U.S. says terrorist violence soared in Pakistan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department said on Thursday the number of people killed in terrorist attacks in Pakistan last year rose by more than 70 percent, despite an overall drop in such violence worldwide.

U.S. officials have grown increasingly worried about the stability of nuclear-armed Pakistan as Taliban militants have advanced beyond their Swat valley stronghold to Buner valley, just 60 miles northwest of the capital, Islamabad.

The Pakistani army on Thursday fought through mountain passes for a third day to try to evict the Taliban from Buner, acting after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week accused the government of abdicating to the Taliban.

Data compiled by the U.S. intelligence community suggested that Pakistan faces a growing threat from terrorist violence.

The number of people killed in such attacks -- including the September 20 bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad -- rose to 2,293 from 1,340, according to the data released by the State Department.

The number of terrorist attacks in Pakistan more than doubled to 1,839 from 890, U.S. officials told reporters.

IRAQ VIOLENCE EBBED

These increases occurred even as the death toll from worldwide terrorism fell to 15,765 from 22,508 in 2007 and the number of overall attacks dropped to 11,770 from 14,506, they said.

The decline reflected diminished violence in Iraq following U.S. President George W. Bush's 2007 decision to send additional troops to the country, which U.S.-led forces invaded in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein.

The number of people killed in Iraq fell to 5,016 from 13,606, U.S. officials said, while the number of attacks declined to 3,258 from 6,210.

But the number of people killed by terrorism in Afghanistan, where the United States and other nations are fighting a renewed Taliban insurgency, rose to 1,989 in 2008 from 1,961 a year earlier, the department said. Attacks in Afghanistan rose to 1,220 from 1,125.

The government released the numbers amid speculation that the Obama administration, which is seeking to engage Havana after decades of animosity, might consider dropping Cuba from its "state sponsors of terrorism" blacklist.

The department last year removed North Korea from its blacklist but kept Cuba along with Iran, Sudan and Syria.

In Havana, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said the United States had no right to lecture others and said his government rejected terrorism.

"We don't recognize any political or moral authority for the government of the United States to make a list on any subject, nor to certify good or bad conduct," Rodriguez told reporters. "Frankly, I don't think anybody reads those documents ... because they know that the author (U.S.) is an international criminal in many of the issues it criticizes."

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, who was in Havana for a meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement nations, agreed.

"The United States, for all it has done in the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo jails, doesn't have the authority nor the capacity to give opinions or accusations about other countries," he told reporters through a translator.

(Additional reporting by Nelson Acosta in Havana)