The history of terrorism is a history of well-known and historically significant individuals, entities, and incidents associated, whether rightly or wrongly, with terrorism. Scholars agree that terrorism is a disputed term, and very few of those labelled terrorists describe themselves as such. It is common for opponents in a violent conflict to describe the other side as terrorists.[1] Those called terrorists can often be referred to as militants, paramilitaries, guerrillas, resistance movements or freedom fighters. However, they are united in the range of tactics they commonly employ which involves non-systemic covert or semi-covert warfare, driven by an ideological basis often political religious or socially based. They often seek to use propaganda of the deed to cause a psychological impact alongside the actions themselves to drive the aspired change.
Contents
1 Definition
• 2 Early terrorism
• 3 19th century
o 3.1 The United States
o 3.2 Europe
o 3.3 The Ottoman Empire
• 4 Early 20th century
o 4.1 Europe
o 4.2 Middle East
o 4.3 Elsewhere
• 5 World War II
o 5.1 The resistance movement in Europe
• 6 Mid-20th century
o 6.1 Middle East
o 6.2 Europe
o 6.3 The Americas
o 6.4 Asia
o 6.5 Africa
• 7 Late 20th century
o 7.1 The Americas
o 7.2 Middle East
o 7.3 Asia
o 7.4 Europe
• 8 21st century
o 8.1 Europe
o 8.2 Middle East
o 8.3 Asia
o 8.4 Americas
• 9 Table of non-state groups accused of terrorism
10 References
Definition
There is no official definition of terrorism agreed on throughout the world, and definitions tend to rely heavily on who is doing the defining and for what purpose. Some definitions focus on terrorist tactics to define the term, while others focus on the actor. Yet others look at the context and ask if it is military or not.
We will probably never arrive at a perfect definition to which we can all agree, although it does have characteristics to which we all point, like violence or its threat. Indeed, the only defining quality of terrorism may be the fact that it invites argument, since the label "terrorism" or "terrorist" arises when there is disagreement over whether an act of violence is justified (and those who justify it label themselves "revolutionaries" or "freedom fighters," etc.). So, in one sense, it may be fair to say that terrorism is exactly violence (or the threat of violence) in context where there will be disagreement over the use of that violence.
But this doesn't mean that no one has tried to define terrorism! In order to prosecute terrorist acts, or distinguish them from war and other violence that is condoned, national and international institutions, as well as others, have sought to define the term. Here are some of the most frequently cited definitions.
Terrorism: The Problems of Definition
Version Francais
Defining terrorism has become so polemical and subjective an undertaking as to resemble an art rather than a science. Texts on the subject proliferate and no standard work on terrorism can be considered complete without at least an introductory chapter being devoted to this issue. [1] Media coverage of terrorist incidents over the years has further confounded the difficulties of defining terrorism, which is variously described as the work of, among others, ‘commandos,’ ‘extremists,’ fundamentalists,’ and ‘guerillas.’ As David Rapport cautioned of this phenomenon almost three decades ago; “In attempting to correct the abuse of language for political purposes our journalists may succeed in making language altogether useless.” [2] The negative connotations associated with the word ‘terrorism’ have further complicated attempts to arrive at an objective definition of the term.
Some experts on terrorism are skeptical as to whether the seemingly interminable attempts to define terrorism are capable of bearing fruit. As, one, Walter Laqueur, opines: “Even if there were an objective, value-free definition of terrorism, covering all its important aspects and features, it would still be rejected by some for ideological reasons […]” [3] This assertion will probably remain true. However, if such a definition is a destination, the journey towards it can almost be an end in itself. Arriving at a working definition also has uses other than increasing our understanding of terrorism. For by defining terrorism one can also define the preferred means of countering it. Defining terrorism also allows terrorists to be defined (or not), justifying (or not) any action that is being taken against them.
U.S. Definitions of Terrorism
Often, a uniform definition of terrorism will not even exist across the various concerned agencies of a given country. Such is the case with the United States , where the range of definitions listed below is currently applied. [4]
Agency Definition
Department of Defense The calculated use of unlawful violence to inculcate fear, intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological. [5]
FBI [T]he unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives [6]
State Department [P]remeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience. [7]
Table 1 : Definitions of Terrorism Adopted by Various U.S. Agencies
Such definitions are made more equivocal by the rhetoric surrounding the so-called ‘Global War on Terrorism,’ as the current American administration describes the series of military campaigns and other initiatives that were provoked by the al Qaeda attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 . As with the journalistic tendencies referred to above, such a broad reading of ‘terrorism’ as this usage engenders risk rendering the term meaningless. It also lays the government open to charges that that it is undermining its own counterterrorism efforts through the use of such wide terminology in compiling the statistics attached to them. [8]
All the American definitions above feature some element of the three inter-related factors that most attempts to arrive at a workable definition of terrorism have tended to revolve around ? namely, the terrorists’ (or persons being termed terrorists) motives, identity and methods.
Ends
War, according to the Prussian theorist Carl von Clausewitz’s famous dictum, is “the continuation of political intercourse with the addition of other means.” [9] Much the same has been said of terrorism, a violent phenomenon often seen as distinguished partly by its practitioners’ political motivations. This view of terrorism as political violence possibly stems from its roots as a political term applied to the French Revolutionary tribunals active during that country’s ‘Reign of Terror,’ with terrorism’s political connotations continuing to feature throughout much of its historical development. [10] As one long-time scholar of the phenomenon puts it: “Terrorism, in the most widely accepted contemporary usage of the term, is fundamentally and inherently political.” [11] However, as with many definitional characteristics of terrorism, this view of it as always being political is not universally accepted. Nor is motivation always considered a factor in deciding what is and is not terrorism.
This was the position of the late Eqbal Ahmad, who argued that motivations “make no difference.” [12] Jessica Stern agrees, seeing any definition of terrorism as being unlimited by either “perpetrator or purpose.” This approach, while not excluding political goals as a terrorist aim, also allows for other motivations, such as the purely criminal, or even religious. To Stern it is the “deliberate evocation of dread is what sets terrorism apart from simple murder or assault.” [13] Such a reading underlay the recent judicial ruling that the chief suspect in the rash of ‘sniper’ murders that occurred in the Washington, D.C., area last year could be charged under Virginia’s new post-Sept. 11, 2001 anti-terrorism law.
The question over whether the snipers should be classified as terrorists, although they clearly did ‘terrorize’ the D.C. metropolitan area for a time, highlights the dilemma of broadening the definition of terrorism to include violence that is not primarily political in intent. Such a widening has drawbacks. As a brief survey by one scholar shows, by the 1990s, the word terrorism had been applied to issues as diverse as: Apartheid; ‘consumer terrorism’ (the poisoning of food products in supermarkets by criminal extortionists); ‘economic terrorism’ (i.e. ‘aggressive’ currency speculation); ‘narco-terrorism’; obscene phone calls; pornography; rape; and, state terrorism. [14] Such a broad interpretation of terrorism risks making the term so elastic as to deprive it of its meaning.
In addition, the assumption that the psychological effect of terrorism is uppermost in terrorists’ minds when they act is also debatable. Often, despite its name, the primary intent of terrorism appears to be to kill rather than frighten. This has been contended to have been the case with the 1998 bombing of an airliner over Lockerbie, with Libyan involvement most likely retaliation for the bombing of that country by the United States in 1986. [15] Certainly, revenge seems to have at least partly provoked the periodic rounds of ‘tit for tat’ killing that characterized much of Northern Ireland ’s ‘troubles.’ (although, here, as with Lockerbie, political considerations also played a role, with such killings seeking to consolidate loyalist and republican terrorists’ self-proclaimed role as protectors of their respective communities). The Sept. 11 attacks on the United States also appear to have been at least partly motivated by revenge (for what the perpetrators viewed as American actions against Muslims), a desire to kill large numbers of people, and the political aspirations of al Qaeda.
Political motivation is persuasively argued by Paul R. Pillar to be a prerequisite of terrorism, although he concedes that criminal activity is not only often undertaken by terrorists, but can often have political repercussions of its own. As Pillar states:
Terrorism is fundamentally different from these other forms of violence, however, in what gives rise to it and in how it must be countered, beyond simple physical security and police techniques. Terrorists’ concerns are macroconcerns about changing a larger order; other violent criminals are focused on the microlevel of pecuniary gain and personal relationships. ‘Political’ in this regard encompasses not just traditional left-right politics but also what are frequently described as religious motivations or social issues. [16]
While terrorism can be identified as political violence, it is far from the case that all political violence can therefore be regarded as terrorism. War, for instance, is a form of political violence, but one which is, generally speaking, differentiated from terrorist action. This trend is partly connected to the tendency to label certain acts of political violence terrorism on the basis of their perpetrator’s identity.
