Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims.[1] The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war against non-combatants (mostly civilians and neutralmilitary personnel).[2] There are various different definitions of terrorism, with no universal agreement about it.[3][4][5] Different definitions of terrorism emphasize its randomness, its aim to instill fear, and its broader impact beyond its immediate victims.[1]
Modern terrorism, evolving from earlier iterations, employs various tactics to pursue political goals, often leveraging fear as a strategic tool to influence decision makers. By targeting densely populated public areas such as transportation hubs, airports, shopping centers, tourist attractions, and nightlife venues, terrorists aim to instill widespread insecurity, prompting policy changes through psychological manipulation and undermining confidence in security measures.[6]
The term "terrorism" itself was originally used to describe the actions of the Jacobin Club during the "Reign of Terror" in the French Revolution. "Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible", said Jacobin leader Maximilien Robespierre.[10] In 1795, Edmund Burke denounced the Jacobins for letting "thousands of those hell-hounds called Terrorists... loose on the people" of France.[11]John Calvin's rule over Geneva in the 16th century has also been described as a reign of terror.[12][13][14]
No definition of terrorism has gained universal agreement.[24][25] Challenges emerge due to the politically and emotionally charged nature of the term, the double standards used in applying it,[26] and disagreement over the nature of terrorist acts and limits of the right to self-determination.[27][28] Harvard law professor Richard Baxter, a leading expert on the law of war, was a skeptic: "We have cause to regret that a legal concept of 'terrorism' was ever inflicted upon us. The term is imprecise; it is ambiguous; and above all, it serves no operative legal purpose."[29][28]
Different legal systems and government agencies employ diverse definitions of terrorism, with governments showing hesitation in establishing a universally accepted, legally binding definition. Title 18 of the United States Code defines terrorism as acts that are intended to intimidate or coerce civilians or government.[30] The international community has been slow to formulate a universally agreed, legally binding definition of this crime, and has been unable to conclude a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism that incorporates a single, all-encompassing, legally binding, criminal law definition of terrorism.[31] These difficulties arise from the fact that the term "terrorism" is politically and emotionally charged.[32][33] The international community has instead adopted a series of sectoral conventions that define and criminalize various types of terrorist activities.[citation needed]
Counterterrorism analyst Bruce Hoffman has noted that it is not only individual agencies within the same governmental apparatus that cannot agree on a single definition of terrorism; experts and other long-established scholars in the field are equally incapable of reaching a consensus.[34] In 1992, terrorism studies scholar Alex P. Schmid proposed a simple definition to the United Nations Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ) as "peacetime equivalents of war crimes," but it was not accepted.[35][36] In 2006, it was estimated that there were over 109 different definitions of terrorism.[37]
Controversial definitions
The use of the term in the Israel-Palestine conflict has given rise to controversies concerning the vagueness of how terrorists are defined and identified.[38] When asked to clarify the term, in the context of the ongoing 2023–2024 Israel-Hamas war and an hostage rescue operation, in which over 270 Palestinians were killed and 4 hostages rescued, the commander of Israel's drone fleet answered: "We attacked on the side of the street to drive civilians away, and whoever did not flee, even if he was unarmed, as far as we were concerned, was a terrorist. Everyone we killed should have been killed."[39]
Until David C. Rapoport published his seminal article Fear and Trembling: Terrorism in Three Religious Traditions in 1984, scholars of terrorism had largely assumed that terrorism was a modern phenomenon.[40] Earlier published studies like Paul Wilkinson had considered terrorism to be a product of 19th century revolutionary politics. Technological developments like the pistol and bomb-making were considered instrumental to the relentless onslaught of assassinations, terrorism, bombings and political violence in the 19th century.[40][41]
Rapoport proposed three case studies to demonstrate "ancient lineage" of religious terrorism, which he called "sacred terror": the "Thugs", the Assassins and the Jewish Sicarii Zealots. Rapoport argued religious terrorism has been ongoing since ancient times and that "there are signs that it is reviving in new and unusual forms". He is the first to propose that religious doctrines were more important than political rationales for some terrorist groups.[42][43] Rapoport's work has since become the basis of the model of "New Terrorism" proposed by Bruce Hoffman and developed by other scholars. "New Terrorism" has had an unparalleled impact on policymaking. Critics have pointed out that the model is politically charged and over-simplified. The underlying historical assertions have received less critical attention.[44] According to The Oxford Handbook on the History of Terrorism:[40]
Since the publication of Rapoport's article, it has become seemingly pre-requisite for standard works on terrorism to cite the three case studies and to reproduce uncritically its findings. In lieu of empirical research, authors tend to crudely paraphrase Rapoport and the assumed relevance of "Thuggee" to the study of modern terrorism is taken for granted. Yet the significance of the article is not simply a matter of citations―it has also provided the foundation for what has become known as the "New Terrorism" paradigm. While Rapoport did not suggest which late 20th century groups might exemplify the implied recurrence of "holy terror", Bruce Hoffman, recognized today as one of the world's leading terrorism experts, did not hesitate to do so. A decade after Rapoport's article. Hoffman picked up the mantle and taking the three case studies as inspiration, he formulated a model of contemporary "holy terror" or, as he defined it, "terrorism motivated by a religious imperative". Completely distinct from "secular terrorists", Hoffman argued that "religious terrorists" carry out indiscriminate acts of violence as a divine duty with no consideration for political efficacy―their aim is transcendental and "holy terror" constitutes an end in itself. Hoffman's concept has since been taken up and developed by a number of other writers, including Walter Laquer, Steven Simon and Daniel Daniel Benjamen, and rebranded as the "New Terrorism".
Modern era (1850-1980)
Arguably, the first organization to use modern terrorist techniques was the Irish Republican Brotherhood,[45] founded in 1858 as a revolutionary Irish nationalist group[46] that carried out attacks in England.[47] The group initiated the Fenian dynamite campaign in 1881, one of the first modern terror campaigns.[48] Instead of earlier forms of terrorism based on political assassination, this campaign used timed explosives with the express aim of sowing fear in the very heart of metropolitan Britain, in order to achieve political gains.[49]
Another early terrorist-type group was Narodnaya Volya, founded in Russia in 1878 as a revolutionary anarchist group inspired by Sergei Nechayev and "propaganda by the deed" theorist Carlo Pisacane.[50][51] The group developed ideas—such as targeted killing of the 'leaders of oppression', which were to become the hallmark of subsequent violence by small non-state groups, and they were 1convinced that the developing technologies of the age—such as the invention of dynamite, which they were the first anarchist group to make widespread use of[52]—enabled them to strike directly and with discrimination.[53]
During this period terrorist actions were carried out by individuals and Jewish paramilitary groups[56] such as the Irgun, the Lehi,[57] the Haganah and the Palmach as the part of a conflict between Jews, British authorities, and Palestinian Arabs, regarding land, immigration, and control over Palestine.[58] The Zionist paramilitaries engaged in a violent campaign of terror[59] against British authorities, Palestinian Arabs, and internal Jewish dissenters[60] to advance their political goals. The targets and victims included British soldiers and officials,[61]United Nations personnel,[62] Palestinian Arab fighters and civilians, Jewish fighters and civilians of opposing groups. Domestic, commercial and government property, infrastructure, and material were also attacked.[63][64] The tactics and methods included assassinations and bombing attacks against buildings, infrastructure,[65][66] landmarks,[67][68] military personnel, government officials and the execution of dissenters by holding irregular drumhead courts-martial.[69][70][71][72]
The creation of Israel in 1948 coincided with the era of the anti-colonial struggle in North Africa and the Middle East, and coinciding with, a series of Marxist-Leninist and anti-imperialist movements swept throughout the Arab and Islamic world. These movements were nationalist and revolutionary. However, their view that terrorism could be effective in reaching their political goals generated the first phase of modern international terrorism. In the late 1960s, Palestinian secular movements such as Al Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) began to target civilians outside the immediate arena of conflict. Following Israel's victory over Arab forces in 1967, Palestinian leaders began to realize that the Arab world was unable to defeat Israel in the battlefield. At the same time, lessons drawn from the Jewish struggle against the British in Palestine and revolutionary movements across Latin America, North Africa and Southeast Asia, motivated the Palestinians to turn away from guerrilla warfare towards urban terrorism. These movements were secular in nature, though their international reach served to spread terrorist tactics worldwide.[79]
Growth of religiously motivated Islamic movements in the Middle East was also fueled and motivated by the Arab Cold War which was supported by Saudi Arabia and other closely aligned conservative Islamic monarchies allied with the US which came into conflict with the predominant secular (Nasserist and Ba'athist) nationalist ideologies supported at the time by Soviet-aligned secular national-revolutionary governments like Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Libya and Iraq.[79][80] The year 1979 is widely considered a turning point in the rise of religiously motivated radicalism in the Muslim world. Several events (the Soviet-Afghan War and unprecedented support from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the US for anti-Soviet jihadists; the Iranian Revolution and subsequent Iran-Iraq War as well as Khomeini's active support for Shia groups resisting the Israeli occupation of Lebanon; the Grand Mosque seizure in Mecca and subsequent Wahhabization of the Saudi government; and the Egypt–Israel peace treaty that was highly unpopular in some sections of the Muslim world) are thought to be crucial for the proliferation of Islamist terrorism in the next decade.[81]
Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman in the book Rise and Kill First asserted that Hezbollah's 1983 campaign of coordinated terrorist attacks against American, French and Israeli military installations in Beirut drew inspiration from and directly mirrored the Haganah's and Irgun's 1946 bombing campaign against the British: both succeeded in creating an atmosphere of widespread fear which eventually forced the enemy to withdraw.[82] Bergman further asserts that the influence of Israeli-sponsored terrorist operations on the emerging Islamists was also of operational nature: the Israeli proxy Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners had carried out multiple deadly truck bombings in Lebanon long before the emergence of Hezbollah. An Israeli Mossad agent told Bergman: "I saw from a distance one of the cars blowing up and demolishing an entire street. We were teaching the Lebanese how effective a car bomb could be. Everything that we saw later with Hezbollah sprang from what they saw had happened after these operations."[83]
According to Bruce Hoffman of the RAND Corporation, in 1980, 2 out of 64 terrorist groups were categorized as having religious motivation while in 1995, almost half (26 out of 56) were religiously motivated with the majority having Islam as their guiding force.[84][79]
In early 1975, the Law Enforcement Assistant Administration in the United States formed the National Advisory Committee on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals. One of the five volumes that the committee wrote was titled Disorders and Terrorism, produced by the Task Force on Disorders and Terrorism under the direction of H. H. A. Cooper, Director of the Task Force staff.
