Terror metrics

"If you can't measure it, you can't manage it." - Peter Drucker

However, it's not clear that we measure terrorism accurately. Moreover, the organizations responsible for measuring could be stuck in an outmoded ontology.

The State Department has had to correct and re-issue annual terrorism reports. What sense do you get when you look at the actual amended "Patterns of Global Terrorism 2003"? I see a lot of emphasis on "state sponsored" terrorism. Even though Al-Qaeda and Islamic groups are readily mentioned, there's a tendency to categorize their activities within the context of a sponsoring nation.

Is part of the measurement problem the State department's model? Are they stuck on the "state-sponsored" model while the actual activities are driven by more dynamic networks?