Identification
The connection between terrorism and political goals is related to the perceived illegitimacy of political violence – especially in the West. This in turn reflects the legitimacy of the liberal democratic state ? as perceived by other liberal democracies. In such states, democracy is considered to provide an alternative to violence as an agent of political change, with the state viewed as sole custodian of the monopoly of legitimate force. Political violence against the state is therefore more apt to be termed ‘terrorism’ ? with all the negative connotations the term denotes – than is political violence on the part of the state.
This is not universally accepted to be the case however. Some commentators see terrorism as a tool of states also, viewing, for instance, the allied strategic bombing campaigns during World War II, and the dropping of two atomic bombs by the United States against Japan during the same conflict, as examples of state terrorism. [17] The oppressive measures imposed by totalitarian regimes such as those which once existed in Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Stalinist Russia, as well as, more recently, the military dictatorships which have previously ruled some South American countries, could also been debated to use terrorism. So, too, could some of today’s governments such as that in Zimbabwe , or until very recently, the Baathist regime in Iraq . In addition, state-sponsored terrorism has been practiced by countries like Iran , Iraq , Libya Syria, and North Korea – the latter further muddying the definitional waters by themselves directly participating in covert acts which could be described as terrorism, such as the kidnapping of Japanese citizens.
Despite such considerations, some, such as Bruce Hoffman, contend that “such usages are generally termed ‘terror’ in order to distinguish that phenomenon from ‘terrorism,’ which is understood to be violence committed by non-state entities.” [18] Such a state-centric reading is Western in outlook, and would probably be questioned by those non-state actors who regard themselves as politically disenfranchised. Moreover, while the application of the term ‘terrorism’ may bestow illegitimacy on those it is applied to (or their cause), it can likewise confer legitimacy on the governments combating it and their methods. Sympathy for a cause or disapproval for the regime or methods used to counter it can therefore lead to inconsistency in deciding what is and is not terrorism.
As a consequence of such reasoning, what might be viewed as terrorism by the West (if it occurs in a ‘Westernized’ or liberal democratic state) may be regarded differently when it happens in less ‘legitimate’ states, such as are often regarded by the First World to exist in less politically stable regions of the world. As Adrian Guelke states, “any doubts about the regime’s legitimacy naturally tend to be reinforced by signs of political instability, including violence.” An increase in violence (as Guelke further notes) makes the Western media less inclined to term it terrorism – a trend possibly reinforced by the lessened pressure they feel to condemn political violence which occurs outside the West. [19] As this indicates, terrorism resides in the eye of the beholder. Or, as one much-quoted and overly-trite truism has it: “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”
Similarly debatable is the assertion that; “To qualify as terrorism, violence must be perpetrated by some organizational entity with at least some conspiratorial structure and identifiable chain of command beyond a single individual acting on his or her own.” [20] Arguably, a lone operator, if politically motivated (rather than pursuing economic or egotistical ends as is the case with his criminal or mentally unbalanced counterparts) and using the methods of terrorists, should also be called a terrorist. Unless such an approach is adopted the politically motivated acts of individuals such as Mir Aimal Kansi (who killed two CIA employees outside the organization’s headquarters in 1993) and Sirhan Sirhan (who assassinated Sen. Robert Kennedy in 1968) would be classed as criminal rather than terrorist. [21]
If observers are often divided as to who is and is not a terrorist, this is less true of terrorists themselves, who uniformly oppose being described thus. Indeed it has been some 60 years since a terrorist organization ? the Jewish group known as the Stern Gang (after its founder Abraham Stern) ? publicly described itself thus. Not even the Sternists officially labeled their group terrorist, instead opting to call themselves the Lohamei Hermut Yisrael (or Fighters for Israel ). [22] This reluctance to accept the moniker ‘terrorist’ is reflected not only in the proclamations of many groups but in their adoption of neutral-sounding names for themselves, or ones which often invoke their purported causes – such as freedom, liberation, justice, revenge, resistance or self-defense. [23]
This contrasts sharply with the attitude displayed by the such groups’ victims, who are more inclined to call their attackers ‘terrorists’ – further demonstrating the term’s negative connotations. These connotations, along with the other factors mentioned above, make any attempt to define terrorism based on the identity of its perpetrators so subjective as to be unusable. Attempts to carry out such an identification based on the status of the terrorist’s victims (i.e. whether they are non-combatants or not) do offer a more useful basis for definition, however, this is only true insofar as a consensus can be arrived at as to what constitutes a non-combatant. For instance, should members of a state’s security forces be considered legitimate targets even if they are off duty or not in a position to defend themselves? [24] This latter consideration particularly encroaches on the third factor that is often considered in defining terrorism – namely the means employed by the terrorist.
Means
Terrorists tend to justify their methods by insisting these are forced upon them due to a lack of resources, and renounce attempts to describe their actions as terrorism. Often, as is the case with the names adopted by such groups, the assertion is made that, rather than terrorists, they are fighters or soldiers in a cause, albeit ones forced by circumstances to use differing strategies, tactics, and methods from better-equipped national armies. This insistence (which ignores the benefits attached to terrorist methods – unless these are viewed as serendipitous side-effects) extends to terrorists demanding that they be treated as prisoners of war and not criminals. The conviction with which this assertion is often held was demonstrated by Provisional Irish Republican Army prisoners in the 1980s when 10 of them died on hunger strikes in protest at the U.K. government’s decision to end their ‘special category status’ – a move which meant they would now be regarded at criminals rather than the prisoners of war they wished to be regarded as.
However, war is regulated by a series of laws (in theory if not always in fact) that prohibit certain weapons and tactics as well as precluding attacks on certain categories of targets (most notably non-combatants) and placing restrictions on the treatment of prisoners. The terrorist often ignores such laws as are codified in the Geneva Conventions, targeting non-combatants, operating in civilian clothes, and taking (and often mistreating or killing) hostages. From that point of view, anyone using such tactics is waging terrorism rather than war. One UN report on the topic takes this further, suggesting that a simplified definition of acts of terrorism could see these as the “peacetime equivalents of war crimes.” [25] Such an approach not only offers a way of identifying terrorists via their methods, but provides a framework for punitive action against those found guilty of terrorism, offering a potential solution to the controversy this often entails – as evidenced by the current controversy over the status of the suspected terrorists currently being held by the U.S. authorities at Guantanamo Bay .
An emphasis on method over purported aims also tends to make terrorist acts appear less legitimate. In the words of one analyst: “Categories of ends, such as revolution, coup d’etat, and counter-insurgency, are far less emotive or derogatory than categories of means, such as assassination, bombings, and torture, despite the evident interdependence of means and ends.” [26] Terrorism, as a sort of catch-all for such tactics, is, as seen, a similarly vitriolic term – perhaps even more so. As such it is unsurprising that those who hold that that it is the means adopted by terrorists that distinguish them as such tend themselves to identify with the victims of terrorism. Frequently, the advocates of this approach have been on the receiving end of the violence they term terrorism. They also often represent, or belong to, those interests (usually states) which seek to maintain the status quo that the terrorist often seeks to change. [27]
On first appearance, the methods of the terrorist appear almost identical to those of the guerilla, with both bombing civilian areas, carrying out assassinations, and seizing hostages. Moreover, the same intention to influence behavior through intimidation is also present in both groups. However, guerillas differ from terrorists in that they tend to form larger, more heavily-armed organizations that control territorial zones. While groups will sometimes conduct both guerilla and terrorist campaigns, often simultaneously ? such as is currently the case with al Qaeda for instance – terrorism and guerilla warfare are not the same thing.
As this illustrates, while identifying terrorism by the methods used is perhaps the most practical means of arriving at a workable definition of the term, this is only true if general agreement can be reached as to how to differentiate terrorist means from non-terrorist means. Where such terrorist means co-exist with the political motivation discussed above, defining terrorism becomes easier. In addition, while their identity alone is insufficiently subjective a basis to help identify the perpetrators of political violence as terrorists, the identity of their victims – namely their status as ‘legitimate’ or ‘illegitimate targets’ – is not. Again, the use of such a determinant is dependent on agreement being reached as to what constitutes a non-combatant in such instances.
None of which is to say that Laqueur’s warning on the impossibility of formulating a generally agreed upon definition of terrorism is likely to become any less true any time soon. However, as argued, this does not necessarily make such a definition ? or efforts to arrive at it ? any less desirable.