The Task Force defines terrorism as "a tactic or technique by means of which a violent act or the threat thereof is used for the prime purpose of creating overwhelming fear for coercive purposes". It classified disorders and terrorism into seven categories:[88]
Civil disorder – A form of collective violence interfering with the peace, security, and normal functioning of the community.
Political terrorism – Violent criminal behaviour designed primarily to generate fear in the community, or substantial segment of it, for political purposes.
Non-Political terrorism – Terrorism that is not aimed at political purposes, but which exhibits "conscious design to create and maintain a high degree of fear for coercive purposes, but the end is individual or collective gain rather than the achievement of a political objective".
Anonymous terrorism – In the two decades prior to 2016–19, "fewer than half" of all terrorist attacks were either "claimed by their perpetrators or convincingly attributed by governments to specific terrorist groups". A number of theories have been advanced as to why this has happened.[89]
Quasi-terrorism – The activities incidental to the commission of crimes of violence that are similar in form and method to genuine terrorism, but which nevertheless lack its essential ingredient. It is not the main purpose of the quasi-terrorists to induce terror in the immediate victim as in the case of genuine terrorism, but the quasi-terrorist uses the modalities and techniques of the genuine terrorist and produces similar consequences and reaction.[90] For example, the fleeing felon who takes hostages is a quasi-terrorist, whose methods are similar to those of the genuine terrorist but whose purposes are quite different.
Limited political terrorism – Genuine political terrorism is characterized by a revolutionary approach; limited political terrorism refers to "acts of terrorism which are committed for ideological or political motives but which are not part of a concerted campaign to capture control of the state".
Official or state terrorism – "referring to nations whose rule is based upon fear and oppression that reach similar to terrorism or such proportions". It may be referred to as Structural Terrorism defined broadly as terrorist acts carried out by governments in pursuit of political objectives, often as part of their foreign policy.
Other sources have defined the typology of terrorism in different ways, for example, broadly classifying it into domestic terrorism and international terrorism, or using categories such as vigilante terrorism or insurgent terrorism.[91] Some ways the typology of terrorism may be defined are:[92][93]
According to the Global Terrorism Index by the University of Maryland, College Park, religious extremism has overtaken national separatism and become the main driver of terrorist attacks around the world. Since 9/11 there has been a five-fold increase in deaths from terrorist attacks. The majority of incidents over the past several years can be tied to groups with a religious agenda. Before 2000, it was nationalist separatist terrorist organizations such as the IRA and Chechen rebels who were behind the most attacks. The number of incidents from nationalist separatist groups has remained relatively stable in the years since while religious extremism has grown. The prevalence of Islamist groups in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria is the main driver behind these trends.[94]
The Islamic State (IS) is a transnational Sunni Islamist insurgent and terrorist group. IS territory, in grey, at the time of its greatest territorial extent in May 2015.
Note: Iraq and Syria contain large desert areas with sparse populations. These areas are mapped as under the control of forces holding roads and towns within them.
The emergence of Hezbollah in 1982 marked a pivotal moment in terrorism's history.[95] The Shiite Islamist group, rooted in Lebanon, drew inspiration from the Iranian Revolution and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's teachings, responding to the 1982 Lebanon War. Beyond pursuing revolutionary goals, Hezbollah members were deeply concerned about the social conditions of Shiite communities across the Middle East. Their activities in Lebanon during the 1980s garnered support among local Shiites, leading to the rise of smaller terrorist groups, notably the Islamic Jihad.[95]
Hamas, the main Islamist movement in the Palestinian territories, was formed by Palestinian imamAhmed Yassin in 1987. Hamas members seek their identity in their Islamic roots. Hamas maintains an uncompromising and maximalist stance, emphasizing the complete liberation of the sacred land of Palestine they interpret as demanded by Allah, who will repay martyrs for this cause with life everlasting.[95][96] Hamas' ideology includes antisemitic elements and, according to some studies, even incorporates genocidal aspirations.[97][98][99] In the periods of 1994–1996 and 2001–2007, Hamas orchestrated a series of suicide bombings, primarily directed at civilian targets in Israel, killing over 1,000 Israeli civilians.[100] Following their takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007, the group has launched thousands of rockets towards Israeli population centers.[101] Five of the terrorist groups that have been most active since 2001 are Hamas, Boko Haram, al-Qaeda, the Taliban and ISIL. These groups have been most active in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria. Eighty percent of all deaths from terrorism occurred in these five countries.[94] In 2015 four Islamic extremist groups were responsible for 74% of all deaths from Islamic terrorism: ISIS, Boko Haram, the Taliban, and al-Qaeda, according to the Global Terrorism Index 2016.[102] Since approximately 2000, these incidents have occurred on a global scale, affecting not only Muslim-majority states in Africa and Asia, but also states with non-Muslim majority such as United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Sweden, Russia, Australia, Canada, Sri Lanka, Israel, China, India and Philippines. Such attacks have targeted both Muslims and non-Muslims, however the majority affect Muslims themselves.[103]
Terrorism in Pakistan has become a great problem. From the summer of 2007 until late 2009, more than 1,500 people were killed in suicide and other attacks on civilians[105] for reasons attributed to a number of causes—sectarian violence between Sunni and Shia Muslims; easy availability of guns and explosives; the existence of a "Kalashnikov culture"; an influx of ideologically driven Muslims based in or near Pakistan, who originated from various nations around the world and the subsequent war against the pro-Soviet Afghans in the 1980s which blew back into Pakistan; the presence of Islamist insurgent groups and forces such as the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba. On July 2, 2013, in Lahore, 50 Muslim scholars of the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) issued a collective fatwa against suicide bombings, the killing of innocent people, bomb attacks, and targeted killings declaring them as Haraam or forbidden.[106]
In 2015, the Southern Poverty Law Center released a report on terrorism in the United States. The report (titled The Age of the Wolf) analyzed 62 incidents and found that, between 2009 and 2015, "more people have been killed in America by non-Islamic domestic terrorists than jihadists."[107] The "virulent racist and antisemitic" ideology of the ultra-right wing Christian Identity movement is usually accompanied by anti-government sentiments.[108] Adherents of Christian Identity are not connected with specific Christian denominations,[109] and they believe that whites of European descent can be traced back to the "Lost Tribes of Israel" and many consider Jews to be the Satanic offspring of Eve and the Serpent.[108] This group has committed hate crimes, bombings and other acts of terrorism. Its influence ranges from the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups to the anti-government militia and sovereign citizen movements.[108] Christian Identity's origins can be traced back to Anglo-Israelism, which held the view that the British people were descendants of ancient Israelites. However, in the United States, the ideology started to become rife with anti-Semitism, and eventually Christian Identity theology diverged from the philo-semitic Anglo-Israelism, and developed what is known as the "two seed" theory.[108] According to the two-seed theory, the Jewish people are descended from Cain and the serpent (not from Shem).[108] The white European seedline is descended from the "lost tribes" of Israel. They hold themselves to "God's laws", not to "man's laws", and they do not feel bound to a government that they consider run by Jews and the New World Order.[108] The Ku Klux Klan is widely denounced by Christian denominations.[110]
Israel has had problems with Jewish religious terrorism even before independence in 1948. During British mandate over Palestine, the Irgun were among the Zionist groups labelled as terrorist organisations by the British authorities and United Nations,[111] for violent terror attacks against Britons and Arabs.[112][113] Another extremist group, the Lehi, openly declared its members as "terrorists".[114][115] Historian William Cleveland stated many Jews justified any action, even terrorism, taken in the cause of the creation of a Jewish state.[116] In 1995, Yigal Amir assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. For Amir, killing Rabin was an exemplary act that symbolized the fight against an illegitimate government that was prepared to cede Jewish Holy Land to the Palestinians.[117] Members of Kach, a Jewish ultranationalist party, employed terrorist tactics in pursuit of what they viewed as religious imperatives. Israel and a few other countries have designated the party as a terrorist group.[118]
