Name: Apoorv Salar Roll No: 03613403819 Subject: Political Science-II Section: A Topic: International Terrorism

Name: Apoorv Salar
Roll No: 03613403819

Subject: Political Science-II
Section: A
Topic: International Terrorism
International Terrorism
Terrorism, the calculated use of violence to create a
general climate of fear in a population and thereby to
bring about a particular political objective. Terrorism
has been practiced by political organizations with
both rightist and leftist objectives, by nationalistic and
religious groups, by revolutionaries, and even by state
institutions such as armies, intelligence services, and
police
Types of terrorism
One popular typology identifies three broad classes
of terrorism: revolutionary, subrevolutionary, and
establishment. Although this typology has been
criticized as inexhaustive, it provides a useful
framework for understanding and evaluating
terrorist activities.
Revolutionary Terrorism
• Revolutionary terrorism is arguably the most
common form.
• Practitioners of this type of terrorism seek the
complete abolition of a political system and its
replacement with new structures.
• Modern instances of such activity include campaigns
by the Italian Red Brigades, the German Red Army
Faction (Baader-Meinhof Gang), the Basque separatist
group ETA, the Peruvian Shining Path (Sendero
Luminoso), and The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria [ISIS].
Subrevolutionary terrorism
• Subrevolutionary terrorism is rather less
common.
• It is used not to overthrow an existing regime but
to modify the existing sociopolitical structure.
• Since this modification is often accomplished
through the threat of deposing the existing regime,
subrevolutionary groups are somewhat more
difficult to identify.
• An example can be seen in the ANC and its
campaign to end apartheid in South Africa.
Establishment Terrorism
• Establishment terrorism, often called state or state-sponsored
terrorism, is employed by governments—or more often by
factions within governments—against that government’s
citizens, against factions within the government, or against
foreign governments or groups.
• This type of terrorism is very common but difficult to identify,
mainly because the state’s support is always clandestine.
• The Soviet Union and its allies allegedly engaged in widespread
support of international terrorism during the Cold War; in the
1980s the United States supported rebel groups in Africa that
allegedly engaged in acts of terrorism, such as UNITA (the
National Union for the Total Independence of Angola etc.
History Of International
Terrorism
• The ancient Greek historian Xenophon (c. 431–c. 350 BCE)
wrote of the effectiveness of psychologica warfare against
enemy populations. Roman emperors such
as Tiberius (reigned 14–37 CE) and Caligula (reigned 37–
41 CE) used banishment, expropriation of property, and
execution as means to discourage opposition to their rule.
• The most commonly cited example of early terror,
however, is the activity of the Jewish Zealots, often known
as the Sicarii who engaged in frequent violent attacks on
fellow Hebrews suspected of collusion with the Roman
authorities.
• Technological advances, such as automatic weapons and
compact, electrically detonated explosives, gave terrorists
a new mobility and lethality, and the growth of air
travel provided new methods and opportunities in the
20th century
• Terrorism was virtually an official policy

in totalitarian states such as those of Nazi Germany
under Adolf Hitler and the Soviet Union under Stalin. In
these states arrest, imprisonment, torture, and execution
were carried out without legal guidance or restraints to
create a climate of fear and to encourage adherence to
the national ideology and the declared economic, social,
and political goals of the state.
• Terror has been used by one or both sides in anticolonial conflicts
(e.g., those between Ireland and the United Kingdom,
between Algeria and France, and between Vietnam and France and
the United States).
• In disputes between different national groups over possession of a

contested homeland (e.g., that between Palestinians and Israelis),
in conflicts between different religious denominations (e.g., that
between Roman Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland),
and in internal conflicts between revolutionary forces and
established governments (e.g., those within the successor states of
the former Yugoslavia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Nicaragua, El
Salvador, and Peru).
• In the late 20th and early 21st centuries some of the most extreme
and destructive organizations that engaged in terrorism possessed
a fundamentalist religious ideology (e.g., Hamas and al-Qaeda).
• In the late 20th century the United States suffered several
acts of terrorist violence by Puerto Rican nationalists (such
as the FALN), antiabortion groups, and foreign-based
organizations.
• The 1990s witnessed some of the deadliest attacks on

American soil, including the bombing of the World Trade
Center in New York City in 1993 and the Oklahoma City
bombing two years later, which killed 168 people. In
addition, there were several major terrorist attacks on U.S.
government targets overseas, including military bases
in Saudi Arabia (1996) and the U.S. embassies in Kenya and
Tanzania (1998). In 2000 an explosion triggered by suicide
bombers caused the deaths of 17 sailors aboard a
U.S. naval ship, the USS Cole, in the Yemeni port of Aden.
• The deadliest terrorist strikes to date were
the September 11 attacks (2001), in which suicide
terrorists associated with al-Qaeda hijacked four
commercial airplanes, crashing two of them into
the twin towers of the World Trade Center
complex in New York City and the third into
the Pentagon building near Washington, D.C.; the
fourth plane crashed near Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania.
• The crashes destroyed much of the World Trade

Center complex and a large portion of one side of
the Pentagon and killed more than 3,000 people.
• Terrorism appears to be an enduring feature of political
life. Even prior to the September 11 attacks, there was
widespread concern that terrorists might escalate their
destructive power to vastly greater proportions by
using weapons of mass destruction—
including nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons—as
did the Japanese doomsday cult AUM Shinrikyo, which
released nerve gas into a Tokyo subway in 1995.
• These fears were intensified after September 11, when a
number of letters contaminated with anthrax were
delivered to political leaders and journalists in the United
States, leading to several deaths. U.S. Pres. George W.
Bush made a broad “war against terrorism” the
centrepiece of U.S. foreign policy at the beginning of the
21st century.
FIN

Name: Apoorv Salar Roll No: 03613403819 Subject: Political Science-II Section: A Topic: International Terrorism

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Name: Apoorv Salar Roll No: 03613403819 Subject: Political Science-II Section: A Topic: International Terrorism

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Name: Apoorv Salar

Roll No: 03613403819

• Terrorism was virtually an official policy

• In disputes between different national groups over possession of a

• The 1990s witnessed some of the deadliest attacks on

• The crashes destroyed much of the World Trade

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