Though many have been proposed, there is no consensus definition of the term "terrorism."[2][3] This in part derives from the fact that the term is politically and emotionally charged, “a word with intrinsically negative connotations that is generally applied to one's enemies and opponents.”[4] Listed below are some of the historically important understandings of terror and terrorism, and enacted but non-universal definitions of the term:
• 1795. "Government intimidation during the Reign of Terror in France." The general sense of "systematic use of terror as a policy" was first recorded in English in 1798.[5]
• 1916. Gustave LeBon: “Terrorization has always been employed by revolutionaries no less than by kings, as a means of impressing their enemies, and as an example to those who were doubtful about submitting to them...." [6]
• 1937. League of Nations convention language: "All criminal acts directed against a State and intended or calculated to create a state of terror in the minds of particular persons or a group of persons or the general public."[7]
• 1987. A definition proposed by Iran at an international Islamic conference on terrorism: “Terrorism is an act carried out to achieve an inhuman and corrupt (mufsid) objective, and involving [a] threat to security of any kind, and violation of rights acknowledged by religion and mankind.” [8]
• 1988. A proposed academic consensus definition: "Terrorism is an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by (semi-) clandestine individual, group or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal or political reasons, whereby - in contrast to assassination - the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets) from a target population, and serve as message generators."[9]
• 1989. United States: premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents.[10]
• 1992. A definition proposed by Alex P. Schmid to the United Nations Crime Branch: "Act of Terrorism = Peacetime Equivalent of War Crime."[11]
• 2002. European Union: ". . . given their nature or context, [acts which] may seriously damage a country or an international organisation where committed with the aim of seriously intimidating a population."[12]
• 2003. India: Referencing Schmid's 1992 proposal, the Supreme Court of India described terrorist acts as the "peacetime equivalents of war crimes."[13]
• 2008. Carsten Bockstette, a German military officer serving at the George C. Marshall Center for European Security Studies, proposed the following definition: “political violence in an asymmetrical conflict that is designed to induce terror and psychic fear (sometimes indiscriminate) through the violent victimization and destruction of noncombatant targets (sometimes iconic symbols)."[14]
Early terrorism
Scholars dispute whether the roots of terrorism date back to the 1st century and the Sicarii Zealots, to the 11th century and the Al-Hashshashin, to the 19th century and Narodnaya Volya, or to other eras.[15][16] The Sicarii and Hashshashin are described below, while the Narodnaya Volya is discussed in the 19th Century sub-section. Other pre-Reign of Terror historical events sometimes associated with terrorism are the Gunpowder Plot, an attempt to destroy the English Parliament in 1605,[17] and the Boston Tea Party, an attack on British property by the Sons of Liberty in 1773, three years prior to the American Revolution.
During the 1st century CE, the Jewish Zealots in Judaea Province rebelled, killing prominent collaborators with Roman rule.[15][18][19] In 6 CE, according to contemporary historian Josephus, Judas of Galilee formed a small and more extreme offshoot of the Zealots, the Sicarii ("dagger men").[20] Their efforts also directed against Jewish "collaborators," including temple priests, Sadducees, Herodians, and other wealthy elites.[21] According to Josephus, the Sicarii would hide short daggers under their cloaks, mingle with crowds at large festivals, murder their victims, and then disappear into the panicked crowds. Their most successful assassination was of the high priest Jonathan.[20]
In the late 11th century CE, the Hashshashin (a.k.a. the Assassins) arose, an offshoot of the Ismā'īlī sect of Shia Muslims.[22] Led by Hassan-i Sabbah and opposed to Fatimid rule, the Hashshashin militia seized Alamut and other fortress strongholds across Persia.[23] Hashshashin forces were too small to challenge enemies militarily, so they assassinated city governors and military commanders in order to create alliances with militarily powerful neighbors. For example, they killed Janah al-Dawla, ruler of Homs, to please Ridwan of Aleppo, and assassinated Mawdud, Seljuk emir of Mosul, as a favor to the regent of Damascus.[24] The Hashshashin also carried out assassinations as retribution.[25] Under some definitions of terrorism, such assassinations do not qualify as terrorism, since killing a political leader does not intimidate political enemies or inspire revolt.[15][20][26]
19th century
McKinley shortly before his assassination.
Terrorism was associated with the Reign of Terror in France until the mid-19th century,[27] when the term began to be associated with non-governmental groups.[28] Anarchism, often in league with rising nationalism, was the most prominent ideology linked with terrorism.[29] Attacks by various anarchist groups led to the assassination of a Russian Tsar and a U.S. President.[30]
In the 19th century, powerful, stable, and affordable explosives were developed, and the gap closed between the firepower of the state and dissidents.[31][32] Dynamite, in particular, inspired American and French anarchists and was central to their strategic thinking.[33]
In mid-19th century Russia, many grew impatient with the slow pace of Tsarist reforms, and anarchists such as Mikhail Bakunin maintained that progress was impossible without violence.[34] Founded in 1878 and inspired by Bakunin and others, Narodnaya Volya used dynamite-packed bombs to kill Russian state officials, in an effort to incite state retribution and mobilize the populace against the government.[35] Inspired by Narodnaya Volya, several nationalist groups in the ailing Ottoman Empire began using violence against public figures in the 1890s. These included the Hunchakian Revolutionary Party, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, and the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO).[36]
The United States
A cartoon threatening that the KKK will lynch carpetbaggers, in the Independent Monitor, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, 1868.
In the 1850s, John Brown (1800–1859) was an abolitionist who advocated and practiced armed opposition to slavery. Brown led a series of attacks between 1856 and 1859, the most famous in 1859 against the armory at Harpers Ferry. Local forces soon recaptured the fort and Brown was tried and executed for treason.[37] A biographer of Brown has written that his purpose was "to force the nation into a new political pattern by creating terror."[38]
After the Civil War, on December 24, 1865, six Confederate veterans created the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).[39] The KKK used violence, lynching, murder and acts of intimidation such as cross burning to oppress in particular African Americans, and created a sensation with its masked forays' dramatic nature.[40][41] The group's politics are generally perceived as white supremacy, anti-Semitism, racism, anti-Catholicism, and nativism.[40] A KKK founder boasted that it was a nationwide organization of 550,000 men and that it could muster 40,000 Klansmen within five days' notice, but as a secret or "invisible" group with no membership rosters, it was difficult to judge the Klan's actual size. The KKK has at times been politically powerful, and at various times controlled the governments of Tennessee, Oklahoma, and South Carolina, in addition to several legislatures in the South.[citation needed]
Europe
In 1867 the Irish Republican Brotherhood, a revolutionary Irish nationalist group,[42] carried out attacks in England.[43] Writer Richard English has referred to such attacks as the first acts of "republican terrorism," which would became a recurrent feature of British and Irish history. The group is considered a precursor to the Irish Republican Army.[44] The first police unit to combat terrorism Special Branch[45], or Special Irish Branch, as it was known, was a unit of London's Metropolitan Police formed in March 1883 to combat the Irish Republican Brotherhood. The name became Special Branch as the unit's remit widened.
Ignaty Gryniewietsky.
Europeans invented the "Propaganda of the deed" (or "propaganda by the deed," from the French propagande par le fait) theory, a concept that advocates physical violence or other provocative public acts against political enemies in order to inspire mass rebellion or revolution. One of the first individuals associated with this concept was the Italian revolutionary Carlo Pisacane (1818–1857), who wrote in his "Political Testament" (1857) that "ideas spring from deeds and not the other way around." Anarchist Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876), in his "Letters to a Frenchman on the Present Crisis" (1870) stated that "we must spread our principles, not with words but with deeds, for this is the most popular, the most potent, and the most irresistible form of propaganda."[46] The phrase itself was popularized by the French anarchist Paul Brousse (1844–1912), who in 1877 cited as examples the 1871 Paris Commune and a workers' demonstration in Berne provocatively using the socialist red flag.[47] By the 1880s, the slogan had begun to be used to refer to bombings, regicides and tyrannicides. Reflecting this new understanding of the term, Italian anarchist Errico Malatesta in 1895 described "propaganda by the deed" (which he opposed the use of) as violent communal insurrections meant to ignite an imminent revolution.[48]
Founded in Russia in 1878, Narodnaya Volya (Народная Воля in Russian; People's Will in English) was a revolutionary anarchist group inspired by Sergei Nechayev and "propaganda by the deed" theorist Pisacane.[15][35] The group developed ideas—such as targeted killing of the 'leaders of oppression'—that were to become the hallmark of subsequent violence by small non-state groups, and they were convinced 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[49]—enabled them to strike directly and with discrimination.[32] Attempting to spark a popular revolt against Russia's Tsars, the group killed prominent political figures by gun and bomb, and on March 13, 1881, assassinated Russia's Tsar Alexander II.[15] The assassination, by a bomb that also killed the Tsar's attacker, Ignacy Hryniewiecki, failed to spark the expected revolution, and an ensuing crackdown brought the group to an end.[50]
Individual Europeans also engaged in politically motivated violence. For example, in 1893, Auguste Vaillant, a French anarchist, threw a bomb in the French Chamber of Deputies in which one person was injured.[51] In reaction to Vaillant's bombing and other bombings and assassination attempts, the French government passed a set of laws restricting freedom of the press that were pejoratively known as the lois scélérates ("villainous laws"). From 1894 to 1896, President of France Marie Francois Carnot, Prime Minister of Spain Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, and Austria-Hungary Empress Elisabeth of Bavaria were killed by anarchists.