Causes and motivations
Terrorist acts frequently have a political purpose based on self-determination claims, ethnonationalist frustrations, single issue causes (like abortion or the environment), or other ideological or religious causes that terrorists claim are a moral justification for their violent acts.[119]
Choice of terrorism as a tactic
Individuals and groups choose terrorism as a tactic because it can:
Act as a form of asymmetric warfare in order to directly force a government to agree to demands
Intimidate a group of people into capitulating to the demands in order to avoid future injury
Get attention and thus political support for a cause
Directly inspire more people to the cause (such as revolutionary acts) – propaganda of the deed
Indirectly inspire more people to the cause by provoking a hostile response or over-reaction from enemies to the cause[120]
Attacks on "collaborators" are used to intimidate people from cooperating with the state in order to undermine state control. This strategy was used in Ireland, in Kenya, in Algeria and in Cyprus during their independence struggles.[121]
Stated motives for the September 11 attacks included inspiring more fighters to join the cause of repelling the United States from Muslim countries with a successful high-profile attack. The attacks prompted some criticism from domestic and international observers regarding perceived injustices in U.S. foreign policy that provoked the attacks, but the larger practical effect was that the United States government declared a War on Terror that resulted in substantial military engagements in several Muslim-majority countries. Various commentators have inferred that al-Qaeda expected a military response and welcomed it as a provocation that would result in more Muslims fight the United States. Some commentators believe that the resulting anger and suspicion directed toward innocent Muslims living in Western countries and the indignities inflicted upon them by security forces and the general public also contributes to radicalization of new recruits.[120] Despite criticism that the Iraqi government had no involvement with the September 11 attacks, Bush declared the 2003 invasion of Iraq to be part of the War on Terror. The resulting backlash and instability enabled the rise of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and the temporary creation of an Islamic caliphate holding territory in Iraq and Syria, until ISIL lost its territory through military defeats.
Adoption of a particular political philosophy, such as socialism (left-wing terrorism), anarchism, or fascism (possibly through a coup or as an ideology of an independence or separatist movement)
Sometimes terrorists on the same side fight for different reasons. For example, in the Chechen–Russian conflict secular Chechens using terrorist tactics fighting for national independence are allied with radical Islamist terrorists who have arrived from other countries.[122]
Perception that the cause responds to a profound injustice or indignity
A report conducted by Paul Gill, John Horgan and Paige Deckert [dubious–discuss] found that for "lone wolf" terrorists:[123]
43% were motivated by religious beliefs
32% had pre-existing mental health disorders, while many more are found to have mental health problems upon arrest
At least 37% lived alone at the time of their event planning and/or execution, a further 26% lived with others, and no data were available for the remaining cases
40% were unemployed at the time of their arrest or terrorist event
19% subjectively experienced being disrespected by others
14% percent experienced being the victim of verbal or physical assault
Ariel Merari, a psychologist who has studied the psychological profiles of suicide terrorists since 1983 through media reports that contained biographical details, interviews with the suicides' families, and interviews with jailed would-be suicide attackers, concluded that they were unlikely to be psychologically abnormal.[124] In comparison to economic theories of criminal behaviour, Scott Atran found that suicide terrorists exhibit none of the socially dysfunctional attributes—such as fatherless, friendless, jobless situations—or suicidal symptoms. By which he means, they do not kill themselves simply out of hopelessness or a sense of 'having nothing to lose'.[125]
Abrahm suggests that terrorist organizations do not select terrorism for its political effectiveness.[126] Individual terrorists tend to be motivated more by a desire for social solidarity with other members of their organization than by political platforms or strategic objectives, which are often murky and undefined.[126]
Michael Mousseau shows possible relationships between the type of economy within a country and ideology associated with terrorism.[example needed][127] Many terrorists have a history of domestic violence.[128]
Democracy and domestic terrorism
Terrorism is most common in nations with intermediate political freedom, and it is least common in the most democratic nations.[129][130][131][132]
According to Boaz Ganor, "Modern terrorism sees the liberal democratic state, in all its variations, as the perfect launching pad and a target for its attacks. Moreover, some terrorist organizations—particularly Islamist-jihadist organizations—have chosen to cynically exploit democratic values and institutions to gain power and status, promote their interests, and achieve internal and international legitimacy".[1] Jihadist militants have shown an ambivalent view towards democracy, as they both exploit it for their ends and oppose it in their ideology. Various quotes from jihadist leaders note their disdain for democracy and their efforts to undermine it in favor of Islamic rule.[1] Democracies, such as Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, Israel, Indonesia, India, Spain, Germany, Italy and the Philippines, have all experienced domestic terrorism.
While a democratic nation espousing civil liberties may claim a sense of higher moral ground than other regimes, an act of terrorism within such a state may cause a dilemma: whether to maintain its civil liberties and thus risk being perceived as ineffective in dealing with the problem; or alternatively to restrict its civil liberties and thus risk delegitimizing its claim of supporting civil liberties.[137] For this reason, homegrown terrorism has started to be seen as a greater threat, as stated by former CIA Director Michael Hayden.[138] This dilemma, some social theorists would conclude, may very well play into the initial plans of the acting terrorist(s); namely, to delegitimize the state and cause a systematic shift towards anarchy via the accumulation of negative sentiments towards the state system.[139]
Perpetrators
Al-Qaeda in Maghreb members pose with weapons.
The perpetrators of acts of terrorism can be individuals, groups, or states. According to some definitions, clandestine or semi-clandestine state actors may carry out terrorist acts outside the framework of a state of war. The most common image of terrorism is that it is carried out by small and secretive cells, highly motivated to serve a particular cause and many of the most deadly operations in recent times, such as the September 11 attacks, the London underground bombing, 2008 Mumbai attacks and the 2002 Bali bombings were planned and carried out by a close clique, composed of close friends, family members and other strong social networks. These groups benefited from the free flow of information and efficient telecommunications to succeed where others had failed.[140]
Over the years, much research has been conducted to distill a terrorist profile to explain these individuals' actions through their psychology and socio-economic circumstances.[141] Some specialists highlight the lack of evidence supporting the idea that terrorists are typically psychologically disturbed. The careful planning and detailed execution seen in many terrorist acts are not characteristics generally associated with mentally unstable individuals.[142] Others, like Roderick Hindery, have sought to discern profiles in the propaganda tactics used by terrorists. Some security organizations designate these groups as violent non-state actors.[citation needed] A 2007 study by economist Alan B. Krueger found that terrorists were less likely to come from an impoverished background (28 percent versus 33 percent) and more likely to have at least a high-school education (47 percent versus 38 percent). Another analysis found only 16 percent of terrorists came from impoverished families, versus 30 percent of male Palestinians, and over 60 percent had gone beyond high school, versus 15 percent of the populace.[37][143]
To avoid detection, a terrorist will look, dress, and behave normally until executing the assigned mission. Some claim that attempts to profile terrorists based on personality, physical, or sociological traits are not useful.[144] The physical and behavioral description of the terrorist could describe almost any normal person.[145] The majority of terrorist attacks are carried out by military age men, aged 16 to 40.[145]
Non-state groups
There is speculation that the 2001 anthrax attacks were the work of a lone wolf.
