Suicide bombs biggest threat to US

Suicide bombs rather than chemical, biological or nuclear weapons are the most serious threat to the United States, according to a survey of top American foreign policy and terrorism experts.
The pace of suicide strikes around the world accelerated sharply since the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, with hundreds of people killed in Indonesia, Jordan, Israel, Madrid and London.
Suicide bombs, strapped to people or hidden in cars, are a weapon of choice for insurgents in Iraq. In a survey of 117 foreign policy and terrorism experts, Foreign Policy magazine and the Centre for American Progress, a Washington think tank, found that suicide bomb were rated the most likely method of attack by 67 percent of those surveyed.
Radiological weapons followed in second place with 20 percent. Chemical weapons (10 percent), biological weapons (9 percent) and nuclear weapons (6 percent) ranked much lower on the experts' threat list. "Americans have never feared a suicide bombing the way the people of Amman and Jerusalem have," the survey says.
Those surveyed included academics, retired military officers, think tank analysts and former administration, foreign service and intelligence officers. Organisers describe the survey as the first of an annual series to establish a "terrorism index."
Eighty-four percent of those surveyed think an attack on the scale of the 2005 London or 2004 Madrid bombings - 56 and 192 people killed respectively - will take place in the United States within the next five years. Seventy-nine percent think an attack on the scale of the September 11 attacks, which killed almost 3,000 people, is likely.
The survey, to be published online on Wednesday (www.ForeignPolicy.com) showed a wide gap on key issues between public perceptions and the views of experts. Only 13 percent of the experts think America is winning the war on terror, compared with 56 percent of the public. While 87 percent of the experts think the war in Iraq had a negative impact on the war on terror, only 44 percent of the public share that view.