] The Ottoman Empire
Several nationalist groups used violence against an Ottoman Empire in apparent decline. One was the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (in Armenian Dashnaktsuthium, or "The Federation"), a revolutionary movement founded in Tiflis (Russian Transcaucasia) in 1890 by Christopher Mikaelian. Many members had been part of Narodnaya Volya or the Hunchakian Revolutionary Party.[52] The group published newsletters, smuggled arms, and hijacked buildings as it sought to bring in European intervention that would force the Ottoman Empire to surrender control of its Armenian territories.[53] On August 24, 1896, 17-year-old Babken Suni led twenty-six members in capturing the Imperial Ottoman Bank in Constantinople. The group unsuccessfully demanded the creation of an Armenian state, but backed down on a threat to blow up the bank. An ensuing security crackdown destroyed the group.[54]
Also inspired by Narodnaya Volya, the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) was a revolutionary movement founded in 1893 by Hristo Tatarchev in the Ottoman-controlled Macedonian territories.[55][56] Through assassinations and by provoking uprisings, the group sought to coerce the Ottoman government into creating a Macedonian nation.[57] On July 20, 1903, the group incited the Ilinden uprising in the Ottoman villayet of Monastir. The IMRO declared the town's independence and sent demands to the European Powers that all of Macedonia be freed.[58] The demands were ignored and Turkish troops crushed the 27,000 rebels in the town two months later.[59]
Early 20th century
Michael Collins, IRA leader
Revolutionary nationalism continued to motivate political violence in the 20th century, much of it directed against the British Empire[citation needed]. The Irish Republican Army campaigned against the British in the 1910s and inspired the Zionist groups Hagannah, Irgun and Lehi to fight the British throughout the 1930s in the Palestine mandate.[60][61] Like the IRA and the Zionist groups, the Muslim Brotherhood used bombings and assassinations to try to free Egypt from British control.[62]
Europe
Political assassinations continued into the 20th century, its first victim Umberto I of Italy, killed in July 1900. Political violence became especially widespread in Imperial Russia, and several ministers were killed in the opening years of the century. The highest ranking was prime minister Pyotr Stolypin, killed in 1911 by a leftist radical.
On June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were shot and killed in Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, by Gavrilo Princip, one of a group of six assassins. The assassinations produced widespread shock across Europe, setting in motion a series of events which led to World War I.
In an action called the Easter Rising or Easter Rebellion, on April 24, 1916, members of the Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army seized the Dublin General Post Office and several other buildings, proclaiming an independent Irish Republic.[63] The rebellion failed militarily but was a success for physical force Irish republicanism, leaders of the uprising becoming Irish heroes after their eventual execution by the British government.[64] Shortly after the rebellion, Michael Collins and others founded the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which from 1916 to 1923 carried out numerous attacks against symbols of British power. For example, it attacked over 300 police stations simultaneously just before Easter 1920,[65] and, in November 1920, publicly killed a dozen police officers and burned down the Liverpool docks and warehouses, an action that came to be known as Bloody Sunday.[66] After years of warfare, London agreed to the 1921 Anglo-Irish treaty creating a free Irish state encompassing 26 of the island's 32 counties.[67] IRA tactics were an inspiration to other groups, including the Palestine Mandate's Zionists,[68] and to British special operations during World War II.[69][70]
Bedouins seized French planes during the 1920s.[71]
Middle East
Following the 1929 Hebron massacre of sixty-seven Jewish settlers in the British Mandate of Palestine, the Zionist settlers militia Haganah transformed itself into a paramilitary force. In 1931, however, a more militant Irgun broke away from Haganah, objecting to Haganah's policy of restraint toward Arabs fighting Jewish settlers.[72] Founded by Avraham Tehomi,[73][74] Irgun sought to end British rule by assassinating police, capturing British government buildings and arms, and sabotaging British railways.[75] Its tactic of attacking Arab communities, including the bombing a crowded Arab market, is considered among the first examples of terrorism directed against civilians.[76] Irgun's best known attack was the 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, parts of which housed the headquarters of the British civil and military administrations. Ninety-one people were killed and forty-six injured in what was the most deadly attack during the Mandate era.[77] After the creation of Israel in 1948, Menachem Begin (Irgun leader from 1943 to 1948) transformed the group into the political party which later became part of Likud.[78]
The King David Hotel after the 1946 bombing
Operating in the British Mandate of Palestine in the 1930s, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam organized and established the Black Hand, an anti-Zionist militia. He recruited and arranged military training for peasants, and by 1935 had enlisted between 200 and 800 men. Al-Qassam obtained a fatwa from Shaykh Badr al-Din al-Taji al-Hasani, the Mufti of Damascus, authorizing armed resistance against the British and Jews of Palestine. Black Hand cells were equipped with bombs and firearms, which they used to kill Zionist settlers.[79][80] Although al-Qassam's revolt was unsuccessful in his lifetime, many organizations gained inspiration from his revolutionary example.[79] He became a popular hero and an inspiration to subsequent Arab militants, who in the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt, called themselves Qassamiyun, followers of al-Qassam.
Lehi (Lohameni Herut Yisrael, a.k.a. "Freedom Fighters for Israel", a.k.a. Stern Gang) was a revisionist Zionist group that splintered off from Irgun in 1940.[81] Abraham Stern formed Lehi from disaffected Irgun members after Irgun agreed to a truce with Britain in 1940.[82] Lehi assassinated prominent politicians as a strategy. For example, on November 6, 1944, Lord Moyne, the British Minister of State for the Middle East, was assassinated.[83] The act was controversial among Zionist militant groups, Hagannah sympathizing with the British and launching a massive man-hunt against members of Lehi and Irgun. After Israel's 1948 founding, Lehi was formally dissolved and its members integrated into the Israeli Defense Forces.[84]
Elsewhere
The first in-flight skyjacking took place in 1931, when a plane was commandeered by antiregime forces during a coup in Peru.[71]
World War II
The resistance movement in Europe
Some of the tactics of the guerrilla, partisan, and resistance movements organised and supplied by the Allies during World War II, according to historian M. R. D. Foot, can be considered terrorist.[85][86] Colin Gubbins, a key leader within the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), made sure the organization drew much of its inspiration from the IRA.[69][70] On the eve of D-Day, the SOE organised with the French resistance the complete destruction of the rail[87] and communication infrastructure of western France[88] perhaps the largest coordinated attack of its kind in history[citation needed]. Allied supreme commander Dwight Eisenhower later wrote that "the disruption of enemy rail communications, the harassing of German road moves and the continual and increasing strain placed on German security services throughout occupied Europe by the organised forces of Resistance, played a very considerable part in our complete and final victory".[89]
Mid-20th century
After World War II, largely successful anti-colonial campaigns were launched against the collapsing European empires, as many World War II resistance groups became militantly anti-colonial. The Viet Minh, for example, which had fought against the Japanese, now fought the returning French colonists. In the Middle East, the Muslim Brotherhood used bombings and assassinations against British rule in Egypt.[62] Also during the 1950s, the National Liberation Front (FLN) in French-controlled Algeria and the EOKA in British-controlled Cyprus waged guerrilla and open war against colonial powers.[90]
Aftermath of the 1964 Brinks Hotel bombing in Vietnam.
