Washington: The number of terror attacks probably will decline by 2025, but they will be more deadly, a top US intelligence officer predicted, citing projections from a report on global trends to be made public this week.

Al-Qaida's reputation for violence against Muslims will hurt its ability to recruit, but a bulge in the number of young people in the Middle East means the terror network will have a larger pool from which to recruit, Thomas Fingar deputy director of national intelligence, said yesterday.

"The percentage of recruitable (people) is very small, but its a very small percentage of a much larger number," he said.

"I can imagine that the aggregate threat diminishes but the specific instances (of attacks) being much more deadly," Fingar said, noting increasingly lethal conventional weapons and the possibility that biological weapons will get into terrorists hands.

Fingar was citing projections contained in the report, Global Trends 2025, to be released tomorrow. The fourth of its kind since 1997, the report is meant to help US administration think strategically and long-term about potential future trends and how they should be dealt with.

One primary force shaping the world in 2025 will be a projected increase in population of 1.4 billion, with just 3 per cent of that growth in the United States, Europe and the developed world. The rest will be in sub-Saharan Africa, Central America, Asia and the Middle East.

"The demographic challenge in the Middle East will be the most significant," Fingar said. There will be massive increase in youth -- that is, a "very large segment of the population with raging hormones."

Source : PTI