WASHINGTON ­ Terrorist attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan have risen  
sharply as extremists have consolidated and expanded operations,  
according to the government and independent analysts.
On Thursday, the State Department's annual assessment of worldwide  
terrorism is expected to show that terrorist attacks in Pakistan  
alone more than quadrupled between 2006 and 2008, according to a U.S.  
official briefed on its findings. The official spoke on condition of  
anonymity because Congress is still being notified of the findings.
Last year's "Country Reports on Terrorism" from the State Department  
found that attacks in Pakistan had more than doubled from 375 to 887  
between 2006 and 2007, and the number of fatalities jumped by almost  
300 percent from 335 to 1,335.
Terror attacks also were up in Afghanistan, according to the new  
report. Last year's State terrorism report found the number of  
attacks rose 16 percent in Afghanistan, to 1,127 incidents in 2007,  
killing 1,966 people, 56 percent more than the 1,257 who died in 2006.
The American Security Project reported separately Wednesday that  
there is "no good news" from either Pakistan or Afghanistan.
"Governmental weakness in both states has created opportunities for  
radical Islamist groups on both sides of the border," the independent  
analysts concluded.
The attacks complicate the Obama administration's efforts to boost  
military and civilian programs in the region.
"Terrorist attacks are up, but worse, territory controlled by the  
Afghan and Pakistani Taliban has also increased," said the American  
Security Project, a bipartisan Washington-based organization that  
analyses terrorism trends and the effectiveness of U.S.  
counterterrorism policies.
The American Security Project attributes the rise in incidents to the  
spread of the Taliban, which it said has a "persistent presence" in  
about 75 percent of the Afghanistan. In Pakistan, it noted that the  
government increasingly has ceded authority to militants in tribal  
areas, even before turning over the Swat Valley to the Taliban  
earlier this month.
Bernard Finel, an author of the report, offered a starkly dim view of  
Pakistan, saying the Taliban's power has become institutionalized in  
the Swat Valley and the situation in the country "may already be  
irretrievable."
The report added that the number of attacks attributable to Islamist  
extremists is on the rise in other nations as well, notably in the  
Middle East, Somalia, Russia and the Philippines, and that the trend  
would pose great difficulties for what the Bush administration termed  
the global war on terrorism.
It said the rise in such violence could be due to a decrease in  
attacks in Iraq in 2008.
It counted 670 attacks by Islamists in 2008 outside of the Iraq and  
Afghanistan war theaters and Israel and the Palestinian Authority,  
the fourth consecutive year the number has risen. It said the radical  
Islamist violence is now 10 times more common than in the late 1990s.
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