In the 1960s, inspired by Mao's Chinese revolution of 1949 and Castro's Cuban revolution of 1959, national independence movements in formerly colonized countries often fused nationalist and socialist impulses in the 1960s. This was the case with Spain's ETA, the Front de libération du Québec, and the Palestine Liberation Organization[clarification needed].[91]
In the late 1960s and 1970s violent leftist groups were on the rise, sympathizing with Third World guerrilla movements and seeking to spark anti-capitalist revolt. Such groups included the PKK in Turkey, Armenia's ASALA,[91] the Japanese Red Army, the German Red Army Faction, the Italian Red Brigades, and, in the U.S., the Weather Underground.[92] Nationalist groups such as the Provisional IRA and the Tamil tigers also began operations at this time.
Throughout the Cold War, both the U.S. and the Soviet Union made extensive use of violent nationalist organizations to carry on a war by proxy. For example, Soviet and Chinese military advisers provided training and support to the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War,[93] while the U.S. funded groups such as the Contras in Nicaragua.[94] Ironically, many violent Islamic militants of the late 20th and early 21st century had been funded in the 1980s by the US and the UK because they were fighting the USSR in Afghanistan.[95][96]
Middle East
Founded in 1928 as a nationalist social-welfare and political movement in British-controlled Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood in the late 1940s began to attack British soldiers and police stations.[97] Founded and led by Hassan al-Banna, it also assassinated politicians seen as collaborating with British rule,[98] most prominently Egyptian Prime Minister Nuqrashi in 1948.[99] British rule was overthrown in a 1952 military coup, and shortly thereafter the Muslim Brotherhood went underground in the face of a massive crackdown.[100] Though sometimes banned or otherwise oppressed, the group continues to exist in present-day Egypt.
The Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) was a nationalist group founded in French-controlled Algeria in 1954.[101] The group was a large-scale resistance movement against French occupation, with alleged terrorism only part of its operations. The FLN leadership was inspired by the Viet Minh rebels who had made French troops withdraw from Vietnam.[102] The FLN was one of the first anti-colonial groups to use large scale compliance violence. The FLN would establish control over a rural village and coerce its peasants to execute any French loyalists among them.[90] On the night of October 31, 1954, in a coordinated wave of seventy bombings and shootings known as the Toussaint attacks, the FLN attacked French military installations and the homes of Algerian loyalists.[103] In the following year, the group gained significant support for an uprising against loyalists in Philipville. This uprising — and the heavy-handed response by the French — convinced many Algerians to support the FLN and the independence movement.[citation needed] The FLN eventually secured Algerian independence from France in 1962, and transformed itself into Algeria's ruling party.[104]
Plaque commemorating the eleven Israeli athletes killed during the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre.
Fatah was organized as a Palestinian nationalist group in 1954, and exists today as a political party in Palestine. In 1967 it joined the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), an umbrella organization for secular Palestinian nationalist groups formed in 1964. The PLO began its own armed operations in 1965.[105] The PLO's membership is made up of separate and possibly contending paramilitary and political factions, the largest of which are Fatah, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP).[106][107] Factions of the PLO have advocated or carried out acts of terrorism.[108] Abu Iyad organized the Fatah splinter group Black September in 1970; the group is best known for seizing eleven Israeli athletes as hostages at the September 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. All the athletes and five Black September operatives died during a gun battle with the West German police, in what was later known as the Munich massacre.[109] The PFLP was founded in 1967 by George Habash,[110] and on September 6, 1970, the group hijacked three international passenger planes, landing two of them in Jordan and blowing up the third.[111] Fatah leader and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat publicly renounced terrorism in December 1988 on behalf of the PLO, but Israel has stated it has proof that Arafat continued to sponsor terrorism until his death in 2004.[112][113]
In the 1974 Ma'alot massacre 22 Israeli high school students, aged 14–16, from Safed were killed by three members of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.[114] Before reaching the school, the trio shot and killed two Arab women, a Jewish man, his pregnant wife, and their 4 year old son, and wounded several others.[115]
The People's Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI) or Mujahedin-e Khalq, is a socialist islamic group that has fought Iran's government since the Khomeini revolution. The group was originally founded to oppose capitalism and what it perceived as western exploitation of Iran under the Shah.[citation needed] The group would go on to play an important role in the Shah's overthrow but was unable to capitalize on this in the following power vacuum. The group is suspected of having a membership of between 10,000 and 30,000. The group renounced violence in 2001 but remains a proscribed terror organization in Iran and the U.S. The EU, however, has removed the group from its terror list. The PMOI is accused of supporting other groups such as the Jundallah.[citation needed]
The Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) was founded in 1975 in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War by Hagop Tarakchian and Hagop Hagopian with the help of sympathetic Palestinians. At the time, Turkey was in political turmoil, and Hagopian believed that the time was right to avenge the Armenians who died during the Armenian Genocide and to force the Turkish government to cede the territory of Wilsonian Armenia to establish a nation state also incorporating the Armenian SSR. In its Esenboga airport attack, on 7 August 1982, two ASALA rebels opened fire on civilians in a waiting room at the Esenboga International Airport in Ankara. Nine people died and 82 were injured. By 1986, the ASALA had virtually ceased all attacks.[116]
The "Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan" (Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK) was established in Turkey in 1978 as a Kurdish nationalist party. Founder Abdullah Ocalan was inspired by the Maoist theory of people's war, and like Algeria's FLN he advocated the use of compliance terror.[citation needed] The group seeks to create an independent Kurdish state consisting of parts of south-eastern Turkey, north-eastern Iraq, north-eastern Syria and north-western Iran. In 1984, the PKK transformed itself into a paramilitary organisation and launched conventional attacks as well as bombings against Turkish governmental installations. In 1999, Turkish authorities captured Öcalan. He was tried in Turkey and sentenced to life imprisonment. The PKK has since gone through a series of name changes.[117]
Europe
Founded in 1959 and still active, the Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (or ETA (Basque for "Basque Homeland and Freedom", pronounced [ˈeta])) is an armed Basque nationalist separatist organization.[118] Formed in response to General Francisco Franco's suppression of the Basque language and culture, ETA evolved from an advocacy group for traditional Basque culture into an armed Marxist group demanding Basque independence.[119] Many ETA victims are government officials, the group's first known victim a police chief killed in 1968. In 1973 ETA operatives killed Franco's apparent successor, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, by planting an underground bomb under his habitual parking spot outside a Madrid church.[120] In 1995, an ETA car bomb nearly killed Jose Maria Aznar, then the leader of the conservative Popular Party, and the same year investigators disrupted a plot to assassinate King Juan Carlos.[121] Efforts by Spanish governments to negotiate with the ETA have failed, and in 2003 the Spanish Supreme Court banned the Batasuna political party, which was determined to be the political arm of ETA.[122]
The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) was an Irish nationalist movement founded in December 1969 when several militants including Seán Mac Stíofáin broke off from the Official IRA and formed a new organization.[123] Led by Mac Stíofáin in the early 1970s and by a group around Gerry Adams since the late 1970s, the Provisional IRA sought to create an all-island Irish state. Between 1969 and 1997, during a period known as the Troubles, the group conducted an armed campaign, including bombings, gun attacks, assassinations and even a mortar attack on 10 Downing Street.[124] On July 21, 1972, in an attack later known as Bloody Friday, the group set off twenty-two bombs, killing nine and injuring 130. On July 28, 2005, the Provisional IRA Army Council announced an end to its armed campaign.[125][126] The IRA is believed to have been a major exporter of arms to and provided military training to groups such as the FARC in Colombia[127] and the PLO.[128] In the case of the latter there has been a long held solidarity movement, which is evident by the many murals around Belfast.[129]
Ulrike Meinhof
