The NCTC maintains statistics on the annual number of incidents of "terrorism," but its ability to identify the specific group responsible for each incident resulting in death, injury, or kidnapping is significantly limited by the availability of reliable open-source information, particularly when attacks involve few casualties or occur in remote regions of the world. In addition, details regarding victims, perpetrators, damage or other elements of the incident are often not provided in open-source reporting. Consequently, the statistical material in this report reflects the most comprehensive body of information available to NCTV for compiling the data required under the statute. Approximately 11,800 terrorist attacks against noncombatants occurred in various countries during 2008, resulting in over 54,000 deaths, injuries, and kidnappings. Compared to 2007, attacks decreased by 2,700 (18 percent) in 2008, and deaths due to terrorism decreased by 6,700 (30 percent). The largest number of reported terrorist attacks occurred in the Near East, but unlike previous years, South Asia had the greater number of fatalities. These two regions were also the locations for 75 percent of the 235 high-casualty attacks in 2008 (those that killed 10 or more people). The perpetrators of over 7,000 attacks (over 60 percent) in 2008 could not be determined from open source information. Of the remaining incidents, as many as 150 subnational groups or clandestine agents were connected to an attack in various ways. Data are also provided on types of attacks, victims and targets of attacks, trends in person-borne improvised explosive device vs. suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive device attacks, trends in Sunni high-fatality attacks, and the chronology of high-fatality terror attacks. Extensive figures