Recent decades saw the emergence of hybrid terrorist organizations, which typically consist of both military and political arms, with some also incorporating a third element focused on community support through social welfare and religious services, known as dawah in Islamic rhetoric. Boaz Ganor states that this evolution necessitates a multidimensional approach to warfare, where states must engage across military, media, and legal fronts to challenge the legitimacy of these organizations.[1]
"Revolutionary tax" is another major form of funding, and essentially a euphemism for "protection money".[147] Revolutionary taxes "play a secondary role as one other means of intimidating the target population".[147]
The Wall Street bombing at noon on September 16, 1920, killed thirty-eight people and injured several hundred. The perpetrators were never caught.
Terrorist attacks are often targeted to maximize fear and publicity, most frequently using explosives.[163] Terrorist groups usually methodically plan attacks in advance, and may train participants, plant undercover agents, and raise money from supporters or through organized crime. Communications occur through modern telecommunications, or through old-fashioned methods such as couriers. There is concern about terrorist attacks employing weapons of mass destruction. Some academics have argued that while it is often assumed terrorism is intended to spread fear, this is not necessarily true, with fear instead being a by-product of the terrorist's actions, while their intentions may be to avenge fallen comrades or destroy their perceived enemies.[164]
Terrorism is a form of asymmetric warfare and is more common when direct conventional warfare will not be effective because opposing forces vary greatly in power.[165] Yuval Harari argues that the peacefulness of modern states makes them paradoxically more vulnerable to terrorism than pre-modern states. Harari argues that because modern states have committed themselves to reducing political violence to almost zero, terrorists can, by creating political violence, threaten the very foundations of the legitimacy of the modern state. This is in contrast to pre-modern states, where violence was a routine and recognised aspect of politics at all levels, making political violence unremarkable. Terrorism thus shocks the population of a modern state far more than a pre-modern one and consequently the state is forced to overreact in an excessive, costly and spectacular manner, which is often what the terrorists desire.[166]
The type of people terrorists will target is dependent upon the ideology of the terrorists. A terrorist's ideology will create a class of "legitimate targets" who are deemed as its enemies and who are permitted to be targeted. This ideology will also allow the terrorists to place the blame on the victim, who is viewed as being responsible for the violence in the first place.[167][168]
Attack types
Stabbing attacks, a historical tactic, have reemerged as a prevalent form of terrorism in the 21st century, notably during the 2010s and 2020s.[169] This resurgence originated with the GIA in the 1990s and later expanded among Palestinian terrorists and Islamic State militants.[170] The trend gained momentum with a wave of "lone wolf" terrorist stabbing attacks by Palestinian targeting Israelis beginning in 2015.[171] Subsequently, this pattern extended to Europe during the surge of Islamic terrorism in the 2010s, witnessing "at least" 10 stabbing attacks allegedly motivated by Islamic extremism by the spring of 2017, with France experiencing a notable concentration of such incidents.[172][173]
Media spectacle
Terrorists may attempt to use the media to spread their message or manipulate their target audience. Shamil Basayev used this tactic during the Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis and again in the Moscow theater hostage crisis.[174] Terrorists may also target national symbols for attention.[175]Walter Lacquer wrote that "terrorism was always, to a large extent, about public relations and propaganda ('Propaganda by Deed' had been the slogan in the nineteenth century)".[176]
The El Al Flight 426 hijacking is considered a turning point for modern terrorism studies. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) realized they could combine the tactics of targeting national symbols and civilians (in this case as hostages) to generate a mass media spectacle. Zehdi Labib Terzi made a public statement about this in 1976: "The first several hijackings aroused the consciousness of the world and awakened the media and world opinion much more ― and more effectively ― than 20 years of pleading at the United Nations".[177]
Mass media
Causes of death in the US vs media coverage. The percentage of media attention for terrorism (about 33-35%) is much greater than the percentage of deaths caused by terrorism (less than 0.01%).La Terroriste, a 1910 poster depicting a female member of the Combat Organization of the Polish Socialist Party throwing a bomb at a Russian official's car
Mass media exposure may be a primary goal of those carrying out terrorism, to expose issues that would otherwise be ignored by the media. Some consider this to be manipulation and exploitation of the media.[178]
The Internet has created a new way for groups to spread their messages.[179] This has created a cycle of measures and counter measures by groups in support of and in opposition to terrorist movements. The United Nations has created its own online counterterrorism resource.[180]
The mass media will, on occasion, censor organizations involved in terrorism (through self-restraint or regulation) to discourage further terrorism. This may encourage organizations to perform more extreme acts of terrorism to be shown in the mass media. Conversely James F. Pastor explains the significant relationship between terrorism and the media, and the underlying benefit each receives from the other:[181]
There is always a point at which the terrorist ceases to manipulate the media gestalt. A point at which the violence may well escalate, but beyond which the terrorist has become symptomatic of the media gestalt itself. Terrorism as we ordinarily understand it is innately media-related.
The connection between terrorism and tourism has been widely studied since the 1997 Luxor massacre, during which 62 people, including 58 foreign nationals, were killed by Islamist group al-Jama'a al-Islamiyya in an archaeological site in Egypt.[184][185] In the 1970s, the targets of terrorists were politicians and chiefs of police while now, international tourists and visitors are selected as the main targets of attacks.[citation needed] The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, were the symbolic center, which marked a new epoch in the use of civil transport against the main power of the planet.[186] From this event onwards, the spaces of leisure that characterized the pride of West were conceived as dangerous and frightful.[187][188]
Counterterrorism strategies
Sign notifying shoppers of increased surveillance due to a perceived increased risk of terrorism
One of the agreements that promote the international legal counterterrorist framework is the Code of Conduct Towards Achieving a World Free of Terrorism that was adopted at the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly in 2018. The Code of Conduct was initiated by Kazakhstan PresidentNursultan Nazarbayev. Its main goal is to implement a wide range of international commitments to counterterrorism and establish a broad global coalition towards achieving a world free of terrorism by 2045. The Code was signed by more than 70 countries.[191]
X-ray backscatter technology (AIT) machine used by the TSA to screen passengers. According to the TSA, this is what the remote TSA agent would see on their screen.
According to a report by Dana Priest and William M. Arkin in The Washington Post, "Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States."[192]
America's thinking on how to defeat radical Islamists is split along two very different schools of thought. Republicans, typically follow what is known as the Bush Doctrine, advocate the military model of taking the fight to the enemy and seeking to democratize the Middle East. Democrats, by contrast, generally propose the law enforcement model of better cooperation with nations and more security at home.[193] In the introduction of the U.S. Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, Sarah Sewall states the need for "U.S. forces to make securing the civilian, rather than destroying the enemy, their top priority. The civilian population is the center of gravity—the deciding factor in the struggle.... Civilian deaths create an extended family of enemies—new insurgent recruits or informants—and erode support of the host nation." Sewall sums up the book's key points on how to win this battle: "Sometimes, the more you protect your force, the less secure you may be.... Sometimes, the more force is used, the less effective it is.... The more successful the counterinsurgency is, the less force can be used and the more risk must be accepted.... Sometimes, doing nothing is the best reaction."[194] This strategy, often termed "courageous restraint", has certainly led to some success on the Middle East battlefield. However, it does not address the fact that terrorists are mostly homegrown.[193]
Ending terrorist groups
How terrorist groups end (n = 268): The most common ending for a terrorist group is to convert to nonviolence via negotiations (43%), with most of the rest terminated by routine policing (40%). Groups that were ended by military force constituted only 7%.
Jones and Libicki (2008) created a list of all the terrorist groups they could find that were active between 1968 and 2006. They found 648. Of those, 136 splintered and 244 were still active in 2006.[196] Of the ones that ended, 43% converted to nonviolent political actions, like the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland; 40% were defeated by law enforcement; 7% (20 groups) were defeated by military force; and 10% succeeded.
42 groups became large enough to be labeled an insurgency; 38 of those had ended by 2006. Of those, 47% converted to nonviolent political actors. Only 5% were ended by law enforcement, and 21% were defeated by military force. 26% won.[197] Jones and Libicki concluded that military force may be necessary to deal with large insurgencies but are only occasionally decisive, because the military is too often seen as a bigger threat to civilians than the terrorists. To avoid that, the rules of engagement must be conscious of collateral damage and work to minimize it.
Another researcher, Audrey Cronin, lists six primary ways that terrorist groups end:[198]
Capture or killing of a group's leader (Decapitation)
Entry of the group into a legitimate political process (Negotiation)
Achievement of group aims (Success)
Group implosion or loss of public support (Failure)
Defeat and elimination through brute force (Repression)
Transition from terrorism into other forms of violence (Reorientation)
Civilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized. Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does occur it is regarded with shock, horror, and the fetishization of the victims.