The Red Army Faction (RAF) was a New Leftist group founded in 1968 by Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof in West Germany. Inspired by Che Guevara, Maoist socialism, and the Vietcong, the group sought to raise awareness of the Vietnamese and Palestinian independence movements through kidnappings, taking embassies hostage, bank robberies, assassinations, bombings, and attacks on U.S. air bases. The group is best known for 1977's "German Autumn". The buildup leading to German Autumn began on April 7, when the RAF shot Federal Prosecutor Siegfried Buback. On July 30, it shot Jurgen Ponto, then head of the Dresdner Bank, in a failed kidnapping attempt; on September 5, the group kidnapped Hanns Martin Schleyer (a former SS officer and an important West German industrialist), executing him on October 19.[130] The hijacking of the Lufthansa jetliner "Landshut" by the PFLP, a Palestinian group, is also considered to be part of German Autumn.[citation needed]
The Red Brigades were a New Leftist group founded by Renato Curcio and Alberto Franceschini in 1970 that sought to create a revolutionary state. The group carried out a series of bombings and kidnappings until Curcio and Franceschini were arrested in the mid-1970s. Their successor as leader, Mario Moretti, led the group toward more militarized and violent actions, including the kidnapping of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro on March 16, 1978. Moro was killed 56 days later. This led to an all-out assault on the group by Italian law enforcement and security forces and condemnation from Italian left-wing radicals and even imprisoned ex-leaders of the Brigades. The group lost most of its social support and public opinion turned strongly against it. In 1984, the group split, the majority faction becoming the Communist Combatant Party (Red Brigades-PCC) and the minority faction reconstituting itself as the Union of Combatant Communists (Red Brigades-UCC). Members of these groups carried out a handful of assassinations before almost all were arrested in 1989.[131]
The Americas
The Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) was a Marxist nationalist group that sought to create an independent, socialist Quebec.[132] Georges Schoeters founded the group in 1963 and was inspired by Che Guevara and Algeria's FLN.[133] The group was accused of bombings, kidnappings, and assassinations of politicians, soldiers, and civilians.[134] On October 5, 1970, the FLQ kidnapped James Richard Cross, the British Trade Commissioner, and on October 10, the Minister of Labor and Vice-Premier of Quebec, Pierre Laporte. Laporte was killed a week later. After these events support for violence in order to attain Quebec independence declined, and support increased for the Parti Québécois, which took power in Quebec in 1976.[135]
In Colombia several paramilitary and guerrilla groups formed during the 1960s and afterwards. In 1983, President Fernando Belaúnde Terry of Peru described armed attacks on his nation's anti-narcotics police as "narcoterrorism", i.e., which refers to "violence waged by drug producers to extract political concessions from the government."[136] Pablo Escobar's ruthless violence in his dealings with the Colombian and Peruvian governments has been probably one of the best known and best documented examples of narcoterrorism.[citation needed] Paramilitary groups associated with narcoterrorism include the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), and the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC). While the ELN and FARC were originally leftist revolutionary groups and the AUC was originally a right-wing paramilitary, all have conducted numerous attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, and the U.S. and some European governments consider them terrorist organizations.[137][138]
The Jewish Defense League (JDL) was founded in 1969 by Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York City, with its declared purpose the protection of Jews from harassment and antisemitism.[139] Federal Bureau of Investigation statistics state that, from 1980 to 1985, 15 attacks the FBI classified as acts of terrorism were attempted in the U.S. by members of the JDL.[140] The National Consortium for the Study of Terror and Responses to Terrorism states that, during the JDL's first two decades of activity, it was an "active terrorist organization.".[139][141] Kahane later founded the far-right Israeli political party Kach, which was banned from elections in Israel on the ground of racism.[142] The JDL's present-day website condemns all forms of terrorism.[143]
The Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional (FALN, "Armed Forces of National Liberation") is a nationalist group founded in Puerto Rico in 1974. Over the decade that followed the group used bombings and targeted killings of civilians and police in pursuit of an independent Puerto Rico. The FALN in 1975 took responsibility for four nearly simultaneous bombings in New York City.[144] The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has classified the FALN as a terrorist organization.[145]
The Weather Underground (a.k.a. the Weathermen) began as a militant faction of the leftist Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) organization, and in 1969 took over the organization. Weathermen leaders, inspired by China's Maoists, the Black Panthers, and the 1968 student revolts in France, sought to raise awareness of its revolutionary anti-capitalist and anti-Vietnam War platform by destroying symbols of government power. From 1969 to 1974 the Weathermen bombed corporate offices, police stations, and Washington government sites such as the Pentagon. After the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, most of the group disbanded.[146]
Asia
The Japanese Red Army was founded by Fusako Shigenobu in Japan in 1971 and attempted to overthrow the Japanese government and start a world revolution. Allied with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the group committed assassinations, hijacked a commercial Japanese aircraft, and sabotaged a Shell oil refinery in Singapore. On May 30, 1972, Kōzō Okamoto and other group members launched a machine gun and grenade attack at Israel's Lod Airport in Tel Aviv, killing 26 people and injuring 80 others. Two of the three attackers then killed themselves with grenades.[147]
Founded in 1976, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, (also called "LTTE" or Tamil Tigers) was a militant Tamil nationalist political and paramilitary organization based in northern Sri Lanka.[148] From its founding by Velupillai Prabhakaran, it waged a secessionist resistance campaign that sought to create an independent Tamil state in the northern and eastern regions of Sri Lanka.[149] The conflict originated in measures the majority Sinhalese took that were perceived as attempts to marginalize the Tamil minority.[150] The resistance campaign evolved into the Sri Lankan Civil War, one of the longest-running armed conflicts in Asia.[151] The group carried out many bombings, including an April 21, 1987, car bomb attack at a Colombo bus terminal that killed 110 people.[152] In 2009 the Sri Lankan military launched a major military offensive against the secessionist movement and claimed that it had effectively destroyed the LTTE.
Africa
Founded in 1961, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) was the military wing of the African National Congress; it waged a guerrilla campaign against the South African apartheid regime and was responsible for many bombings.[153] MK launched its first guerrilla attacks against government installations on 16 December 1961. South Africa subsequently banned the group after classifying it as a terrorist organization. MK's first leader was Nelson Mandela, who was tried and imprisoned for the group's acts.[154] With the end of apartheid in South Africa, Umkhonto we Sizwe was incorporated into the South African armed forces.
Late 20th century
In the 1980s and 1990s, Islamic militancy in pursuit of religious and political goals increased,[citation needed] many militants drawing inspiration from Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution.[155] In the 1990s, well-known violent acts that targeted civilians were the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway by Aum Shinrikyo and the bombing of Oklahoma City's Murrah Federal Building. This period also saw the rise of what is sometimes categorised as Single issue terrorism. If terrorism is the extension of domestic politics by other means, just as war is for diplomacy, then this represents the extension of pressure groups into violent action. Notable examples that grow in this period are Eco-terrorism and Anti-abortion terrorism.
The Americas
The Contras were a counter-revolutionary militia formed in 1979 to oppose Nicaragua's Sandinista government. The Catholic Institute for International Relations asserted the following about contra operating procedures in 1987: "The record of the contras in the field... is one of consistent and bloody abuse of human rights, of murder, torture, mutilation, rape, arson, destruction and kidnapping."[156] Americas Watch - subsequently folded into Human Rights Watch - accused the Contras of targeting health care clinics and health care workers for assassination; kidnapping civilians, torturing civilians; executing civilians, including children, who were captured in combat; raping women; indiscriminately attacking civilians and civilian houses; seizing civilian property; and burning civilian houses in captured towns.[157] The contras disbanded after the election of Violetta Chamorro in 1990.[158]
In 1985, Air India Flight 182 flying from Canada was blown up by a bomb while in Irish airspace, killing 329 people, including 280 Canadian citizens, mostly of Indian birth or descent, and 22 Indians.[159] The incident was the deadliest act of air terrorism before 9/11, and the first bombing of a 747 Jumbo Jet which would set a pattern for future air terrorism plots. The crash occurred within an hour of the fatal Narita Airport Bombing which also originated from Canada without the passenger for the bag that exploded on the ground. Evidence from the explosions, witnesses and wiretaps of militants pointed to an attempt to actually blow up two airliners simultaneously by members of the Babbar Khalsa Khalistan movement militant group based in Canada to punish India for attacking the Golden Temple.
