Terrorism

Violent actions inflicted upon secondary targets that may be conducted by an individual, group, or government
with the wider purpose of attracting attention, gaining support, or forcing concessions from the primary target
on personal or political issues. Perpetrators of terrorism normally select, either purposefully or indiscriminately,
illegitimate secondary targetsthat is, non-combatants and civiliansand target them with bombings,
hijackings, and other violently coercive methods. These targets are intermediaries used by terrorists to
manipulate the primary target and subsequently to achieve an objective. A dominant theory regarding terrorism
holds that such actions are employed in expectation that a harsher reaction by the primary target will in turn
generate support for the issues espoused by the terrorists.
Deriving from the Latin terrere, meaning to frighten, in a political sense terror was first used to describe the
methods of the French revolutionary government against its adversaries. From September 1793 to July 1794,
while embroiled in civil and foreign wars, the revolutionary government in France decided by decree to make
terror the order of the day and to use harsh reprisals against the aristocracy, priests, and other suspected
enemies of the revolution. A wave of executions known as the Reign of Terror followed. Although states
continue to employ terrorism, the concept of state terrorism is generally understood as a nation-state that
supports or condones activities as described above, not one that conducts such operations.
Revolutionaries in czarist Russia first developed terrorism as a technique of waging war in the 1870s. The term
international terrorism denotes actions conducted by groups outside the country of their origin, residence, or
the location from which their activities are co-ordinated. Terrorism primarily involves semi-clandestine groups
opposed to their home government or an external one.
Terrorists have adopted numerous organisational structures, from single- or two- person operations to durable,
identifiable groups or clandestine, solvent cells. Al- Qaida, or The Base, has developed a modern structure
often described as a network, with the dispersion of affiliated but autonomous individuals over vast expanses
of territory organised as sleeper cells. Operating with minimal communications, the well-trained members of
these cells are afforded the opportunity to rehearse, and then they disperse after completing their missions. Such
factors necessitate greater time and effort in planning, but also make possible larger operations with higher
mortalities.
Some groups that employ acts of terrorism reject the stigma attached to this method of conflict engagement that
is widely considered illegitimate and egregious. This is especially true in cases where terrorism is one of
several techniques employed and the overall objectives are widely believed to be legitimate and worthwhile.
Nonetheless, the method usually overshadows the issues.
[Historically,] there were three principal objectives [of terrorism]. One was self-advertisementwhat was
called Propaganda of the Deedto show the world that the group existed and was ruthless in its
determination to achieve its ends. The second was to demoralise the government and its supporters. And the
third was to provoke the government into such savage acts of suppression that it forfeited public support and
awoke popular and international sympathy for the revolutionary cause. This was known as a strategy of
provocation.
From C.E.Miller A Glossary of Terms and Concepts in Peace and Conflict Studies (University of Peace,
2005)

TERRORISM
The study of terrorism is complicated by the fact that terrorism is a political rather than an analytical concept.
The concept is closely related to major power conflicts, such as the cold war, nationalist conflicts, andmost
recentlyreligious-political polarization; and its political use and academic definitions have changed
accordingly. As a result, scholars of terrorism have not only looked at terrorism as a particular kind of political
violence, such as assassinations, hijackings, ormost recentlysuicide bombings, but have also been sensitive
to the discursive use and impact of the term terrorism. What both lines of study have in common, however, is the
notion that terrorismboth as a practice and a discourseis meant to terrify. Both the perpetrators of terrorist
violence and those who have the power to name a particular kind of violence as terrorism do so to create fear.