Infant crying in Shanghai's South Station after the Japanese bombing, August 28, 1937
As with "terrorism" the concept of "state terrorism" is controversial.[200] The Chairman of the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee has stated that the committee was conscious of 12 international conventions on the subject, and none of them referred to state terrorism, which was not an international legal concept. If states abused their power, they should be judged against international conventions dealing with war crimes, international human rights law, and international humanitarian law.[201] Former United Nations Secretary-GeneralKofi Annan has said that it is "time to set aside debates on so-called 'state terrorism'. The use of force by states is already thoroughly regulated under international law".[202] He made clear that, "regardless of the differences between governments on the question of the definition of terrorism, what is clear and what we can all agree on is that any deliberate attack on innocent civilians [or non-combatants], regardless of one's cause, is unacceptable and fits into the definition of terrorism."[203]
USS Arizona (BB-39) burning during the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941
State terrorism has been used to refer to terrorist acts committed by governmental agents or forces. This involves the use of state resources employed by a state's foreign policies, such as using its military to directly perform acts of terrorism. Professor of Political Science Michael Stohl cites the examples that include the German bombing of London, the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the Alliedfirebombing of Dresden, and the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. He argues that "the use of terror tactics is common in international relations and the state has been and remains a more likely employer of terrorism within the international system than insurgents." He cites the first strike option as an example of the "terror of coercive diplomacy" as a form of this, which holds the world hostage with the implied threat of using nuclear weapons in "crisis management" and he argues that the institutionalized form of terrorism has occurred as a result of changes that took place following World War II. In this analysis, state terrorism exhibited as a form of foreign policy was shaped by the presence and use of weapons of mass destruction, and the legitimizing of such violent behavior led to an increasingly accepted form of this behavior by the state.[204][205][206]
A state can sponsor terrorism by funding or harboring a terrorist group. Opinions as to which acts of violence by states consist of state-sponsored terrorism vary widely. When states provide funding for groups considered by some to be terrorist, they rarely acknowledge them as such.[219][citation needed]
Impact and debate
Terrorism is a charged term. It is often used with the connotation of something that is morally wrong. Governments and non-state groups use the term to abuse or denounce opposing groups.[5][220][221][21][222] While legislation defining terrorism as a crime has been adopted in many states, the distinction between activism and terrorism remains a complex and debated matter.[223][224] There is no consensus as to whether terrorism should be regarded as a war crime.[223][225]State terrorism is that perpetrated by nation states, but is not considered such by the state conducting it, making legality a grey area.[226]
Those labeled "terrorists" by their opponents rarely identify themselves as such, but it was not always so. While a multitude of terms like separatist, freedom fighter, liberator, revolutionary, vigilante, militant, paramilitary, guerrilla, rebel, patriot, have come into use, (including some culturally specific terms borrowed from other languages like Jihadi, mujahideen, and fedayeen), the unwillingness to self-identify as terrorists began when parties in a conflict started to describe each other as terrorists pejoratively.[231] As an example, when Vera Zasulich attacked a Russian official known for abusing prisoners she told the court "I am not a criminal, I am a terrorist!". The stunned court acquitted Zazulich when they realized that she was trying to become a martyr. She was carried out of the courtroom on the shoulders of the crowd.[232]
Some groups and individuals have openly admitted to using "terrorist tactics" even while maintaining distance from the pejorative term in their self-descriptions. The Zionist militant group Lohamei Herut Yisrael admitted that they used terrorist tactics but used the euphemism "Freedom Fighters" to describe themselves (Lohamei Herut Yisrael means "Freedom Fighters for Israel".)[233]
On whether particular terrorist acts, such as killing non-combatants, can be justified as the lesser evil in a particular circumstance, philosophers have expressed different views: while, according to David Rodin, utilitarian philosophers can (in theory) conceive of cases in which the evil of terrorism is outweighed by the good that could not be achieved in a less morally costly way, in practice the "harmful effects of undermining the convention of non-combatant immunity is thought to outweigh the goods that may be achieved by particular acts of terrorism".[234] Among the non-utilitarian philosophers, Michael Walzer argued that terrorism can be morally justified in only one specific case: when "a nation or community faces the extreme threat of complete destruction and the only way it can preserve itself is by intentionally targeting non-combatants, then it is morally entitled to do so".[234][235]
In his book Inside TerrorismBruce Hoffman offered an explanation of why the term terrorism becomes distorted:
On one point, at least, everyone agrees: terrorism is a pejorative term. It is a word with intrinsically negative connotations that is generally applied to one's enemies and opponents, or to those with whom one disagrees and would otherwise prefer to ignore. 'What is called terrorism,' Brian Jenkins has written, 'thus seems to depend on one's point of view. Use of the term implies a moral judgment; and if one party can successfully attach the label terrorist to its opponent, then it has indirectly persuaded others to adopt its moral viewpoint.' Hence the decision to call someone or label some organization terrorist becomes almost unavoidably subjective, depending largely on whether one sympathizes with or opposes the person/group/cause concerned. If one identifies with the victim of the violence, for example, then the act is terrorism. If, however, one identifies with the perpetrator, the violent act is regarded in a more sympathetic, if not positive (or, at the worst, an ambivalent) light; and it is not terrorism.[236][237]
The pejorative connotations of the word can be summed up in the aphorism, "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter".[231] This is exemplified when a group using irregular military methods is an ally of a state against a mutual enemy, but later falls out with the state and starts to use those methods against its former ally.
President Reagan meeting with Afghan Mujahideen leaders in the Oval Office in 1983
Groups accused of terrorism understandably prefer terms reflecting legitimate military or ideological action.[244][245][246] Leading terrorism researcher Professor Martin Rudner, director of the Canadian Centre of Intelligence and Security Studies at Ottawa's Carleton University, defines "terrorist acts" as unlawful attacks for political or other ideological goals, and said:
There is the famous statement: 'One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.' But that is grossly misleading. It assesses the validity of the cause when terrorism is an act. One can have a perfectly beautiful cause and yet if one commits terrorist acts, it is terrorism regardless.[247]
Media outlets who wish to convey impartiality may limit their usage of "terrorist" and "terrorism" because they are loosely defined, potentially controversial in nature, and subjective terms.[254][255]
Jones and Libicki (2008) includes a table of 268 terrorist groups active between 1968 and 2006 with their status as of 2006: still active, splintered, converted to nonviolence, removed by law enforcement or military, or won. (These data are not in a convenient machine-readable format but are available.)
↑ "The ordinary current use of the word terrorism is much too wide. That is to say, if we list all the different phenomena which are at one time or another described as terrorism in ordinary conversation, or in ordinary newspapers, or by ordinary politicians, we will end up with a huge rag-bag of not very similar items . . The disadvantages of trying to construct an ordinary-language definition based on current usage can be seen, too, in the plethora of conflicting definitions occurring in philosophical and political literature. Thus philosophers for instance disagree about whether or not terrorism is wrong by definition or wrong just as a matter of fact; they disagree about whether terrorism should be defined in terms of its aims, or its methods, or both, or neither; they disagree about whether or not states can perpetrate terrorism; they even disagree about the importance or otherwise of terror for a definition of terrorism." Jenny Teichman, "How to Define Terrorism", Philosophy, October 1989, Vol. 64, No. 250, pp. 505–517.
1 2 3 Mackey, Robert (November 20, 2009). "Can Soldiers Be Victims of Terrorism?". The New York Times. Archived from the original on June 12, 2011. Retrieved January 11, 2010. Terrorism is the deliberate killing of innocent people, at random, in order to spread fear through a whole population and force the hand of its political leaders.
↑ Edmund Burke – To The Earl Fitzwilliam (Christmas, 1795.) In: Edmund Burke, Select Works of Edmund Burke, vol. 3 (Letters on a Regicide Peace) (1795). This Internet version contains two, mingled, indications of page numbers: one with single brackets like [260], one with double brackets like [ [309] ]. Burke lengthily introduces his view on 'this present Directory government', and then writes on page [359]: "Those who arbitrarily erected the new building out of the old materials of their own Convention, were obliged to send for an Army to support their work. (...) At length, after a terrible struggle, the Troops prevailed over the Citizens. (...) This power is to last as long as the Parisians think proper. (...) [315] To secure them further, they have a strong corps of irregulars, ready armed. Thousands of those Hell-hounds called Terrorists, whom they had shut up in Prison on their last Revolution, as the Satellites of Tyranny, are let loose on the people. (...)"
↑ Oechsli, W.; Paul, E.; Paul, C. (1922). History of Switzerland, 1499-1914. Cambridge historical series. The University Press. p.166. Archived from the original on October 21, 2022. Retrieved October 21, 2022.