The April 19, 1995, Oklahoma City bombing was directed at the U.S. government, according to the prosecutor at the murder trial of Timothy McVeigh, who was convicted of carrying out the crime.[160] The bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City claimed 168 lives and left over 800 injured.[161] McVeigh, who was convicted of first degree murder and executed, said his motivation was revenge for U.S. government actions at Waco and Ruby Ridge.[162]
Middle East
Explosion at U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, 1983
Hezbollah ("Party of God") is an Islamist movement and political party founded in Lebanon shortly after that country's 1982 civil war. Inspired by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the Iranian revolution, the group originally sought an Islamic revolution in Lebanon and has long fought for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon. Led by Sheikh Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah since 1992, the group has kidnapped Israeli soldiers and carried out missile attacks and suicide bombings against Israeli military and civilian targets.[163] Between 1982 and 1986, there were 36 suicide attacks in Lebanon directed against American, French and Israelis forces by 41 individuals with predominantly leftist political beliefs and of both major religions,[164] killing 659. The 1983 Beirut barracks bombing (by the Islamic Jihad Organization), which killed more than 200 U.S. marines at their barracks in Beirut, was particularly deadly.[165] Hezbollah denied involvement in any of the attacks.[166][167][168]
Egyptian Islamic Jihad (a.k.a. Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiyya) is a militant Egyptian Islamist movement dedicated to the establishment of an Islamic state in Egypt. The group formed in 1980 as an umbrella organization for militant student groups formed after the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood renounced violence. It is led by Omar Abdel-Rahman, who has been accused of participation in the World Trade Center 1993 bombings. In 1981, the group assassinated Egyptian president Anwar Sadat. On November 17, 1997, in what became known as the Luxor massacre, it attacked tourists at the Temple of Hatshepsut (Deir el-Bahri); six men dressed as police machine-gunned 58 Japanese and European vacationers and four Egyptians.[169]
Nose section of Pan Am Flight 103
On December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103, a Pan American World Airways flight from London's Heathrow International Airport to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, was destroyed mid flight over the Scottish town of Lockerbie. On January 31, 2001, Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted by a panel of three Scottish judges of bombing the flight, and was sentenced to 27 years imprisonment. In 2002 Libya offered financial compensation to victims' families in exchange for lifting of UN and U.S. sanctions. In 2007 Megrahi was granted leave to appeal against his conviction, and in August 2009 was released on compassionate grounds by the Scottish executive due to his terminal cancer.[170]
The first Palestinian suicide attack took place in 1989 when a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad ignited a bomb onboard Tel Aviv bus, killing 16 people.[171] In the early 1990s another group, Hamas, also became well known for suicide bombings. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi and Mohammad Taha of the Palestinian wing of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood had created Hamas in 1987, at the beginning of the First Intifada, an uprising against Israeli rule in the Palestinian Territories that featured little deadly violence.[172] Hamas's militia, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, began its own suicide bombings against Israel in 1993, eventually accounting for about 40% of them.[173] The Brigades ceased suicide attacks in 2005 and renounced them in April 2006.[174] They have also been responsible for Israel-targeted rocket attacks, IED attacks, and shootings, but reduced most of those operations by 2006.[175] After winning legislative elections, Hamas since June 2007 has governed the Gaza portion of the Palestinian Territories.[176]
Flag of Kach and Kahane Chai.
February 25, 1994, Baruch Goldstein, an American-born Israeli physician, perpetrated the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre in the city of Hebron, Goldstein shot and killed between 30 and 54 Muslim worshippers inside the Ibrahimi Mosque (within the Cave of the Patriarchs), and wounded another 125 to 150.[177] Goldstein, who was lynched and killed in the mosque,[177] was a supporter of Kach, an Israeli political party founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane that advocated the expulsion of Arabs from Israel and the Palestinian Territories.[178] In the aftermath of the Goldstein attack and Kach statements praising it, Kach was outlawed in Israel.[178] Today, Kach and a breakaway group, Kahane Chai, are considered terrorist organisations by Israel,[179] Canada,[180] the European Union,[181] and the United States.[182]
Asia
Aum Shinrikyo, now known as Aleph, was a Japanese religious group founded by Shoko Asahara in 1984 as a yogic meditation group. Later, in 1990, Asahara and 24 other members campaigned for election to the House of Representatives under the banner of Shinri-tō (Supreme Truth Party). None were voted in, and the group began to militarize. Between 1990 and 1995, the group attempted several apparently unsuccessful violent attacks using the methods of biological warfare, using botulin toxin and anthrax spores.[183] On June 28, 1994, Aum Shinrikyo members released sarin gas from several sites in the Kaichi Heights neighborhood of Matsumoto, Japan, killing eight and injuring 200 in what became known as the Matsumoto incident.[183] Seven months later, on March 20, 1995, Aum Shinrikyo members released sarin gas in a coordinated attack on five trains in the Tokyo subway system, killing 12 commuters and damaging the health of about 5,000 others[184] in what became known as the subway sarin incident (地下鉄サリン事件, chikatetsu sarin jiken). In May 1995, Asahara and other senior leaders were arrested and the group's membership rapidly decreased.
Europe
Hostage crisis victim photos, on the walls of the former School Number One
Chechnyan separatists, led by Shamil Basayev, carried out several attacks on Russian targets between 1994 and 2006.[185] In the June 1995 Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis, Basayev-led separatists took over 1,000 civilians hostage in a hospital in the southern Russian city of Budyonnovsk. When Russian special forces attempted to free the hostages, 105 civilians and 25 Russian troops were killed.[186]
21st century
Major events after the September 11 attacks in 2001 include the Moscow Theatre Siege, the 2003 Istanbul bombings, the Madrid train bombings, the Beslan school hostage crisis, the 2005 London bombings, the October 2005 New Delhi bombings, the 2008 Mumbai Hotel Siege, and the 2011 Norway attacks.
Europe
The Moscow theatre hostage crisis was the seizure of a crowded Moscow theatre on 23 October 2002 by some 40 to 50 armed Chechens who claimed allegiance to the Islamist militant separatist movement in Chechnya. They took 850 hostages and demanded the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya and an end to the Second Chechen War. The siege was officially led by Movsar Barayev. After a two-and-a-half day siege, Russian Spetsnaz forces pumped an unknown chemical agent (thought to be fentanyl, 3-methylfentanyl), into the building's ventilation system and raided it.[187] Officially, 39 of the attackers were killed by Russian forces, along with at least 129 and possibly many more of the hostages (including nine foreigners). All but a few of the hostages who died were killed by the gas pumped into the theatre,[188][188][189] and many condemned use of the gas as heavy handed.[190] Roughly, 170 people died in all.
On September 1, 2004, in what became known as the Beslan school hostage crisis, 32 Chechnyan separatists took 1,300 children and adults hostage at Beslan's School Number One. When Russian authorities did not comply with the rebel demands that Russian forces withdraw from Chechnya, 20 adult male hostages were shot. After two days of stalled negotiations, Russian special forces stormed the building. In the ensuing melee, over 300 hostages died, along with 19 Russian servicemen and all but perhaps one of the rebels. Basayev is believed to have participated in organizing the attack.[191][clarification needed]
Middle East
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden, closely advised by Egyptian Islamic Jihad leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, in 1988 founded Al-Qaeda (Arabic: القاعدة, meaning "The Base"), an Islamic jihadist movement to replace Western-controlled or dominated Muslim countries with Islamic fundamentalist regimes.[192] In pursuit of that goal, bin Laden issued a 1996 manifesto that vowed violent jihad against U.S. military forces based in Saudi Arabia.[193] On August 7, 1998, individuals associated with Al Qaeda and Egyptian Islamic Jihad carried out simultaneous bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa which resulted in 224 deaths.[194] On October 12, 2000, Al-Qaeda carried out the USS Cole bombing, a suicide bombing of the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Cole harbored in the Yemeni port of Aden. The bombing killed seventeen U.S. sailors.[195] The group's most well known attack, however, took place on September 11, 2001.
September 11, 2001 - The towers of the World Trade Center burn.
On September 11, 2001, nineteen men affiliated with al-Qaeda hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners, crashing two of them into the World Trade Center in New York City and one into the Pentagon.[196][197] As a result of the attacks, the World Trade Center's twin towers completely collapsed, and 2,973 victims and the 19 hijackers died.[198]
The United States responded to the attacks by launching the War on Terror. Specifically, on October 7, 2001, it invaded Afghanistan to depose the Taliban, which had harbored al-Qaeda terrorists. On October 26, 2001, the U.S. enacted the Patriot Act, anti-terrorism legislation that expanded the powers of U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Many countries followed with similar legislation.
On Israel's northern border, after its unilateral withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000, Hezbollah launched numerous Katyusha rocket attacks against non-civilian and civilian areas within northern Israel.[199] Within Israel, the 1993–2008 Second Intifada involved in part a series of suicide bombings against civilian and non-civilian targets.[200] A 2007 study of Palestinian suicide bombings from September 2000 through August 2005 found that 40% percent were carried out by Hamas's Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, and roughly 26% by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and Fatah militias.[200][201] Also, between 2001 and January 2009, over 8,600 rocket attacks were launched from the Gaza Strip were launched into civilian areas and non-civilian areas inside Israel, causing deaths, injuries, and psychological trauma.[202][203][204]
Formed in 2003, Jundallah is a Sunni insurgent group from the Baloch region of Iran and neighboring Pakistan. It has committed numerous attacks within Iran, stating that it is fighting for the rights of the Sunni minority there. In 2005 the group attempted to assassinate Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.[205] The group takes credit for other bombings, including the 2007 Zahedan bombings. Iran and other sources accuse the group of being a front for or supported by other nations, in particular the U.S. and Pakistan.[206][207]
Asia
The 2008 Mumbai attacks were more than ten coordinated shooting and bombing attacks across Mumbai, India's largest city, by Islamic terrorists[208][209] from Pakistan.[210] The attacks, which drew widespread condemnation across the world, began on 26 November 2008 and lasted until 29 November, killing at least 173 people and wounding at least 308.[211][212][213]
Americas
2001 also saw the first act of Bioterror with the 2001 anthrax attacks when letters carrying anthrax spores were posted to several major American media outlets and two Democratic politicians. There were several fatalities.
