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terrorism

Systematic violence in the furtherance of political aims, often by small guerrilla groups.

Types of terrorism

Terrorist groups include those dedicated to a political programme for their country, usually involving the overthrow of the ruling regime: communist and fascist terrorists fall into this category. Terrorism may also be directed by an ethnic majority against a minority ruling group or against an occupying colonial force. Another motivation behind terrorism can be religious fanaticism, linked with left wing, conservative, nationalist, pan-nationalist, or millenarian ideologies. Systematic violence used to press a single-issue, such as anti-abortionism or animal rights, cause can also be seen as terrorism. In many instances of terrorist actions these motivations overlap.

The resort to terror represents a rejection of the democratic political process, so that terrorist groups are typically clandestine and separate from sympathetic political parties, as is the case with the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the Sinn Fein party in Northern Ireland.

Political Left-wing revolutionary groups have included the Baader-Meinhof gang in Germany, the Red Brigade in Italy, and the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) terrorist guerrillas in Peru. Bomb attacks in Italy in 1980 and the UK in 1999 have been attributed to right-wing elements.

Distinctions between political and ethnic terrorism are not clear cut, and some separatist groups are influenced by, or receive support from, the left, despite being nationalists. Terrorism in an outlying region or colony is often assumed to be separatist in its logic, though for instance ‘loyalist’ terrorists have been opposed to the exclusion of Northern Ireland from the UK.

Left-wing political terrorism has, on occasion, provoked retaliation by right-wing paramilitaries seeking to defend the status quo. This has occurred, for example, in Colombia, with the activities of the leftist Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC; Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN; National Liberation Army) leading to terrorist atrocities by the rightist United Self Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC).

In modern Western societies, terrorism is also increasingly associated with vehemently anti-government populist and ultra-right militias, particularly in the USA, driven by a nihilist brand of fanaticism.

Ethnic Terrorist acts are sometimes carried out by an ethnic majority targeting a minority ruling class, such as in South Africa, the former Rhodesia (now Zambia and Zimbabwe), and Palestine. Afghan resistance to Soviet occupation and anti-colonial movements in Africa and Asia are both examples of an ethnic majority opposing colonial rule. Terrorist organizations that represent the interests of an ethnic group in a particular region, for example the Euskadi ta Askatasuna (ETA) extremists in northwest Spain and the Tamil Tigers in northern Sri Lanka, are often separatist (though they may also be anti-separatist).

Terrorists representing ethnic groups or peoples have included Palestinians (Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Palestine Liberation Front, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), Kurdish, Kosovan Albanian, and Irish nationalists in Northern Ireland.

Religious Islamic fundamentalism is a key stimulus of terrorist activity in the early 21st century, centred in Asia and the Middle East, but at times with a global reach, as highlighted on 11 September 2001 with the terrorist destruction of New York's World Trade Center. Osama bin Laden, whose al-Qaeda network has links with other Islamic terrorist groups, such as Egyptian Islamic Jihad, is regarded as one of the key masterminds behind current Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. His primary target is the USA, with a key goal being removal of US military forces from the Gulf area. Bin Laden is said to represent a new breed of ‘stateless’ terrorist. In Algeria, the Islamic Armed Group (GIA) and Islamic Front for Salvation (FIS) have been behind more than a decade of bloody unrest, punctuated by terrorist atrocities.

Terrorist activities Terrorism traditionally involved kidnappings, assassinations, guerrilla warfare, massacres of opponents, and the use of bombs in a variety of ways and against a range of targets – suicide bombs, car bombs, bombs placed in aircrafts, buildings, and buses. The victims targeted are usually political opponents or state security forces, but sometimes they are ordinary citizens, chosen indiscriminately.

By the end of the 21st century terrorists adopted additional, and more difficult to counter, forms of attack. These include the use of biological warfare, pioneered by the Aum Shinrikyō sect in March 1995, who released sarin nerve gas in the Tokyo subway, killing 12 people and injuring several thousand. In October 2001 anthrax was used by terrorists in the USA. The spread of computer viruses, to disable financial and government networks, is another new method of terrorism. Increasingly, terrorist groups use information technology and the Internet to formulate plans, recruit members, communicate between cells and members, raise funds, and spread propaganda. Some terrorist groups are also involved in extortion and drug trafficking to help fund their activities, using complex offshore banking arrangements to launder these funds.

State terrorism State terrorism may either take the form of systematic violence by a totalitarian state against particular sectors of its own populace (as in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union), or sponsorship of violence against another state. Iran funds and trains members of the Islamic fundamentalist Hezbollah movement, active in suicide bombings throughout Israel in opposition to the 1993 Palestinian–Israeli peace accord. Libya has long supported terrorist activity against Western states, supplying arms to the Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland and being implicated in the bombing of a US airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December 1988. A further five countries are listed in 2001 by the US State Department as state sponsors of terrorism: Syria (which provides safe haven to certain international terrorist groups); Iraq; North Korea; Sudan; and Cuba.