↑ Association of American Law Schools (1916). The Continental Legal History Series. Little, Brown, & Company. p.297. Archived from the original on October 21, 2022. Retrieved October 21, 2022.
↑ ’Scholars have similarly noticed a double standard, in which the media is more likely to adopt an Islamic terror frame when the perpetrator is Muslim, and more likely to explore the attacker's personal life and mental health if the perpetrator is not.’ Connor Huff, Joshua D. Kertzer, How the Public Defines TerrorismAmerican Journal of Political Science, January 2018, Vol. 62, No. 1, pp. 55-71 p.56.
1 2 Arie W. Kruglanski and Shira Fishman Current Directions in Psychological Science Vol. 15, No. 1 (Feb. 2006), pp. 45–48
↑ "For the Israeli commander on the ground, the meaning of terrorism has become increasingly vague and contradictory. This problem is both generic and, because of the Oslo Accords,2 Israel-specific . . the term is increasingly losing all operational precision. . . Significantly, despite the growing volume of academic publications dealing with terrorism, little, if any, serious progress has been made in suitably clarifying that concept, in distinguishing it clearly from various other uses of force in world politics and from other related crimes under international law. Indeed, judging from the standard definitions of terrorism now in "professional" use, definitions that offer little or no operational benefit for scholars or for tactical commanders, the term has become so comprehensive and vague that it embraces even the most discrepant and unintended activities.", Louis René Beres, "Law and Politics in Israel: What Terrorism Means for the IDF Commander", Brown Journal of World Affairs , Summer/Fall 1997, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 257–276.
↑ Clark, David S. (2007). Encyclopedia of Law and Society. United Kingdom: Sage. p.1474. Before the advent of dynamite and automatic weapons, groups had to kill on a one-to-one basis. It took one terrorist (or soldier) to kill one enemy or perhaps a handful of enemies, except in unusual cases, such as the failed 1605 Gunpowder Plot of Guy Fawkes in England. The weapons of choice for the earlier terrorists were the dagger, the noose, the sword and the poison elixir. This changed with the hand-thrown bomb and the pistol, introduced in the nineteenth century, and the machine gun and plastic explosives, common in the twentieth century.
↑ Rapoport, D. (1984) "Fear and Trembling" in Mahan, S., Griset, P. L. (2012). Terrorism in Perspective. United Kingdom: Sage Publications:"Furthermore, the three cases illustrate a kind of terror nowhere adequately analyzed in our theoretical literature, terror designated here as holy or sacred. Before the nineteenth century, religion provided the only acceptable justifications for terror, and the differences between sacred and modern expressions (differences of nature, not scale) raise questions about the appropriateness of contemporary definitions. The holy terrorist believes that only a transcendental purpose which fulfills the meaning of the universe can justify terror, and that the deity reveals at some early moment in both time and end the means and may even participate in the process as well. We see terrorists as free to seek different political ends in this world by whatever means of terror they consider most appropriate."
↑ Laqueur 2001: "The misunderstandings about the nature of terrorism in the 1970s were founded, in part, on political reasons. At the time, terrorism was predominantly left wing in inspiration and it did not come as a surprise that commentators belonging to the same political persuasion would produce theoretical explanations which were, at the very least, not unsympathetic as far as terrorists were concerned. It was argued in these circles that terrorism always occurred where there was oppression, social or national, that the terrorists had genuine, legitimate grievances—hence the conclusion that once the grievances were eradicated, terrorism would also disappear. Terrorism, in brief, was seen as a revolutionary phenomenon; it was carried out by poor and desperate human beings and had, therefore, to be confronted with sympathetic understanding."
↑ Irish Freedom, by Richard English Publisher: Pan Books (2007), ISBN0-330-42759-8 p. 179
↑ Irish Freedom, by Richard English Publisher: Pan Books (November 2, 2007), ISBN0-330-42759-8 p. 180
↑ Whelehan, Niall (2012). The Dynamiters: Irish Nationalism and Political Violence in the Wider World 1867–1900. Cambridge.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
↑ "The first international conference on terrorism: Rome 1898". The Battle against Anarchist Terrorism. Cambridge University Press. December 5, 2013. pp.131–184. doi:10.1017/cbo9781139524124.008. ISBN978-1-139-52412-4.
↑ "Stern Gang" A Dictionary of World History. Oxford University Press, 2000. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press Archived 2009-02-05 at the Wayback Machine .
↑ Horne, Edward (1982). A Job Well Done (Being a History of The Palestine Police Force 1920–1948). The Anchor Press. ISBN978-0-9508367-0-6. pp. 272, 299. States that Haganah withdrew on 1 July 1946. But remained permanently uncooperative.
↑ Howard Sachar: A History of the State of Israel, pp. 265–266
↑ Welty, Gordon (1995). Palestinian Nationalism and the Struggle for National Self-Determination. Philadelphia: Temple University. p.21. ISBN978-1-56639-342-3.
↑ Larry Collins/Dominique Lapierre, 'O Jerusalem'. History Book Club/ Weidenfeld and Nicolson. London. 1972. p. 135: 'two fifty-gallon oil drums packed tight with old nails, bits of scrap iron, hinges, rusty metal filings. At their center was a core of TNT...'
↑ Yoav Gelber, 'Palestine 1948', p. 20; The Scotsman newspaper, 6th January 1948; Walid Khalidi states that 25 civilians were killed, in addition to the military targets. 'Before Their Diaspora', 1984. p. 316, picture p. 325; Benny Morris, 'The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947–1949', Cambridge University Press, p. 46.
↑ Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, p. 123 and 221
↑ "Disorders and Terrorism"(PDF). National Advisory Committee on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals. 1976. pp.3–6. Archived(PDF) from the original on April 23, 2016. Retrieved April 20, 2016.
↑ Hudson, Rex A. Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why: The 1999 Government Report on Profiling Terrorists, Federal Research Division, The Lyons Press, 2002.
↑ Barry Scheider, Jim Davis, Avoiding the abyss: progress, shortfalls and the way ahead in combatting the WMD threat, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2009 p. 60.
1 2 3 Kushner, Harvey W. (2003). Encyclopedia of terrorism. Thousand Oaks (Calif.) London: SAGE publications. pp.xxiv. ISBN978-0-7619-2408-1.
↑ Breedon, Jennifer R. (2015–2016). "Why the Combination of Universal Jurisdiction and Polical Lawfare Will Destroy the Sacred Sovereignty of States". Journal of Global Justice and Public Policy. 2: 389. Archived from the original on October 15, 2023. Retrieved January 26, 2024. The Hamas' Charter not only calls for the militant, perhaps genocidal, liberation of Palestine (e.g., "raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine"), but also demonstrates anti-Semitic, murderous intent.
↑ Bayefsky, Anne F.; Blank, Laurie R. (March 22, 2018). Incitement to Terrorism. BRILL. ISBN978-90-04-35982-6. Archived from the original on October 15, 2023. Retrieved January 26, 2024. The governing charter of Hamas, "The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement," openly dedicates Hamas to genocide against the Jewish people.
↑ Breedon, Jennifer R. (2015–2016). "Why the Combination of Universal Jurisdiction and Polical Lawfare Will Destroy the Sacred Sovereignty of States". Journal of Global Justice and Public Policy. 2: 389. Archived from the original on October 15, 2023. Retrieved January 26, 2024. The Hamas' Charter not only calls for the militant, perhaps genocidal, liberation of Palestine (e.g., "raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine"), but also demonstrates anti-Semitic, murderous intent.
↑ Tsesis, Alexander (2014–2015). "Antisemitism and Hate Speech Studies". Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion. 16: 352. Archived from the original on October 15, 2023. Retrieved January 26, 2024. For Jews, the Holocaust remains a real concern in an age when Hamas, a Palestinian terrorist organization, continues to advocate genocide in its core Charter.
↑ Global Terrorism Index 2016(PDF). Institute for Economics and Peace. 2016. p.4. Archived from the original(PDF) on November 17, 2019. Retrieved December 14, 2016.
↑ Lenz, Ryan (February 2015). Age of the Wolf(PDF) (Report). Southern Poverty Law Center. p.4. Archived(PDF) from the original on October 10, 2017. Retrieved March 22, 2017. A large number of independent studies have agreed that since the 9/11 mass murder, more people have been killed in America by non-Islamic domestic terrorists than jihadists.
↑ Perlmutter, Philip (1999). Legacy of Hate: A Short History of Ethnic, Religious, and Racial Prejudice in America. M. E. Sharpe. p.170. ISBN978-0-7656-0406-4. Kenneth T. Jackson, in his The Ku Klux Klan in the City 1915–1930, reminds us that 'virtually every' Protestant denomination denounced the KKK, but that most KKK members were not 'innately depraved or anxious to subvert American institutions', but rather believed their membership in keeping with 'one-hundred percent Americanism' and Christian morality.
