Counterterrorism, also known as anti-terrorism, relates to the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement, businesses, and intelligence agencies use to combat or eliminate terrorism.
Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) is a designation for non-United States-based organizations deemed by the United States secretary of state, in accordance with section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (INA), to be involved in what US authorities define as terrorist activities. Most of the organizations on the list are Islamist extremist groups; the rest are nationalist/separatist groups, or Marxist militant groups.
Terrorism and mass attacks in Canada includes acts of terrorism, as well as mass shootings, vehicle-ramming attacks, mass stabbings, and other such acts committed in Canada that people may associate with terroristic tactics but have not been classified as terrorism by the Canadian legal system.
Terrorism in South Africa has not been seen as a significant threat to the security of the state since the end of apartheid.
The counter-terrorism page primarily deals with special police or military organizations that carry out arrest or direct combat with terrorists.
Terrorism in the United Kingdom, according to the Home Office, poses a significant threat to the state. There have been various causes of terrorism in the UK. Before the 2000s, most attacks were linked to the Northern Ireland conflict. In the late 20th century there were also attacks by Islamic terrorist groups. Since 1970, there have been at least 3,395 terrorist-related deaths in the UK, the highest in western Europe. The vast majority of the deaths were linked to the Northern Ireland conflict and happened in Northern Ireland. In mainland Great Britain, there were 430 terrorist-related deaths between 1971 and 2001. Of these, 125 deaths were linked to the Northern Ireland conflict, and 305 deaths were linked to other causes, including 270 in the Lockerbie bombing. Since 2001, there have been almost 100 terrorist-related deaths in Great Britain.
The coordinator for counterterrorism heads the Bureau of Counterterrorism and Countering Violent Extremism, which coordinates U.S. government efforts to fight terrorism. As the head of the counterterrorism bureau, the coordinator for counterterrorism has the rank of both ambassador-at-large and assistant secretary.
Presidential Decision Directive 62 (PDD-62), titled Combating Terrorism, was a Presidential Decision Directive (PDD), signed on May 22, 1998 by President Bill Clinton. It identified the fight against terrorism a top national security priority.
Islamic extremism in the United States comprises all forms of Islamic extremism occurring within the United States. Islamic extremism is an adherence to fundamentalist interpretations of Islam, potentially including the promotion of violence to achieve political goals. In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, Islamic extremism became a prioritized national security concern of the U.S. government and a focus of many subsidiary security and law enforcement entities. Initially, the focus of concern was on foreign Islamic terrorist organizations, particularly al-Qaeda, but in the course of the years since the September 11 terror attacks, the focus has shifted more towards Islamic extremist radicalized individuals and jihadist networks within the United States.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the past and present terrorism in the United States:
The White House released the United States' first strategy to address "ideologically inspired" violence in August 2011. Entitled Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States, the eight-page document outlines "how the Federal Government will support and help empower American communities and their local partners in their grassroots efforts to prevent violent extremism." The strategy was followed in December 2011 by a more detailed Strategic Implementation Plan for Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States. The National Strategy for Empowering Local Partners and the strategic implementation plan (SIP) resulted from the identification of violent extremism and terrorism inspired by "al-Qaeda and its affiliates and adherents" as the "preeminent security threats" to the United States by the 2010 National Security Strategy and the 2011 National Strategy for Counterterrorism. Regardless of the priorization of the threat from al-Qaeda's ideology, both the strategy and SIP are geared towards all types of extremism without focus on a particular ideology.
The Foreign Emergency Support Team (FEST) is an interagency task force of the United States government, tasked with on-call short-notice responses to terrorist incidents across the world. It consists of personnel from military, intelligence, and diplomatic agencies, as well as other departments when required.
The Counter Extremism Project (CEP) is a non-profit non-governmental organization that combats extremist groups "by pressuring financial support networks, countering the narrative of extremists and their online recruitment, and advocating for strong laws, policies and regulations".
Qatar has been accused of allowing terror financiers to operate within its borders, which has been one of the justifications for the Qatar diplomatic crisis that started in 2017 and ended in 2021. In 2014, David S. Cohen, then United States Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, accused Qatari authorities of allowing financiers who were on international blacklists to live freely in the country: "There are U.S.- and UN-designated terrorist financiers in Qatar that have not been acted against under Qatari law." Accusations come from a wide variety of sources including intelligence reports, government officials, and journalists.
The National Counter Terrorism Agency is an Indonesian non-ministerial government department that works to prevent terrorism. BNPT is headed by a chief, who is responsible to the President. When it was first launched, the leader of BNPT held the ranking of a civil servant but the Presidential Regulation in 2012 elevated the post of BNPT Chief to the ministerial level.
Most Western countries have a stated policy of not negotiating with terrorists. This policy is typically invoked during hostage crises and is limited to paying ransom demands, not other forms of negotiation. Motivations for such policies include a lack of guarantee that terrorists will ensure the safe return of hostages, and decreasing the incentive for terrorists to take more hostages in the future.
Final Report of the Task Force on Combating Terrorist and Foreign Fighter Travel is a report about counterterrorism and foreign fighters in the Syrian and Iraqi Civil Wars by a bipartisan task force of the United States House Committee on Homeland Security, with a foreword by cryptology analyst and author Malcolm Nance. The work was released by the United States Government Publishing Office in 2015 as an unillustrated committee print, by the United States House Committee on Homeland Security in September 2015 in an illustrated edition, and as a paperback book in 2016 by Skyhorse Publishing. The report discusses United States citizens leaving their country to gain fighting experience in Iraq and Syria on the battlefield. It notes some linked up with the Syrian Civil War in order to attempt to remove Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad from power, later joining ISIS. According to the work, approximately 4,500 from the Western world left their countries to join ISIS, including over 250 American citizens. The report gives thirty-two recommendations to address the problem, including tactics to stop travels of battlefield soldiers to and from their countries of origin, ways to change executive branch policies, and methods to determine which individuals are planning terrorist activities.
Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) was a US government program established under the Obama administration to counter all violent ideologies held by groups or individuals in the US by engaging communities in the counterterrorism effort and by education programs or counter-messaging. The program worked with community groups such as local governments, police departments, universities, and non-profits. It recruited community leaders, teachers, social workers, and public health providers to help the government in identifying people "at risk" of becoming violent extremists.
Terrorism in Burkina Faso refers to non-state actor violence in Burkina Faso carried out with the intent of causing fear and spreading extremist ideology. Terrorist activity primarily involves religious terrorism conducted by foreign-based organizations, although some activity occurs because of communal frustration over the lack of economic development. Recent attacks have concentrated in the Hauts-Bassins, Boucle du Mouhoun, Nord, Sahel, and Est regions, along the border with Mali and Niger. A series of attacks in Ouagadougou in 2016, 2017, and 2018 by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and its affiliates garnered international attention.
The Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure is a permanent organ of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) tasked with coordinating counterterrorism efforts across member countries and advancing cooperation on SCO initiatives to mitigate the "Three Evils" – terrorism, separatism and religious extremism. The organization is meant to lay the groundwork for a future enforcement capability within the SCO, which aspires to develop its own transnational police and military forces.
