Iran deemed worst offender for global terror: United States

Iran has been listed as the worst offender for boosting support for global terrorism to a huge extent, according to the US administration's annual report reflecting international trends in extremist violence.

The administration report emphasized that the Al Qaeda elements in Afghanistan and Pakistan will be defeated but the outfit's affiliates remain severe threats to the U.S., Fox News reports.

The U.S. list of 'state sponsors of terrorism' though enlists Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria but singles out Iran for spreading global terrorism.

The report said that 2012 has been 'notable in demonstrating a marked resurgence of Iran's state sponsorship of terrorism.' Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and the militant Shiite Hezbollah movement that is Iran's ally in Lebanon have sponsored and aided Iran in its extremist violence methods.

The report also said that 'Iran and Hezbollah's terrorist activity has reached a tempo unseen since the 1990s, with attacks plotted in Southeast Asia, Europe, and Africa,'

According to the report, leadership losses with the core group have driven Al Qaeda affiliates to become more independent by setting their own agendas and targets and raising money on their own, primarily through kidnapping and other crimes.

The administration report insisted that 'though the Al Qaeda core group is on a path to defeat, and its two most dangerous affiliates, Libya and Yemen have suffered serious setbacks, tumultuous events in the Middle East and North Africa have complicated the counter-terrorism picture.'

The 'strategic assessment' of the report has noted that the U.S. must defend itself from a 'more decentralized and geographically dispersed terrorist threat' that has made it more difficult to successfully disrupt terrorism plans in certain areas.