The number of wounded also was down to 693 last year compared with 2,912 the year before that. Colombia accounted for more than 33 percent of all terrorist attacks worldwide in 1997. The report said that seven U.S. citizens were killed and 21 were wounded last year, compared with 23 dead and 510 wounded in 1996. There were 304 acts of international terrorism in 1997, about 33 percent were against U.S. targets, and most of those consisted of low-level bombings of multinational oil pipelines in Colombia. The attacks caused damage but no casualties.
Colombian rebels regard the pipe- lines as a U.S. target.
The most serious terrorist incident worldwide last year took place in Egypt when terrorists killed 62 persons at a temple in Luxor, Egypt, in November. The decline in terrorist incidents in recent years is being attributed, in part, to the success of law enforcement agencies in tracking down those responsible and giving them severe prison terms. That was up from the eight assassinations attributed to the Islamic republic in 1996. There is no evidence that Iranian policy has changed, and Iran continues both to provide significant support to terrorist organizations and to assassinate dissidents abroad. Iran is one of seven countries on the State Department list of nations that engage in state-sponsored terrorism.