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Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war against . There are various different definitions of terrorism, with no universal agreement about it."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. Different definitions of terrorism emphasize its randomness, its aim to instill fear, and its broader impact beyond its immediate victims.
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 Public policy through psychological manipulation and undermining confidence in security measures.
The terms "terrorist" and "terrorism" originated during the French Revolution of the late 18th century, (2025). 9780199571123, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199571123 but became widely used internationally and gained worldwide attention in the 1970s during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the Basque conflict and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The increased use of from the 1980s onwards was typified by the September 11 attacks in the United States in 2001. The Global Terrorism Database, maintained by the University of Maryland, College Park, has recorded more than 61,000 incidents of non-state terrorism, resulting in at least 140,000 deaths between 2000 and 2014.
Various organizations and countries have used terrorism to achieve their objectives. These include left-wing and right-wing political organizations, nationalist groups, religious groups, revolutionaries, and State terrorism. In recent decades, hybrid terrorist organizations have emerged, incorporating both military and political arms. State terrorism, with its institutionalized instrumentation of terror tactics through Massacre, Genocide, forced disappearances, Carpet bombing and torture, is a deadlier form of terrorism than non-state terrorism.
The terms "terrorism" and "terrorist" gained renewed currency in the 1970s as a result of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the Basque separatist group, ETA, (2025). 9780271044422, Penn State Press. ISBN 9780271044422 and the operations of groups such as the Red Army Faction. (1988). 9780824778149, CRC Press. ISBN 9780824778149 Leila Khaled was described as a terrorist in a 1970 issue of Life magazine. A number of books on terrorism were published in the 1970s.Committee on the Judiciary, Terroristic Activity: International terrorism ; Lester A. Sobel, Political Terrorism ; Lauran Paine, The Terrorists (1975); Walter Laqueur, Guerrilla Warfare: A Historical and Critical Study; Paul Wilkinson, Terrorism versus liberal democracy: the problems of response ; Albert Parry, (1976); Ovid Demaris, (1977); Yonah Alexander, David Carlton and Paul Wilkinson, Terrorism: Theory and Practice; Christopher Dobson and Ronald Payne, The Weapons of Terror: International Terrorism at Work; Brian Michael Jenkins, The Terrorist Mindset and Terrorist Decisionmaking (1979) The topic came further to the fore after the 1983 Beirut barracks bombings and again after the 2001 September 11 attacks and the 2002 Bali bombings.
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. 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.Diaz-Paniagua (2008), Negotiating terrorism: The negotiation dynamics of four UN counter-terrorism treaties, 1997–2005, p. 47. These difficulties arise from the fact that the term "terrorism" is politically and emotionally charged. The international community has instead adopted a series of sectoral conventions that define and criminalize various types of terrorist activities.
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. 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. Text may have been copied from this source, which is available under a licence. (Per this page . In 2006, it was estimated that there were over 109 different definitions of terrorism.Arie W. Kruglanski and Shira Fishman Current Directions in Psychological Science Vol. 15, No. 1 (February 2006), pp. 45–48
Rapoport proposed three case studies to demonstrate "ancient lineage" of religious terrorism, which he called "sacred terror": the Thuggee, 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.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.": "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." 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. According to The Oxford Handbook on the History of Terrorism:
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 Benjamen, and rebranded as the "New Terrorism".
In the Western world, and more specifically in France, the repression faced by Anarchism from the state led, in the early 1890s, to France's entry into the Ère des attentats (1892-1894). This period, characterized by a surge in terrorist acts following Ravachol's bombings, saw several shifts that pushed terrorism toward modern terrorism. As with the Fenian campaign, terrorism shifted from being person-based to location-based, starting with the first attack of that period, the Saint-Germain bombing.
However, other major evolutions emerged during this period: the apparition of lone wolves and the birth of mass or indiscriminate terrorism. Indeed, in the second half of the Ère des attentats, three incidents laid the foundation for mass terrorism within a few months of each other. These were the Liceu bombing, the 13 November 1893 stabbing, and the Café Terminus attack. In each of these attacks, the perpetrators targeted not a specific individual but a collective enemy. Émile Henry, in particular, responsible for the Café Terminus bombing, explicitly claimed the birth of this new form of terrorism, stating that he wanted to 'strike at random'.
The assassination of the Empress of Austria Elisabeth in 1898 resulted in the International Conference of Rome for the Social Defense Against Anarchists, the first international conference Counterterrorism. (2013). 9781139524124, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781139524124
According to Bruce Hoffman of 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.