Table of non-state groups accused of terrorism
NAME LOCATION FOUNDED CEASED ATTACKS FOUNDER SUBSEQUENT LEADERS TACTICS FAMOUS ATTACK INFLUENCED BY ACCUSED OF TERRORISM BY
Narodnaya Volya
Russian Empire
1878 1883 bombings, assassinations Assassinated Tsar Alexander II, 1881
Hunchakian Revolutionary Party
Ottoman Empire
1887 1896 Avetis Nazarbekian
Destroyed Ottoman coat of arms, 1890 Narodnaya Volya
Armenian Revolutionary Federation
Ottoman Empire
1890 1897 Christopher Mikaelian Held hostages at Ottoman Bank, 1896 Hunchakian Revolutionary Party
Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization
Ottoman Empire
1893 1903 Hristo Tatarchev
Led Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising, 1903
Narodnaya Volya
Irish Republican Army
Ireland
1916 1923 Eamon de Valera
Michael Collins
Kilmichael Ambush, 1920
Irish Republican Brotherhood;
United Kingdom
Irgun
British Mandate Palestine
1931 1948 Avraham Tehomi
Menachem Begin
bombings King David Hotel bombing, 1946
Irish Republican Army
Lehi
British Mandate Palestine
1940 1948 Abraham Stern
Yitzhak Shamir
assassinations Lord Moyne assassination, 1944 Irish Republican Army
Muslim Brotherhood
Egypt
1928 Hassan al-Banna
assassinations Assassinated former PM Mahmud Fahmi al-Nuqrashi, 1948
Front de Liberation National
Algeria
1954 1962 Toussaint Rouge attacks, 1954 Indochina rebels
EOKA
Cyprus
1955 1959 George Grivas
ETA
Spain 1959 bombings, assassinations Assassinated "President" Blanco, 1978
Fatah
Palestine
1959 Yasser Arafat
Munich Olympics massacre, 1972
Algerian rebels
PLO
Palestine
1964 Yasser Arafat
1978 Coastal Road massacre
PFLP
Palestine
1967 Black September skyjacking, 1970 Che Guevara
PFLP-GC
Palestine
1968 Hangglider shooting, 1970
DFLP
Palestine
1969 Avivim school bus massacre, 1970
Front de libération du Québec
Quebec
1963 1971 Georges Schoeters
bombings, kidnappings, assassinations October Crisis kidnappings, 1970 Che Guevara; the FLN
Provisional IRA
Ireland 1969 2005 Seán Mac Stíofáin
bombings, assassinations Bloody Friday bombings, 1972
Ulster Defence Association (UDA)
Ireland
1972 Johnny Adair
assassinations, mass shootings Castlerock killings, 1993 & Greysteel massacre, 1993
Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), Democratic Unionist Party (DUP)
Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF)
Ireland
1966 Gusty Spence
assassinations, bombings Dublin and Monaghan Bombings, 1974 & Loughinisland massacre, 1994
Ulster Unionist Party (UUP)
FALN
Puerto Rico
1974 bombings Four NYC bombs, 1975
ASALA
Turkey
1975 1986 Hagop Tarakchian
Attack on Ankara airport, 1982
PKK
Turkey
1978 Abdullah Ocalan
Başbağlar massacre
Mao Zedong; FLN[citation needed]
Red Army Faction
Germany 1968 1998 Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof
German Autumn killings, 1977 Che Guevara; Mao Zedong; Vietcong
Weathermen
U.S.A.
1969 1977 Chicago police statue bombing, 1969 Mao Zedong; Black Panthers
Italian Red Brigade
Italy 1970 1989 Renato Curcio
Assassinated former Prime Minister Aldo Moro, 1978
Japanese Red Army
Japan 1971 2001 Fusako Shigenobu
Lod Airport Massacre, 1972
Tamil Tigers
Sri Lanka
1976 Columbus bus terminal bombing, 1987
Hezbollah
Lebanon
1982 Hassan Nasrallah
April 1983 U.S. Embassy bombing, 1983 Beirut barracks bombing
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
Egyptian Islamic Jihad
Egypt
1980 Omar Abdel-Rahman
Luxor massacre, 1997
Hamas
Gaza
1987 Sheikh Ahmed Yassin
Passover massacre, Sbarro restaurant suicide bombing
Muslim Brotherhood
Al-Qaeda
Saudi Arabia
1988 Osama bin Laden
9/11 attacks, 2001
East Turkestan Liberation Organization
China 1990
Aum Shinrikyo
Japan 1990 1995 Shoko Asahara
Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, 1995
Lashkar-e-Taiba
Pakistan 1991 Mumbai train bombings, 2006 and 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Chechnyan Separatists
Russia 1994 Shamil Basayev
Beslan school hostage crisis, 2004
Jundallah
Iran
2003 Abdolmalek Rigi
Zahedan bombings, 2007
References
1. ^ Paul Reynolds, quoting David Hannay, Former UK ambassador (14 September 2005). "UN staggers on road to reform". BBC News. Retrieved 2010-01-11. "This would end the argument that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter..."
2. ^ Jeffrey Record. Bounding the Global War on Terrorism, December 1, 2003, ISBN 1-58487-146-6. p. 6 (page 12 of the PDF document) citing in footnote 11: Walter Laqueur, The New Terrorism: Fanaticism and the Arms of Mass Destruction, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 6.
3. ^ Angus Martyn, The Right of Self-Defence under International Law-the Response to the Terrorist Attacks of 11 September, Australian Law and Bills Digest Group, Parliament of Australia Web Site, February 12, 2002
4. ^ Hoffman (1998), p. 32, See review in The New York TimesInside Terrorism
5. ^ [1]
6. ^ Gustave LeBon, The Psychology of the Great War, 1916, p. 391. Google Books: [2]
7. ^ from Criminology, by Larry Siegel, p. 328. Google Books
8. ^ [3]
9. ^ "Definitions of Terrorism". United Nations. Archived from the original on 2007-01-29. Retrieved 2007-07-10.
10. ^ U.S. Code Title 22, Ch.38, Para. 2656f(d)
11. ^ Criminology, by Larry Siegel, p. 328. Google Books
12. ^ Art. 1 of the Framework Decision on Combating Terrorism (2002)
13. ^ Schmid's definition of terrorism was adopted in a 2003 ruling (Madan Singh vs. State of Bihar); See http://www.sacw.net/hrights/judgementjehanabad.doc
14. ^ Bockstette, Carsten (2008). "Jihadist Terrorist Use of Strategic Communication Management Techniques" (PDF). George C. Marshall Center Occasional Paper Series (20). ISSN 1863-6039. Retrieved 2009-01-01.[dead link]
15. ^ a b c d e History of Terrorism article by Mark Burgess
16. ^ Hoffman, Bruce. Inside Terrorism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988. p. 17
17. ^ http://www.berr.gov.uk/fireworks/download/FW1434_Keystage2_07.pdf
18. ^ Hoffman, Bruce. Inside Terrorism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988. p. 83
19. ^ Chaliand, Gerard. The History of Terrorism: From Antiquity to al Qaeda. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. p.56
20. ^ a b c Chaliand, Gerard. The History of Terrorism: From Antiquity to al Qaeda. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. p.68
21. ^ Hoffman, Bruce. Inside Terrorism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988. p. 167
22. ^ Rapoport, David. "Fear and Trembling: Terrorism in Three Religious Traditions." American Political Science Review, 1984. p.658
23. ^ Willey, Peter. The Castles of the Assassins. New York: Linden Press, 2001. p.19
24. ^ Daftary, Farhad. The Assassin Legends: Myths of the Isma'ilis. London: I. B. Tauris, 1995. p.42
25. ^ Hodgson, Marshall G. S. The Secret Order of Assassins: The Struggle of the Early Nizari Ismai'lis Against the Islamic World. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005. p.83
26. ^ Hoffman, Bruce. Inside Terrorism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988. p. 84
27. ^ Furstenberg, François (October 28, 2007). "Bush's Dangerous Liaisons". The New York Times. Retrieved May 4, 2010.
