(CNSNews.com) - When the State Department releases its latest annual report on global terrorism in the coming days, the designated "foreign terrorist organizations" list is expected to include -- as it has in recent years -- the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).

An insurgency launched by the CPN/M in 1996 aimed at toppling the monarchy has cost more than 12,000 Nepalese lives.

The group, according to the U.S. government, has engaged in "murder, torture, arson, sabotage, extortion, child conscription, kidnapping, bombings, and assassinations to intimidate and coerce the populace." In 2002 it killed two Nepalese guards at the U.S. Embassy in Kathmandu, and two years later were suspected in a bombing at the American Cultural Center in the city.

But the U.S. government's dealings with the Maoists are set to change: Following an Apr. 10 election which European Union observers said went smoothly despite a campaign characterized by "a general atmosphere of fear and intimidation," the CPN/M has by far won the largest number of seats in a constituent assembly. The body is tasked with writing a new constitution for the Himalayan country, and it is widely expected to ditch the monarchy.

Although the full vote count is not yet finalized, the Maoist leader, who goes by the nom de guerre Comrade Prachanda, has already declared his intention to head a new government.

Former President Jimmy Carter, who met with the group's leaders earlier this month, on Monday described the election as "transformational." Carter, whose Carter Center deployed more than 60 observers, said earlier that if the Maoists did well, he hoped the U.S. would "recognize and do business with" Nepal's future government.

The U.S. in 2003 designated CPN/M under an executive order issued in the days after 9/11 that was designed to block the U.S.-based assets of terrorists and those who support them.

The group was listed as a foreign terrorist organization in the State Department's annual reports in 2005 and 2006. The 2007 report is due to be released by next Wednesday.

State Department spokesman Tom Casey on Monday said he could not say whether the CPN/M's designation was under review.

"To the extent you have an organization that moves away from violence and terror and participates in a political process and engages in those kinds of legitimate activities, that would certainly, I think, give people an opportunity to at least look again at that situation and that organization," he said.

"But at this point, you know, there's no change in their status and we'll follow the law as appropriate."

Ajai Sahni, a veteran observer of Nepal and executive director of the New Delhi-based Institute for Conflict Management, noted Monday that the CPN/M has not issued a single statement that dilutes its commitment to its radical Maoist ideology. Neither had it "renounced the option of a future resort to political violence."

See Also:
Events in Troubled Nepal Following Maoist 'Script' (April 11, 2006)

Make media inquiries or request an interview about this article.