Tom gave the link elsewhere indicating tips are way up. It's hard to tell what's really going on in attacks with the way the press reports attacks out of context whether attacks are increasing decreasing or just going through another short term spike. You need to look at a graph of number of attacks to tell. It's quite possible the way the press focuses on the negative for a few powerful attacks to overshadow a decrease in number of attacks.

In the past there definitely seemed to be a pattern of decreases in number of attacks to be followed by an increase in severity of attacks. The trend has also shown a roller coaster effect with both the valleys and the peaks decreasing. The terrorists seem to adapt to decreasing numbers by increasing fatalities per attack after most every minimum. The biggest shift was to attacking poorly defended civilians when their attacks on the military dropped way off in effectiveness.

It sure is damn irritating that we haven't been far more effective at wiping them out though. I think the confidence of the military guys on the beat tells the real story though. The attitude in my military town is far from negative despite a lot of people doing multiple tours over there.

Regards,
Mark