DAR ES SALAAM, Aug. 31 (Xinhuanet) -- Tanzania has strongly dismissed the US claim that Tanzania-bound tourists still face therisk of terrorist attacks, Daily News reported on Tuesday.

    The country's crime rate is not as threatening as the United States has claimed and Tanzania is probably the safest country in east Africa, Tanzania's Director of Criminal Investigation (DCI) Adadi Rajab was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

    The US State Department on Aug. 25 issued a travel alert stating that since the 1998 bomb attack against the US embassy in Tanzania, the east African country's borders remain porous and violent crimes involving firearms become common in the country.

    Criticizing the alert as "baseless" and "lack of research," Adadi said the US State Department did not even consult Tanzanian authorities on the actual security situation.

    The Tanzanian government said the 1998 terrorist attack againstthe US embassy in Dar es Salaam should not be taken as a criterionfor evaluating the security situation in the country because it was an isolated incident and measures have been taken to avoid similar attacks.

    Tanzanian Natural Resource and Tourism Minister Zakia Meghji said the US public note had to be misguiding and the Tanzanian government is doing all it can to ensure international tourists' safety.

    The DCI asked the US State Department to consult Tanzanian authorities before issuing such travel advisories in future.

    However, Tanzania's press have reported several bandit attacks on tourists this year.

    The latest incident is on Aug. 2, when a gang of armed bandits robbed eight European tourists in Zanzibar, an island off the Tanzanian mainland in the Indian Ocean.

    According to statistics available, foreign tourists increased to 607,000 in 2003 from 293,834 in 1995, contributing an average of some 14 percent to the gross domestic product of Tanzania whichis among the world's poorest countries. Enditem