The study of terrorism has therefore not only focused on those branded as terrorists but also on those who do the
naming, such as the media, policymakers, and academics, as well as on how the term terrorism is itself a highly
contested label.
Precisely because terrorism is a political term, there is little consensus on how to define the phenomenon.
According to an often-used definition, terrorism resembles guerrilla warfare to some extent while being
distinctively different from it in others. Both are unconventional forms of warfare in which the state is attacked
by groups of combatants lacking a fully armed military apparatus in order to bring about political change.
However, whereas guerrilla fighters primarily target military objects, terrorists also attack soft civilian targets
in order to paralyze society. According to this definition, the Oklahoma City bombing by Timothy McVeigh in
1995 is terrorist, whereas the suicide attack by Shia combatants on American and French U.N. troops in Beirut,
Lebanon, in 1983, killing 241 marines, is an act of guerrilla warfare. Similarly, the Viet Cong fighting the U.S.
army in Vietnam or the Algerian Front de Libration Nationale fighting the French colonial army in the 1950s
were guer- rilla fighters, whereas the Irish IRA, the Basque ETA, or the West German Red Army Faction also
attacked civilians and are therefore defined as terrorist. Scholars who have focused on the perpetrators of
terrorist violence have used various perspectives. Richard Rubenstein (1987), among others, analyzes
terrorism as a political strategy with a particular genealogy rooted in the French Revolutions regime de la
terreur and nineteenth-century anarchism. Maximilien Robespierre and Louis Antoine Saint-Just as well as
Sergej Nechaev and Michael Bakunin thus appear as the ideologues of terrorism. The thinking of the latter as to
how to fight the all-powerful modern state, including the notion of the revolutionary vanguard, the provocation
of the state, and the revolutionary moment, has subsequently influenced nationalist militants and left-wing
revolutionaries of the twentieth century.
Another line of study has considered terrorism in relation to utopian belief systems and political eschatology.
Rather than a strategy, terrorism is seen as a testi-mony, an act of faith, and the outcome of radical collective
fantasies about ideological, ethnic, or religious purity. These studies focus on processes of radical othering and
satanization, the political use of traditions of martyrdom and sacrifice, and the mytho-logics of political
violence. Specific attention is given to the symbolism of the time and space of terrorism, such as the symbolism
of particular days, buildings, or public spaces.
Partly in response to this, others have argued that while terrorism is usually informed by strong convictions, it
should also be understood in terms of ulterior motives such as status, glamour, friendship, and money. Martha
Crenshaw (1988) argues that terrorist groups can be analyzed as communities accommodating a variety of
individual needs, such as the needs for recognition, excitement, and material benefits. The militant group is as
much driven by the need to maintain itself as by its ideological objectives. These observations are used to argue
that those militant groups whose existence is threatened by internal friction or outside aggression are usually the
most violent.
Others examine individual motives for joining a militant organization. Joseba Zulaika (1988) in a study on the
ETA describes militant groups as the continuation of friendship in already existing peer groups. In a similar vein,
recent terrorism has been explained as an attempt by religiously inspired militants to overcome existential
anxieties caused by alienation, humiliation, and marginalization. A growing body of work concerned with
aspects of terrorism is the study of state terror. Michael Taussig (1984) has used the term cultures of terror to
denote societies that are under constant threat of state violence and intimidation. This line of work focuses on the
systematic use of torture and death squads, rumors, secret intelligence, and other forms of intimidation by state
institutions, as well as on individual and collective coping strategies used by the victims of state terror. State
terrorism can also include the deployment of terrorist actions by one state against another state, as shown, for
example, by Libyas involvement in the explosion of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. In
terms of numbers of victims, state terror is a much more serious problem than the terrorism of revolutionary or
religiously inspired militants.
The study of terrorism-related discourse focuses on the use of the terrorism concept in the media, by policy
makers, and by terrorists themselves. Studies on the symbiotic relationship between terrorists, the media,
and state propaganda portray terrorist violence as spectacle, as theater and performative, or as ritual.
Without denying the reality of death and destruction, these studies focus on how the media frames terrorism in
terms of Good and Evil, leaving little room for anything other than one-dimensional conceptions of terrorism
and counterterrorism. The way terrorism was reported on dur-ing the cold war, for example, created a fear of
totalitarianism and of incomprehensible technology. More recently, and especially since the attacks of September

11, 2001, terrorism discourse resonates with the fear of religious fanaticism. Most of these studies also trace the
complex relations between the media and state policy.
Governments often brand their enemies as terrorist in order to legitimize an excessive use of force and the
violation of human rights. At the same time, the perpetrators of terrorist violence themselves evoke collective
fears and fantasies associated with terrorism in an effort to become larger than life.
Following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the study of terrorism
has changed significantly, not only in quantitative terms, but also substantively. Book titles like Terror in the
Mind of God (Juergensmeyer 2000) and Terror in the Name of God (Stern 2003) indicate an increased interest in
the relationship between terrorism and religion. Studies of religious militancy largely fall into one of three
categories. A culturalist approach tries to explain recent Islamist militancy in terms of long-standing traditions of
violence and intolerance in Islam. A more empirical approach examines religious extremism per se, comparing
Islamist militants with, for instance, American antiabortionists and Zionist extremists. Rather than being rooted
in age-old and supposedly unchanging traditions, recent religious militancy is said to draw inspiration from
renewed and redefined notions of purity and holy war, fostered by anxieties and inequalities caused by
globalization and political or social marginalization. A historical approach examines religious radicalism as
political ideology and religious militant groups as political organizations. Such studies analyze the rise of Islamic
radicalism, the history of Al-Qaeda, or the life of bin Laden against the backdrop of geopolitical developments in
the Middle East and Asia since the 1980s. Gilles Kepel (2002), for instance, explains the 9-11 attacks by
Al-Qaeda as a sign of disillusion and an attempt to reverse a process of decline after various failed attempts to
retain political power for the Islamist ideology.
Post-9-11 studies of terrorism not only center on religion, but also focus on the sites, the organization, and the
methods of modern terrorism. Todays terrorism is often transnational in scope, objective, and organization, and
transcends the boundaries of the nation-state. Stephen Graham (2004) studies modern terrorism explic- itly as an
urban phenomenon, exploring the ways in which terrorism and counterterrorism are shaped by, and transform,
the public life of global cities. As for the study of terrorist organizations, the emphasis has shifted from
cell-structured and network organizations to the rhizomatic character of transnational terrorism. Some of the
best-known terrorist phenomena like Al-Qaeda are franchises, allowing loosely connected freelancers to
operate in their name, as much as they are organizations or networks. Finally, Walter Laqueur (1999), among
others, in a book predating 9-11, explores the ways in which terrorist methods may evolve from the traditional
methods of assassinations and hijacking to new forms of chemical, biological, nuclear, and cyber terrorism.
TERRORISTS
Terrorists are nonstate actors who pursue random unconventional violence targeted at noncombatants to achieve
political objectives. The labeling of who is a terrorist depends heavily on who is making the distinction.
President Ronald Reagans observation that one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter implies the
difficulty in objectively labeling certain people as terrorists. It is only nonstate actors who are defined as
terrorists because according to current standards of international law, governments cannot engage in terrorism.
Though some states support and even sponsor terrorism, acts of violence committed by states against
noncombatants are considered by international law to be crimes against humanity or war crimes, not terrorism.
The term terrorist is pejorative, and implies that persons so-labeled are immoral, evil, and criminal. Whereas
criminals are considered innocent until proven guilty in the judicial systems of many democratic countries, there
is no defined legal threshold to prove someone is a terrorist. Rather, individuals or groups are identified as
terrorists precisely because they are labeled as such, regardless of whether these individuals or groups have
actually engaged in random violent actions against noncombatants. Therefore, the burden of proving guilt is not
on the government as with nonpolitical criminals. Rather, the burden of proving innocence is on the individuals
who are accused of pursuing terrorism. Because it is nearly impossible to prove innocence, governments tend to
eagerly label anyone who could be linked to acts of violence as terrorists.
In fact, individuals who engage in violent actions deemed as terrorism often perceive and label themselves as
freedom fighters, resistance fighters, soldiers of God, or liberators. They also perceive their actions as the best
means available to achieve the political objectives of the group to which they belong. Terrorists do not perceive
their actions to be illegitimate or immoral. Rather, terrorists often argue that they must pursue violent actions in
order to provoke a response, primarily from the government of a state, because the status quo has prevented
them from achieving their political objectives. Besides the actual individuals who engage in or attempt violent

