By HILARY LEILA KRIEGER

The number of significant acts of global terror skyrocketed last year to three times their 2003 levels, according to figures from a US State Department report released by the office of Representative Henry Waxman.

Altogether, there were approximately 650 serious attacks in 2004, up from 175 the year before, which itself constituted a 20-year high, according to the information. The number of attacks in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza reportedly more than doubled from 19 to 45. Afghanistan also saw the number of major attacks double while Iraq's total of 198 was nine times higher than the preceding year's figure.

Waxman charged that the numbers may well be "a significant underestimate" due to America's definition of international attacks, which exclude attacks perpetrated domestically by nationals of the same country and attacks against US armed forces.

The data was relayed at a congressional briefing on Monday and made its way to the public after congressional aides discussed the information with the media and Waxman circulated a letter he wrote to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice criticizing the "withholding" of government figures gathered as part of the State Department's "Patterns of Global Terrorism," by law mandated to be recorded and delivered to Congress each year.

While not relating to the contents of Waxman's letter, a State Department spokeswoman said her office would be releasing the congressionally mandated information by the April 30 deadline set down by the law. She indicated that the specific numbers of attacks were compiled by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) and that they, rather than the State Department, bear responsibility for providing that portion of the data.

At deadline, however, a joint press briefing by the State Department and NCTC was scheduled to take place. Numbers were expected to be released at that briefing.

Waxman said that at the briefing by both the State Department and the NCTC, the latter said that no decision on publishing the data had been made.

According to their statements, Waxman wrote in his letter, one reason for the increase in global terror was greater awareness and monitoring, which led, for instance, to a spike in reports of incidents in the Kashmir region.

He criticized the briefing for not including the number of fatalities and injuries, information that has traditionally been provided as part of the annual report.

Waxman's letter also alluded to the release of last year's report, in which "Bush administration officials cited the annual terrorism data as an illustration of 'the great progress that has been made in fighting terrorism,'" only to have to revise the report and raise the number of attacks in light of public scrutiny.

"The large increases in terrorist attacks reported in 2004 may undermine the administration's claims of success in the war on terror, but political inconvenience has never been a legitimate basis for withholding facts from the American people," his letter concluded.