Terrorist or freedom fighter? Organizations that resort to political violence are seen either as ‘terrorists’ or ‘freedom fighters’, depending on the political standpoint of the speaker. Some lack any base of popular support, while others can fairly claim widespread sympathy, both within their community and in the outside world. Two important factors influencing the public attitude to an organization are whether the people it fights for have no (or only a limited) democratic voice, and whether its violence is directed at ‘legitimate’ targets, such as state security forces, or used indiscriminately against civilians. Convicted members of banned ‘terrorist’ groups may become constitutional politicians after liberation, and negotiate with representatives of the state that was once the object of their violence: such leaders include Menachem Begin, prime minister of Israel 1977–83, Nelson Mandela, president of South Africa 1994–99, and Robert Mugabe, prime minister of Zimbabwe from 1980.

Nuclear threat In 2001, the United Nations Terrorism Prevention Branch estimated that as many as 130 terrorist groups could pose a nuclear threat, due to the increase in the smuggling of radioactive material. In the first three months of 2001 alone there were 20 confirmed incidents of smuggling, including thefts from Germany, Mexico, Romania, and South Africa.

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terrorism - events

24 June 1894	France	President Marie-François-Sadi Carnot of France is assassinated at Lyon, France, by an Italian anarchist and is succeeded by Jean Casimir-Périer.
14 September 1911	Russian Empire	The Russian prime minister, Peter Stolypin, is assassinated by a revolutionary, and on 19 September the moderate Vladimir Kokovtsov is appointed prime minister.
28 June 1914	Bosnia-Herzegovina, Austria-Hungary	Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary (50) and his wife are assassinated at Sarajevo, Bosnia, by Gavrilo Princip, an 18-year-old Bosnian Serb student linked with the Serbian nationalist society ‘the Black Hand’. The death of Archduke Ferdinand is to spark off World War I.
20 May 1920	Mexico	President Venustiano Carranza of Mexico is assassinated. In response the US government suspends diplomatic relations with Mexico. Adolfo de la Huerta takes office as provisional president of Mexico.
25 September 1959	Ceylon	Following the assassination of Solomon Bandaranaike, prime minister of Ceylon (Sri Lanka), by a Buddhist monk, he is succeeded by Wijayananda Dahanayake.
19 September 1970	Israel, Jordan, UK, West Germany, Switzerland	Palestinian hijackers blow up three aircraft (two hijacked 6 September, one 9 September) at Dawson's Field, Jordan. On 30 September the remaining hostages go free, after Britain, West Germany, and Switzerland release their Palestinian prisoners.
5 September 1972	West Germany, Israel	Eight members of the Palestinian Black September guerrilla group attack the Olympic village in Munich, West Germany, killing two Israeli athletes and taking nine hostage; they issue demands for the release of 200 Palestinians from Israeli jails. Five terrorists and all nine hostages are killed when West German police storm the compound the next day.
13–17 September 1974	Netherlands	Japanese ‘Red Army’ terrorists in the Netherlands take French diplomats hostage in The Hague. On 17 September, France and the Netherlands pay a ransom for their release.
29 November 1974	UK	The Prevention of Terrorism Act is passed in Britain following a spate of Irish Republican Army (IRA) outrages. Police are given power to hold terrorist suspects for five days without charge and suspects can be banned from the British mainland or deported to Northern Ireland.
12 October 1984	UK	An Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb explodes at the Grand Hotel, in Brighton, England, during the Conservative Party conference, killing 4, injuring 32, and narrowly missing the British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. A fifth victim dies on 13 November.
31 October 1984	India	Indira Gandhi, prime minister of India 1966–77 and 1980–84 is assassinated in New Delhi, India (66). She is killed by extremist Sikhs among her bodyguards, apparently in response to the storming of the Sikh Golden Temple at Amritsar by Indian government troops.
21 December 1988	UK, USA	A terrorist bomb explodes on a Pan Am Boeing 747 airliner flying over Lockerbie in Scotland, killing all 259 passengers on board and 11 people on the ground.
31 August 1994	Northern Ireland, UK	The Irish Republican Army (IRA) in Northern Ireland announces its complete cessation of violence (the British government lifts its broadcasting ban on representatives of Sinn Fein on 16 September).
31 March 1997	USA	The trial of Timothy McVeigh, charged with the Oklahoma City bombing of 19 April 1995, opens in Denver, Colorado; on 2 June, McVeigh is found guilty and on 13 June he is sentenced to death.
22 April 1997	Peru	Troops storm the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima, Peru, ending the hostage crisis which began on 17 December 1996; all 14 Tupac Amarú guerrillas are killed.
8 June 2000	Greece	Members of Greek guerrilla group November 17 shoot dead British diplomat Stephen Saunders in Athens, Greece. Fellow UN countries condemn the Greek government for failing to act against such terrorist groups.
31 January 2001	Netherlands Scotland	A Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands finds one of two Libyan suspects, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, guilty of murdering 270 people when a Pan-Am airliner blew up over Lockerbie in December 1988. His co-defendant is found not guilty.
11 June 2001	USA	Timothy McVeigh, the man convicted killing 168 people in the Oklahoma bomb atrocity in 1995, is executed by lethal injection in Terre Haute, Indiana.
