Washington ? Significant acts of terror worldwide reached a 21-year high in 2003, the State Department announced Tuesday as it corrected a mistaken report that had been cited to boost President Bush’s war on terror.

Incidents of terrorism increased slightly during the year, and the number of people wounded rose dramatically, the department said.

J. Cofer Black, who heads the department’s counterterrorism office, said the report, even as revised, showed “we have made significant progress” in the campaign against international terror.

In all, the department recorded 208 incidents of terror last year, compared with 205 in 2002. There were 175 “significant events” in 2003, which Black said was the highest number since 1982.

Americans were victims in 1 percent to 1.5 percent of all the attacks, and Muslim militants were responsible for most of them, he said.

About half the casualties resulted from 11 incidents in seven countries, and all were the result of Islamic terrorists, Black said.

The department also reported a decline in the number of people killed, to 625 last year from 725 during 2002. The department reported in its April report that 307 people had been killed last year.

The findings had been used by senior administration officials to bolster Bush’s claim of success in countering terror. Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage, for instance, declared in April the report provided “clear evidence that we are prevailing in this fight.”

“We should have caught errors in the draft,” Black said at a news conference. “It was an honest mistake, not a deliberate deception.”

Thirty-five U.S. citizens died in international terror attacks last year. The deadliest was a May suicide bombing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in which nine of 26 victims were American.

The report did not include U.S. troops killed or wounded in Iraq, or attacks by resistance fighters against American troops, “because they were directed at combatants.” Attacks in Iraq against civilians and unarmed military personnel were included.