U.S. Restores Full Diplomatic Ties With Libya

Reasons the United States gives for keeping five countries on its terrorism blacklist.

IRAN
• Most active state sponsor of terrorism.
• Encourages militant groups.
• Increasingly assists militants in Iraq.
• Declines to bring to justice senior al- Qaeda members it has held since 2003.
• Provides Palestinian militants with funding, training and weapons.
• Is a particular concern because of its nuclear program.

CUBA
• Opposes U.S.-led war on terrorism.
• Does not track or block militants' assets.
• Invests heavily in biotechnology; there is some dispute about the existence of an offensive biological weapons program.
• Grants U.S. fugitives safe haven.
• Maintains close ties with other designated state sponsors of terrorism and has provided safe haven to militants.

NORTH KOREA
• Has abducted several Japanese nationals and returned only some to their homeland.
• Is not known to have sponsored any acts designated as terrorism by the United States since the bombing of a Korean Airlines flight in 1987.

SUDAN
• Continued to cooperate in the fight against terrorism in 2005, but some areas of concern remain.
• Hosted al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in the 1990s, which weighs heavily in the assessment of Sudan.
• Has caused concern with its handling of internal rebel movements.
• Has been used as a transit point for Sudanese and foreign nationals who have been captured as foreign fighters in Iraq.

SYRIA
• Provides political and material support to Hezbollah and Palestinian militant groups.
• Has been implicated in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri.
• Ended intelligence cooperation with the United States.

SOURCES: Reuters, State Department Reports on Terrorism 2005, published in April 2006  |  The Washington Post