11 September 2001	USA	In the world's worst-ever terrorist atrocity, Islamic extremists launch suicide attacks on landmarks in the USA using hijacked civil airliners. Two aircraft are flown into the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center, which subsequently collapse, and another hits the Pentagon (defence department) in Washington, DC. A fourth jet crashes in Pennsylvania before reaching any specific target. Around 3,000 people are thought to have been killed in the attacks and ensuing devastation.
11–30 September 2001		The US government calls the 11 September terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, DC, an act of war and pledges military retaliation against known terrorist networks and their state sponsors. With its allies' backing, US forces begin to concentrate around Afghanistan where the chief suspect, Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda organization, are thought to enjoy the protection of the hard-line Islamic Taliban regime.
October 2001	USA	In the USA fear of biological terrorism spreads as cases of exposure to anthrax by mail are confirmed in Florida, New York, and in Washington, DC, where a contaminated letter is sent to the leader of the Senate Tom Daschle and the House of Representatives is temporarily closed.
12 May 2003	Saudi Arabia	Suicide bombers in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh target three compounds housing Western expatriate workers and their families, killing at least 34 people including themselves. About 190 are injured. The operation is believed to have been planned and executed by the al-Qaeda international terrorist network.
12–14 May 2003	Russia	In two terrorist incidents in Russia's troubled republic of Chechnya, suicide bombers believed to be Chechen separatists target a government security service building and, two days later, attempt to kill the Moscow-backed head of the Chechen administration at a Muslim festival. Around 80 people are believed killed in the attacks.
16 May 2003	Morocco	In Casablanca, Morocco, 12 suicide bombers thought to be Islamic fundamentalists linked to the al-Qaeda international terrorist network kill about 30 other people and injure many more in five coordinated explosions at a hotel, a nightclub, a Jewish community centre and cemetery, and the Belgian consulate.
August 2003		Having agreed to pay US$2.7 billion in compensation to the families of the 270 people killed in the bombing in 1988 of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie in Scotland, the Libyan government accepts responsibility for the terrorist incident in a letter to the United Nations (UN) Security Council, paving the way for the lifting of UN sanctions. At the end of the month Libya also reaches agreement with France on reparations for the 1989 bombing of a French airliner over Niger.
September 2003	Israel Palestine	Violence continues in the Middle East as Israeli forces target leaders of the militant Islamic Hamas organization and Palestinian suicide bombers kill 15 Israelis in attacks in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv-Yafo. Meanwhile Ahmed Qureia takes over as prime minister of the Palestine National Authority as Mahmoud Abbas resigns having lost a power struggle with President Yassir Arafat. With the peace process in tatters, the Israeli government threatens to exile or otherwise ‘remove’ the Palestinian president. A United Nations Security Council resolution rebuking Israel for the threat is vetoed by the USA.
October 2003	Israel Palestine Syria	In the Middle East a Palestinian suicide bomber kills 20 Israelis and Arabs in a restaurant in Haifa. Israeli military retaliation includes the first direct air attack on Syrian territory since 1973 and subsequent heavy assaults on Palestinian targets in Gaza. Palestinian militants launch a bomb attack on a US embassy convoy driving through Gaza, killing three US officials. Israel's army chief of staff is critical of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's policies towards the Palestinians.
7 July 2005	England	In a major coordinated terrorist attack on London, England, three bombs explode on the city's underground railway network and another on a bus, killing 56 people including the bombers. Three of the suicide bombers are subsequently identified on surveillance cameras as British Muslims.
13–14 October 2005	Russia	In Russia's volatile Caucasian region, Islamic militants launch a series of armed attacks on the town of Nalchik in the republic of Kabardino-Balkaria. More than 100 people are killed in two days of fighting before the security services regain control. Chechen separatists claim responsibility.
February 2007	Iraq	The high daily death toll in Iraq from sectarian and insurgent violence continues unabated. At the end of the month, in a significant change of policy, the US government says that it will talk to neighbouring Iran and Syria about stabilising Iraq. The UK government meanwhile announces a partial troop withdrawal from the south of the country, and the Iraqi government reaches a landmark agreement on sharing out the country's oil wealth between its Kurdish, Sunni Muslim and Shia populations.
August 2007	Iraq	In Iraq, in the most deadly single insurgent atrocity since the start of the war in 2003, the mostly Kurdish Yazidi religious minority living in the northwest of the country are targeted in co-ordinated bomb attacks on 14 August, killing over 500 people and injuring hundreds more.
27 December 2007	Pakistan	Benazir Bhutto, the leader of the main opposition Pakistan People's Party, is assassinated in a suicide attack at an election rally in Rawalpindi, enraging her supporters and triggering violence in cities across Pakistan. The government blames Islamist militants.