↑ Martin Gilbert. Churchill and the Jew Quotings. p. 270.
↑ Calder Walton (2008). "British Intelligence and the Mandate of Palestine: Threats to British national security immediately after the Second World War". Intelligence and National Security. 23 (4): 435–462. doi:10.1080/02684520802293049. ISSN0268-4527. S2CID154775965.
↑ Janeczko, Matthew (June 19, 2014). "'Faced with death, even a mouse bites': Social and religious motivations behind terrorism in Chechnya". Small Wars & Insurgencies. 25 (2): 428–456. doi:10.1080/09592318.2014.903975.
↑ Merari, Ariel (2006). "Psychological Aspects of Suicide Terrorism," in Bruce Bongar et al., Psychology of Terrorism. New York: Oxford University Press.
↑ Romero, Simon (March 18, 2009). "Shining Path". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 28, 2012. Retrieved January 11, 2010. The Shining Path, a faction of Peruvian militants, has resurfaced in the remote corners of the Andes. The war against the group, which took nearly 70,000 lives, supposedly ended in 2000.... In the 1980s, the rebels were infamous for atrocities like planting bombs on donkeys in crowded markets, assassinations and other terrorist tactics.
↑ "1983: Car bomb in South Africa kills 16". BBC. May 20, 2005. Archived from the original on October 11, 2017. Retrieved January 11, 2010. The outlawed anti-apartheid group the African National Congress has been blamed for the attack... He said the explosion was the "biggest and ugliest" terrorist incident since anti-government violence began in South Africa 20 years ago.
↑ Young, Rick (May 16, 2007). "PBS Frontline: 'Spying on the Home Front'". PBS: Frontline. Archived from the original on March 24, 2010. Retrieved January 11, 2010. ...we and Frontline felt that it was important to look more comprehensively at the post-9/11 shift to prevention and the dilemma we all now face in balancing security and privacy.
↑ shabad, goldie and francisco jose llera ramo. "Political Violence in a Democratic State", Terrorism in Context. Ed. Martha Crenshaw. University Park: Pennsylvania State University, 1995. p. 467.
↑ German, Mike (2007). Thinking Like a Terrorist. Potomac Books. p.49. ISBN978-1597970259.
↑ Levitt, Steven D.; Dubner, Stephen J. (2009). Superfreakonomics: global cooling, patriotic prostitutes, and why suicide bombers should buy life insurance. William Morrow. pp.62, 231. ISBN978-0-06-088957-9. citing Alan B. Krueger, What Makes a Terrorist (Princeton University Press 2007); Claude Berrebi, "Evidence About the Link Between Education, Poverty, and Terrorism among Palestinians", Princeton University Industrial Relations Section Working paper, 2003 and Krueger and Jita Maleckova, "Education, Poverty and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection?" Journal of Economic Perspectives 17 no. 4 Fall 2003 / 63.
↑ Coughlan, Sean (August 21, 2006). "Fear of the unknown". BBC News. Archived from the original on January 12, 2009. Retrieved January 11, 2010. A passenger on the flight, Heath Schofield, explained the suspicions: "It was a return holiday flight, full of people in flip-flops and shorts. There were just two people in the whole crowd who looked like they didn't belong there."
↑ Lott, Jeremy (October 6, 2004). "Tripped Up". Reason Magazine. Archived from the original on March 29, 2024. Retrieved January 11, 2010. and before the Soviet Union fell, terrorist organizations were funding themselves through subsidies from Communist governments
↑ Kurtulus, Ersun N. "Terrorism and fear: do terrorists really want to scare?." Critical Studies on Terrorism 10, no. 3 (2017): 501–522.
↑ "Hackers warn high street chains". BBC News. April 25, 2008. Archived from the original on March 27, 2012. Retrieved January 11, 2010. That's the beauty of asymmetric warfare. You don't need a lot of money, or an army of people.
↑ Harari, Yuval Noah. Homo Deus: A brief history of tomorrow. Random House, 2016, pp.103–106
↑ Drake, Charles JM. "The role of ideology in terrorists' target selection." Terrorism and Political Violence 10, no. 2 (1998): 53–85.
↑ Hoffman, Bruce. "The contrasting ethical foundations of terrorism in the 1980s." Terrorism and Political Violence 1, no. 3 (1989): 361–377, p.8
↑ Romero, Juan (2022). "A comparative evolution of terrorism". Terrorism: the Power and Weakness of Fear. Routledge Studies in Modern History. Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge. p.246. ISBN978-1-032-19806-4.
↑ The Media and Terrorism: A Reassessment Paul Wilkinson. Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Summer 1997), pp. 51–64 Published by Frank Cass, London.
↑ Pastor, James F. (2009). Terrorism & Public Safety Policing: Implications of the Obama Presidency. New York: Taylor & Francis. ISBN978-1-4398-1580-9.
↑ Tarlow, P.E. (2006). "Tourism and Terrorism". In Wilks J, Pendergast D & Leggat P. (Eds) Tourism in turbulent times: Towards safe experiences for visitors (Advances in Tourism Research), Elsevier, Oxford, pp. 80–82.
↑ Bianchi, R (2006). "Tourism and the globalisation of fear: Analysing the politics of risk and (in) security in global travel". Tourism and Hospitality Research. 7 (1): 64–74. doi:10.1057/palgrave.thr.6050028. S2CID154888544.
↑ Floyd, M. et al. (2003). "The Effects of Risk Perception on Intention to Travel in the Aftermath of September 11, 2001". In Safety and Security in Tourism: relationships, Management and Marketing, (Eds) Hall, M. Timothy, D. y Duval, T. New York: Haworth Hospitality Press
↑ Brun, W.; Wolff, K.; Larsen, S. (2011). "Tourist worries after terrorist attacks: Report from a field experiment". Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism. 11 (3): 387–394. doi:10.1080/15022250.2011.593365. S2CID143842574.
1 2 Ankony, Robert C., "A New Strategy for America's War on Terrorism", Patrolling magazine, 75th Ranger Regiment Association, Winter 2011, 56–57.
↑ Sewall, Sarah, introduction to The U.S. Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, (2007).
↑ The researchers found 648 terrorist groups active between 1968 and 2006. Of those, 136 splintered and 244 were still active in 2006 (Jones and Libicki, 2008, p. 19)
↑ Cronin, Audrey Kurth (2009). How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns. Princeton U. Press. ISBN978-0-691-13948-7.
↑ Endgame: Resistance, by Derrick Jensen, Seven Stories Press, 2006, ISBN1-58322-730-X, p. ix.
↑ "Pds Sso"(PDF). Eprints.unimelb.edu.au. Archived from the original(PDF) on May 12, 2008. Retrieved August 10, 2009.
↑ Stohl, Michael (April 1, 1984). "The Superpowers and International Terror". International Studies Association, Atlanta.
↑ Stohl, Michael (1988). "Terrible beyond Endurance? The Foreign Policy of State Terrorism". International Studies Association, Atlanta.
↑ Stohl, Michael (1984). "The State as Terrorist: The Dynamics of Governmental Violence and Repression". International Studies Association, Atlanta. p.49.
↑ Nicolas Werth, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Panné, Jean-Louis Margolin, Andrzej Paczkowski, Stéphane Courtois, The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, Harvard University Press, 1999, hardcover, 858 pp., ISBN0-674-07608-7
↑ Simpson, Bradley (2010). Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development and U.S.–Indonesian Relations, 1960–1968. Stanford University Press. p.193. ISBN978-0-8047-7182-5. Archived from the original on June 25, 2018. Retrieved July 7, 2018. Washington did everything in its power to encourage and facilitate the army-led massacre of alleged PKI members, and U.S. officials worried only that the killing of the party's unarmed supporters might not go far enough, permitting Sukarno to return to power and frustrate the [Johnson] Administration's emerging plans for a post-Sukarno Indonesia. This was efficacious terror, an essential building block of the neoliberal policies that the West would attempt to impose on Indonesia after Sukarno's ouster
1 2 Reynolds, Paul; quoting David Hannay; Former UK ambassador (September 14, 2005). "UN staggers on road to reform". BBC News. Archived from the original on November 3, 2019. Retrieved January 11, 2010. This would end the argument that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter...
↑ Pedahzur, Ami (2006). Root Causes of Suicide Terrorism: The Globalization of Martyrdom. United Kingdom: Routledge.
