Terrorism 101

Four Forms of Terrorism

Though terrorism is divided into four basic categories, “terrorism” is not necessarily defined as being exemplified by one of the following, but could be several of the following forms together. Terrorism is a psychological tool of strategic leveraging. What one society/government considers to be an act of terrorism may be considered justified or perhaps an act of revenge for another.

1.

Purposes:

  • Disrupt stable states
  • Undermine governments (reduce popular support for leadership)
  • Bring new political factions into power by assassination

Means:

  • Intimidating voters
  • Threatening public officials
  • Asymmetric warfare
  • Freedom Fighters

Examples

  • Lord’s Resistance Army-Joseph Kony, Uganda, use of child soldiers
  • IRA
  • ETA (Basque)

2.may refer to acts of terrorism conducted by a nation-state or state against a foreign state or people. It can also refer to widespread acts of violence by a state against its own people

Purposes:

  • To wake the complacent to the crimes, sufferings and inequalities among states and nations

Means:

  • Terrorist bombings (suicide bombers, hijacking planes)
  • Bioterrorism

Examples:

  • Hezbollah-Shi'a Muslim militant group and political party based in Lebanon
  • Hamas-Islamic Resistance Movement") is the PalestinianSunniIslamic or political party that governs the Gaza Strip
  • Al-Qaeda-global broad-based militant Islamist terroristorganization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988and late 1989.] It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad

Iran, Sudan, Cuba, Syria all have been identified by the U.S. for sponsoring terrorism

3. is when state leaderships that most fear domestic opposition to their claims to legitimacy may engage in severe forms of repression (indiscriminate terror)

Examples:

  • Hitler’s use of terror was intended to impose a new Weltanschauung and overthrow the permissive weakness of liberal democracy.
  • Stalin’s use of terror was exemplified in several occurrences…

1) 25,700 Polish POWs were executed on 5 March 1940 in what became known as the Katyn massacre

2) Stalin introduced controversial military orders, such as Order No. 270, requiring superiors to shoot deserters on the spotwhile their family members were subject to arrest

3) Stalin also directed employing a scorched earth policy of destroying the infrastructure and food supplies of areas before the Germans could seize them, and that partisans were to be set up in evacuated areas

4) Stalin also conducted a purge of several military commanders that were shot for "cowardice" without a trial

4.Criminal expressions of the rage and jealousy of a permanent underclass.

Purposes:

  • Manipulate leaders and their followers for political purposes through contract killing or blackmail

Means:

  • Gangs
  • Pirates
  • Mafia
  • Drug dealers
  • Prostitution
  • Kidnapping

Examples:

  • Russians and Eastern Europeans