WASHINGTON, April 30: The latest US report on terrorism indicating a steady increase in terrorist attacks in Iraq adds to the problems of President George Bush, who is being criticized for allowing the war to continue for so long. President Bush, who completed his 100 days into his second term on Friday, is also facing a precipitous decline in support for his social security plan, with an increasing number of Americans saying that it would cut future benefits for them.

In a recent joint poll by the Washington Post and ABC News, 58 percent respondents said they did not endorse the way Mr Bush was dealing with the situation in Iraq. In the survey, six in 10 respondents said the United States had got bogged down in Iraq.

Critics say that to avoid further embarrassment, the Bush administration has refused to reveal the full extent of terrorist activities in the State Department’s annual report to the US Congress.

“There appears to be a pattern in the administration’s approach to terrorism data: favourable facts are revealed while unfavourable facts are suppressed,” Congressman Henry A. Waxman of California said in a letter to the department.

However, even the incomplete figures revealed in this week’s Country Report on Terrorism show that US troops are facing a stubborn resistance in Iraq.

According to the report, in late 2004 terrorist attacks against a variety of targets in Iraq increased, particularly during the run-up to the Jan 30, 2005, election for the transitional National Assembly and regional parliamentary bodies.

Jordanian-born Abu Musab Al Zarqawi and his organization emerged in 2004 to play a leading role in terrorist activities in Iraq, it said.

In October, the US government designated Zarqawi’s group, the Jamaat Al Tawhid Wal Jihad, as a foreign terrorist organization. In December, the designation was amended to include the group’s new name, Tanzim Qaidat Al Jihad Fi Bilad Al Rafidayn, and other aliases following its ‘merger’ with the Al Qaeda.

The group claimed credit for a number of attacks targeting US and Iraqi forces, as well as civilians, and Iraqi National Guard recruits.

During 2004, terrorists operating in Iraq used kidnapping and targeted assassinations to intimidate Iraqis and third-country nationals working in Iraq as civilian contractors, the report said.

Nearly 60 non-combatant Americans died in terrorist incidents in Iraq in 2004. Others were killed in attacks on coalition military facilities or convoys, it said.

In June, the group claimed credit for the car bomb that killed the chairman of the coalition-appointed Iraqi Governing Council. In April, an American was kidnapped and later beheaded. One month later, a video of his beheading was posted on an Al Qaeda-associated website.

In August, Kurdish group Ansar Al Sunna claimed responsibility for the kidnapping and killing of 12 Nepalese construction workers, followed by the murder of two Turkish citizens in September, the report said and added that many other foreign civilians had been kidnapped.

The group is believed to be an offshoot of the Ansar Al Islam, founded in Iraq in September 2001.

In February 2004, it claimed responsibility for bomb attacks on the offices of two Kurdish parties in Irbil, which killed 109 Iraqis.

The Islamic Army in Iraq had also claimed responsibility for terrorist actions, it said.

Approximately 3,800 disarmed people remained at the former military base of the Iranian Mujahedin-i-Khalq group, designated a foreign terrorist organization by the US. More than 400 members renounced the organization’s membership in 2004, the report said.