acts, terrorists can also be members of a group that provides tactical supportplanning, funding, training, and
ordering violent acts. In order to be considered a terrorist, an individual must be a member of a group with some
type of political agenda. Individuals acting without any political agenda are not considered terrorists, but rather
murderers, kidnappers, or other types of criminals. Though terrorists can simultaneously be guerrillas, the two
designations are distinct in that guerrillas are defined as those who deliberately target military targets rather than
noncombatants.
Terrorists engage in violence that is criminal in nature and illegal in most countries. Typical violent acts pursued
by terrorists include the use of explosives, suicide bombing, the hijacking of an airplane, kidnapping, and
murder.
Terrorist groups are inherently clandestine due to their need to stay below the radar of government officials
seeking to eradicate such organizations. Because it is difficult to remain clandestine, terrorists often seek support
and assistance from governments that support their political agenda or objectives. Therefore, many terrorist
groups maintain training camps in countries such as Syria, Libya,Sudan, and Iran, all of which have been known
to provide support to terrorists. To prevent discovery, terrorists often use e-mail and temporary cell phones when
communicating and false identification papers when traveling. Though all strategic and tactical planning is
pursued clandestinely, the actual terrorist activities are by necessity pursued publicly in order to draw mass
attention and terrorize society.
The immediate objective of terrorists is to terrorize society by pursuing random violence, while the long-term
objective is to persuade a government to change policies or take certain actions. Typical political objectives of
terrorist groups include the release of political prisoners, improved political and civil rights, greater political
autonomy, and territorial sovereignty.
Many terrorist groups are based in countries with governments that tend to be oppressive, repressive, intolerant
of cultural diversity, and sometimes racist, denying political and civil rights to certain groups. As a result,
terrorists and their supporters often argue that they have a legitimate right to resist such governments and to
throw off the yoke of governmental persecution, just as many revolutions succeeded in doing in Western
countries like the United States and France. Many non-Western governments are unwilling to label individuals
seeking political freedom, sovereignty, rights, and so on as terrorists, and perceive their embrace of violence as
exercising a right of resistance. This has led to a division between Western and non-Western governments and
has prevented the United Nations from arriving at an agreed-upon definition of terrorism. Governments seeking
to eradicate or prevent future terrorism and to prosecute terrorists have created extensive counterterrorism
policies. Such policies include the sanctioning of states suspected of supporting and hosting terrorist groups;
arresting and trying individuals suspected of direct or indirect involvement in activities deemed terrorist; the
collection of intelligence internationally and domestically, through monitoring communication, spying, using
informants, and so on; increasing security at transportation hubs and government buildings; and sometimes even
assassinating suspected terrorists. Though governments spend significant sums of money on counterterrorism
efforts, terrorism continues to increase as the political objectives of terrorists expand. As a result, some
governments are willing to address such political objectives in order to prevent future terrorist attacks.
From International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (The Gale Group, 2008)