that the countries with the largest numbers of international terrorist attacks are also the areas where the production and distribution of illegal narcotics are a major problem. (Charts 6, 7, and 8)

6. Fatalities from international terrorism have fallen since 1987. There have been isolated but dramatic incidents that have cause unprecedented mass casualties—the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1995 Sarin gas attack in Tokyo, and the 1996 truck bomb in Sri Lanka. During the last 30 years citizens of other countries have been the most common victims of terrorist attacks. The largest loss of US citizens in a terrorist incident remains the 1983 attack on US Marines in Beirut, Lebanon. (Charts 9, 10 and 11)

7. The groups responsible for most of the casualties are different from the groups responsible for most incidents. In 1996, for example, the Tamil Tigers, the IRA,

Hamas, and the Armed Islamic Group accounted for 91% of the casualties.

Preliminary figures for last year show that three groups caused 95% of the casualties. (Chart 12 and 13)

8. Although most international terrorist incidents did not occur in the Middle East, it was the area where most of the casualties occurred. This phenomena offers one possible explanation for the perception that most terrorism is carried out in the Middle East. (Chart 14)

During the 1980s, groups linked directly and indirectly to states' opposed to the United States were a major source of international terrorist activity. Beginning in 1987, the United States made cracking down on state sponsors of terrorism a top priority of its counter terrorism policy. Through a combination of diplomacy, intelligence operations, military strikes, and law enforcement we made substantial gains in reducing the ability of states, such as Iraq, North Korea, Cuba, Syria, and Libya, to sponsor terrorism. Although the number of states identified on the list of state sponsors has increased from six to seven, most of these countries are no longer actively engaged in supporting terrorist operations. The two groups responsible for 34% of the terrorist attacks in 1997 are based in Colombia and at one time received substantial support from the Soviet Union and Cuba. Today these groups are self-financing, relying instead on illegal narcotics and kidnapping to generate cash.

We should take little comfort in the narrowing of the threat because the violence today seems less predictable and more dangerous. While international terrorist incidents are down, domestic terrorism has increased in Algeria, Colombia, Egypt, Pakistan, and India. Most of these countries face attacks by extremist religious groups that want to eliminate secular government. Religious fervor rather than political ideology motivate the terrorists. Fundamentalist groups—the true believers—tend to be less pragmatic and more willing to take risks than groups with strong ties to other countries. They worry less about the external consequences of their actions and are willing to accept international isolation. Their leaders tend to have short tenures and parochial strategic visions. Their ability to project force-conduct terrorist operations outside of their national area—is generally limited.

What do we need to meet the Threat?

The foundation of our counter-terrorism policy, which was erected in 1987, remains essentially sound. There are four basic pillars:

1. Intelligence collection and analysis;

2. Law enforcement and prosecution;

3. Diplomacy and coordination;

4. Operations and training;

Although we generally think of these as relevant to international terrorism, I believe these principles also are relevant to domestic terrorism. Collecting information on terrorist groups is an essential element in our ability to track and defeat them. We need to identify the members of these groups, learn how they get their money and who provides them with