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:
Hamas, the main Islamist movement in the Palestinian territories, was formed by Palestinian imam Ahmed Yassin in 1987. Some scholars, including constitutional law professor Alexander Tsesis, have voiced concerns over the Hamas Charter's apparent advocacy of genocide. 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.
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. 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. 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.
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 attack and other attacks on civiliansAgence France Press for reasons attributed to a number of causes—sectarian violence between Sunni and ; easy availability of guns and explosives; the existence of a "Kalashnikov culture"; an influx of ideologically driven Muslims based AfPak, 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.
In 2015, the Southern Poverty Law Center released a report on domestic 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 Jihadism." The "virulent racist and Antisemitism" ideology of the ultra-right wing Christian Identity movement is usually accompanied by anti-government sentiments."[16] ". Anti-Defamation League 2017. Adherents of Christian Identity are not connected with specific Christian denominations, and they believe that White people of European descent can be traced back to the "Lost Tribes of Israel". Adherents have committed , bombings and other acts of terrorism, including the Centennial Olympic Park bombing. Its influence ranges from the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups to the anti-government militia and sovereign citizen movements.
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.
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. 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.
Attacks used to draw international attention to struggles that are otherwise unreported have included the Palestinian airplane hijackings in 1970 and the 1975 Dutch train hostage crisis.
Causes for right-wing terrorism have included white nationalism, ethnonationalism, fascism, anti-socialism, the anti-abortion movement, and tax resistance.
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.
A report conducted by Paul Gill, John Horgan and Paige Deckert found that for "lone wolf" terrorists:
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 , concluded that they were unlikely to be psychologically abnormal. 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'.
Abrahm suggests that terrorist organizations do not select terrorism for its political effectiveness. 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.
Michael Mousseau shows possible relationships between the type of economy within a country and ideology associated with terrorism.This is an example. Many terrorists have a history of domestic violence. New Statesman
Some examples of terrorism in non-democratic nations include ETA in Spain under Francisco Franco (although the group's activities increased sharply after Franco's death), the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists in pre-war Poland,Timothy Snyder. A fascist hero in democratic Kiev . New York Review of Books. February 24, 2010 the Shining Path in Peru under Alberto Fujimori, the Kurdistan Workers Party when Turkey was ruled by military leaders and the ANC in South Africa.
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". 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. 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. For this reason, homegrown terrorism has started to be seen as a greater threat, as stated by former CIA Director Michael Hayden. 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.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.
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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
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. The physical and behavioral description of the terrorist could describe almost any normal person. Library of Congress – Federal Research Division The Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism. The majority of terrorist attacks are carried out by military age men, aged 16 to 40.
According to the Global Terrorism Database, the most active terrorist group in the period 1970 to 2010 was Shining Path (with 4,517 attacks), followed by Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), Irish Republican Army (IRA), Basque Fatherland and Freedom (ETA), Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Taliban, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, New People's Army, National Liberation Army of Colombia (ELN), and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Israel has had problems with religious terrorism even before independence in 1948. During British mandate over Palestine, the secular Irgun were among the Zionist groups labelled as terrorist organisations by the British authorities and United Nations,Martin Gilbert. Churchill and the Jew Quotings. p. 270. for violent terror attacks against Britons and Arabs.Pope Brewer, Sam. Irgun Bomb Kills 11 Arabs, 2 Britons . New York Times. December 30, 1947. Another extremist group, the Lehi, openly declared its members as "terrorists".Heller, J. (1995). The Stern Gang. Frank Cass. Historian William Cleveland stated many Jews justified any action, even terrorism, taken in the cause of the creation of a Jewish state.Cleveland, William L. A History of the Modern Middle East. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2004. Print. p. 243 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. 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.Shah, S. A. A. (2005). Religious terrorism in other faiths. Strategic Studies, 25(2), 126-141.
"Revolutionary tax" is another major form of funding, and essentially a euphemism for "protection money". Detection of Terrorist Financing , U.S. National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), 2002. Revolutionary taxes "play a secondary role as one other means of intimidating the target population".
Other major sources of funding include kidnapping for ransoms, smuggling (including wildlife smuggling), Gerben Jan Gerbrandy claiming that terrorist networks hunt wildlife for funding themselves fraud, and robbery. The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant has reportedly received funding "via private donations from the Gulf states"." Syria's top Islamist and jihadist groups ". France 24. Irish Republican militants, primarily the Provisional Irish Republican Army and the Irish National Liberation Army, and Ulster loyalism paramilitaries, primarily the Ulster Volunteer Force and Ulster Defence Association, received far more financing from criminal and legitimate activities within the British Isles than overseas donations, including Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi and NORAID (see Paramilitary finances in the Troubles for more information).