↑ "An unbiased look at terrorism in Afghanistan [in 2009] reveals that many of these 'terrorists' individuals or groups were once 'freedom fighters' struggling against the Soviets during the 1980s." (Chouvy, Pierre-Arnaud (2009). Opium: Uncovering the Politics of the Poppy (illustrated, reprinted.). Harvard University Press. p.119. ISBN978-0-674-05134-8.)
↑ Sudha Ramachandran Death behind the wheel in IraqAsian Times, November 12, 2004, "Insurgent groups that use suicide attacks therefore do not like their attacks to be described as suicide terrorism. They prefer to use terms like "martyrdom..."
↑ Alex Perry How Much to Tip the Terrorist?Time, September 26, 2005. "The Tamil Tigers would dispute that tag, of course. Like other guerrillas and suicide bombers, they prefer the term "freedom fighters".
↑ Theodore P. Seto The Morality of TerrorismArchived March 1, 2009, at the Wayback Machine Includes a list in The Times published on July 23, 1946, which were described as Jewish terrorist actions, including those launched by Irgun, of which Begin was a leading member.
↑ Lord Desai Hansard, House of LordsArchived March 11, 2007, at the Wayback Machine September 3, 1998: Column 72, "However, Jomo Kenyatta, Nelson Mandela and Menachem Begin – to give just three examples – were all denounced as terrorists but all proved to be successful political leaders of their countries and good friends of the United Kingdom."
↑ BBC NEWS:World: Americas: UN reforms receive mixed responseArchived January 15, 2009, at the Wayback Machine BBC website "Of all groups active in recent times, the ANC perhaps represents best the traditional dichotomous view of armed struggle. Once regarded by western governments as a terrorist group, it now forms the legitimate, elected government of South Africa, with Nelson Mandela one of the world's genuinely iconic figures."
The Islamic Resistance Movement, abbreviated Hamas, is a Palestinian nationalist Sunni Islamist political organisation with a military wing called the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades. It has governed the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip since 2007.
Zionist political violence refers to acts of violence or terrorism committed by Zionists in support of establishing and maintaining a Jewish state in Palestine. These actions have been carried out by individuals, paramilitary groups, and the Israeli government, from the early 20th century to the present day, as part of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
State terrorism is terrorism that a state conducts against another state, non-state actors or against its own citizens. Acts accused of being state terrorism typically involve the use or threat of violence by state agents, including military, police, or intelligence agencies, and targets can be domestic or foreign individuals or groups.
The Second Intifada, also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, was a major uprising by Palestinians against Israel and its occupation. The period of heightened violence in the Palestinian territories and Israel continued until the Sharm el-Sheikh Summit of 2005, which ended hostilities.
Sheikh Ahmed Ismail Hassan Yassin was a Palestinian politician and imam who founded Hamas in 1987. He also served as the first chairman of the Hamas Shura Council and de facto leader of Hamas since its inception from December 1987 until his assassination in March 2004.
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.
The roadmap for peace or road map for peace was a plan to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict proposed by the Quartet on the Middle East: the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations. The principles of the plan, originally drafted by U.S. Foreign Service Officer Donald Blome, were first outlined by U.S. President George W. Bush in a speech on 24 June 2002, in which he called for an independent Palestinian state living side by side with Israel in peace. A draft version from the Bush administration was published as early as 14 November 2002. The final text was released on 30 April 2003. The process reached a deadlock early in phase I and the plan was never implemented.
The Passover massacre was a suicide bombing carried out by Hamas at the Park Hotel in Netanya, Israel on 27 March 2002, during a Passover seder. 30 civilians were killed in the attack and 140 were injured. It was the deadliest attack against Israeli civilians during the Second Intifada, and one of the most severe suicide attacks Israel has ever experienced.
Islamic terrorism refers to terrorist acts carried out by fundamentalist militant Islamists and Islamic extremists.
Palestinian political violence refers to acts of violence or terrorism committed by Palestinians with the intent to accomplish political goals, and often carried out in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Common objectives of political violence by Palestinian groups include self-determination in and sovereignty over all of Palestine, or the recognition of a Palestinian state inside the 1967 borders. This includes the objective of ending the Israeli occupation. More limited goals include the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and recognition of the Palestinian right of return.
Jewish extremist terrorism is terrorism, including religious terrorism, committed by extremists within Judaism.
The history of terrorism involves significant individuals, entities, and incidents associated with terrorism. Scholars often agree that terrorism is a disputed term, and very few of those who are labeled terrorists describe themselves as such. It is common for opponents in a violent conflict to describe the opposing side as terrorists or as practicing terrorism.
The Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine, commonly known simply as Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), is a Palestinian Islamist paramilitary organization formed in 1981.
The 2008 Dimona bombing was a Palestinian suicide attack carried out in Dimona, Israel on February 4, 2008 by Hamas. It is believed that Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip ordered the operation without informing the Hamas politburo in Damascus.
A suicide attack is a deliberate attack in which the perpetrators knowingly sacrifice their own lives as part of the attack. These attacks are often associated with terrorism or military conflicts and are considered a form of murder–suicide. Suicide attacks involving explosives are commonly referred to as suicide bombings. In the context of terrorism, they are also commonly referred to as suicide terrorism. While generally not inherently regulated under international law, suicide attacks in their execution often violate international laws of war, such as prohibitions against perfidy and targeting civilians.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is a secular Palestinian Marxist–Leninist and revolutionary socialist organization founded in 1967 by George Habash. It has consistently been the second-largest of the groups forming the Palestine Liberation Organization, the largest being Fatah.
Palestinian suicide attacks, also known as Palestinian suicide bombings, involve the use of suicide bombings by Palestinian groups in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, predominantly targeting Israeli civilians. This tactic is also referred to as Palestinian suicide terrorism. It emerged in the 1990s and reached its peak during the Second Intifada (2000–2005). Attacks occurred at various locations, including shopping centers, public buses, transit stations, cafes, nightclubs, and restaurants, with only a few targeting military objectives. Between 1994 and 2005, suicide bombings killed 735 Israelis and wounded 4,554.
References
Hoffman, Bruce (1988). Inside Terrorism. New York: Columbia University Press.[verification needed]
Neria, Yuval, Gross, Raz, Marshall, Randall D., and Susser, Ezra. September 11, 2001: Treatment, Research and Public Mental Health in the Wake of a Terrorist Attack (Cambridge University Press, 2006).
Blackbourn, Jessie. "Counter-Terrorism and Civil Liberties: The United Kingdom Experience, 1968-2008." Journal of the Institute of Justice and International Studies 8 (2008): 63+
Bonner, David. "United Kingdom: the United Kingdom response to terrorism." Terrorism and Political Violence 4.4 (1992): 171–205. online
Chin, Warren. Britain and the war on terror: Policy, strategy and operations (Routledge, 2016).
Clutterbuck, Lindsay. "Countering Irish Republican terrorism in Britain: Its origin as a police function." Terrorism and Political Violence 18.1 (2006) pp: 95–118.
Greer, Steven. "Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism in the UK: From Northern Irish Troubles to Global Islamist Jihad." in Counter-Terrorism, Constitutionalism and Miscarriages of Justice (Hart Publishing, 2018) pp.45–62.
Hamilton, Claire. "Counter-Terrorism in the UK." in Contagion, Counter-Terrorism and Criminology (Palgrave Pivot, Cham, 2019) pp.15–47.
Hewitt, Steve. "Great Britain: Terrorism and counter-terrorism since 1968." in Routledge Handbook of Terrorism and Counterterrorism (Routledge, 2018) pp.540–551.
Martínez-Peñas, Leandro, and Manuela Fernández-Rodríguez. "Evolution of British Law on Terrorism: From Ulster to Global Terrorism (1970–2010)." in Post 9/11 and the State of Permanent Legal Emergency (Springer, 2012) pp.201–222.
O'Day, Alan. "Northern Ireland, Terrorism, and the British State." in Terrorism: Theory and Practice (Routledge, 2019) pp.121–135.
Sacopulos, Peter J. "Terrorism in Britain: Threat, reality, response." Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 12.3 (1989): 153–165.
Staniforth, Andrew, and Fraser Sampson, eds. The Routledge companion to UK counter-terrorism (Routledge, 2012).
Sinclair, Georgina. "Confronting terrorism: British Experiences past and present." Crime, Histoire & Sociétés/Crime, History & Societies 18.2 (2014): 117–122. online
Tinnes, Judith, ed. "Bibliography: Northern Ireland conflict (the troubles)." Perspectives on Terrorism 10.1 (2016): 83–110. online
Wilkinson, Paul, ed. Terrorism: British Perspectives (Dartmouth, 1993).
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