The Financial Action Task Force is an inter-governmental body whose mandate, since October 2001, has included combating terrorist financing.
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. 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.Harari, Yuval Noah. Homo Deus: A brief history of tomorrow. Random House, 2016, pp.103–106
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.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
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".
The Internet has created a new way for groups to spread their messages. 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.
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:
Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famously spoke of the close connection between terrorism and the media, calling publicity 'the oxygen of terrorism'.
Specific types of responses include:
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.Ankony, Robert C., "A New Strategy for America's War on Terrorism", Patrolling magazine, 75th Ranger Regiment Association, Winter 2011, 56–57. 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."Sewall, Sarah, introduction to The U.S. Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, (2007). 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.
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.Jones and Libicki (2008, p. 101, Table 5.4) 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: (2025). 9780691139487, Princeton U. Press. ISBN 9780691139487
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 The Blitz, the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the Allied firebombing 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 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.
Charles Stewart Parnell described William Ewart Gladstone's Irish Coercion Act as terrorism in his "no-Rent manifesto" in 1881, during the Irish Land War. The concept is used to describe political repressions by governments against their own civilian populations with the purpose of inciting fear. For example, taking and executing civilian or extrajudicial elimination campaigns are commonly considered "terror" or terrorism, for example during the Red Terror or the Great Purge.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., Such actions are often described as democide or genocide, which have been argued to be equivalent to state terrorism. Empirical studies on this have found that democracies have little democide. Death by Government by R.J. Rummel New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1994. Online links: [25] [26] [27] No Lessons Learned from the Holocaust?, Barbara Harff, 2003. Western democracies, including the United States, have supported state terrorism and mass killings, with some examples being the Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66 and Operation Condor.Mark Aarons (2007). " Justice Betrayed: Post-1945 Responses to Genocide ." In David A. Blumenthal and Timothy L.H. McCormack (eds). The Legacy of Nuremberg: Civilising Influence or Institutionalised Vengeance? (International Humanitarian Law). Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. pp. 71 & 80–81 (2025). 9780415664578, Routledge. ISBN 9780415664578
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."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.
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.
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".)
In his book Inside Terrorism Bruce Hoffman offered an explanation of why the term terrorism becomes distorted:
The pejorative connotations of the word can be summed up in the aphorism, "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". This is exemplified when a group using irregular military methods is an ally of a Sovereign state against a mutual enemy, but later falls out with the state and starts to use those methods against its former ally.
Groups accused of terrorism understandably prefer terms reflecting legitimate military or ideological action.Sudha Ramachandran Death behind the wheel in Iraq Asian 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". Terrorism: concepts, causes, and conflict resolution George Mason University Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, Printed by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, January 2003. 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:
Labelling opponents as "terrorists" has been used as a tactic to evade the usual laws of war against things such as assassinations and other extrajudicial killing, particularly by Israel and the United States. Some international legal opinions suggest that terrorist activities by their very nature "deny" the civilian nature of an ostensibly civilian participant.
Some groups, when involved in a "liberation" struggle, have been called "terrorists" by the Western governments or media. Later, these same persons, as leaders of the liberated nations, are called "statesmen" by similar organizations. Two examples of this phenomenon are the Nobel Peace Prize laureates Menachem Begin and Nelson Mandela.Theodore P. Seto The Morality of Terrorism 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. BBC News: Profiles: Menachem Begin BBC website "Under Begin's command, the underground terrorist group Irgun carried out numerous acts of violence."Lord Desai Hansard, House of Lords 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 response 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." WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange has been called a "terrorist" by Sarah Palin and Joe Biden.
Inversely, some groups like the Afghan Mujahideen that were labelled as "freedom fighters" later became "terrorists" as alliances shifted."An unbiased look at terrorism in Afghanistan in reveals that many of these 'terrorists' individuals or groups were once 'freedom fighters' struggling against the Soviets during the 1980s." () During the Second World War, the Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army were allied with the British, but during the Malayan Emergency, members of its successor organisation (the Malayan National Liberation Army) started campaigns against them, and were branded "terrorists" as a result. Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army Britannica Concise.Chris Clark , June 16, 2003.
The following terrorism databases are maintained in secrecy by the United States Government for intelligence and counterterrorism purposes:
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.)
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