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Domestic & International Terrorism

Introduction:

Terrorism has continued to be a consistent worry for the world for over a century. A terrorist strike
sparked the First World War and since then, terrorist movements and incidents have dramatically
increased. Terrorism has begun to claim more casualties, the terrorists have become more systematic and
their tactics seems to be more complicated as the time passed. Furthermore, the beginning of the twenty-
first century was marred with one of the most shocking terrorist attacks of all time when Al-Qaeda hit the
World Trade Center and Pentagon, killing over 3,000 people at once which did not stop there and
continued with the bombings in Spain, Istanbul, Indonesia, London and many more places. In response to
terrorism, governments fell short of defeating terrorist movements. As a whole, the world seemed
incompetent to produce policies, programs or precautions to conquer such a large scale problem.

Defining Terrorism and Terrorists:

The word terrorism was first used in France to describe a new system of government adopted during the
French Revolution (1789-1799). The regime de la terreur (Reign of Terror) was intended to promote
democracy and popular rule by ridding the revolution of its enemies and thereby purifying it. However,
the oppression and violent excesses of the terreur transformed it into a feared instrument of the state.

From that time on, terrorism has had a decidedly negative connotation. The word, however, did not gain
wider popularity until the late 19th century when it was adopted by a group of Russian revolutionaries to
describe their violent struggle against tsarist rule. Terrorism then assumed the more familiar
antigovernment associations it has today.

Definitions of terrorism vary widely and are usually inadequate. Even terrorism researchers often neglect
to define the term other than by citing the basic U.S.

Department of State (1998) defines terrorism as ―premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated
against noncombatant targets by sub national groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence
an audience.‖

Although an act of violence that is generally regarded in the United States as an act of terrorism may not
be viewed so in another country, the type of violence that distinguishes terrorism from other types of
violence, such as ordinary crime or a wartime military action, can still be defined in terms that might
qualify as reasonably objective.

This social sciences researcher defines a terrorist action as the calculated use of unexpected, shocking,
and unlawful violence against noncombatants (including, in addition to civilians, off-duty military and
security personnel in peaceful situations) and other symbolic targets perpetrated by a clandestine
member(s) of a sub national group or a clandestine agent(s) for the psychological purpose of publicizing a
political or religious cause and/or intimidating or coercing a government(s) or civilian population into
accepting demands on behalf of the cause.

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In this study, the nouns ―terrorist‖ or ―terrorists‖ do not necessarily refer to everyone within a terrorist
organization. Large organizations, such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the
Irish Republic Army (IRA), or the Kurdistan Workers‘ Party (PKK), have many members—for example,
accountants, cooks, fund-raisers, logistics specialists, medical doctors, or recruiters—who may play only
a passive support role. This study discusses groups that have been officially designated as terrorist groups
by the U.S. Department of State. It is also important to keep in mind that perceptions of what constitutes
terrorism will differ from country to country, as well as among various sectors of a country‘s population.
Some terrorists are so committed to their cause that they freely acknowledge being terrorists. On hearing
that he had been sentenced to 240 years in prison, RamziYousef, mastermind of the WTC bombing,
defiantly proclaimed, ―I am a terrorist, and I am proud of it.‖

Etymology

A 30 January 1795 use of the word 'terrorism' in The Times, possibly the first appearance in English. The
excerpt reads: "There exists more than one system to overthrow our liberty. Fanaticism has raised every
passion; Royalism has not yet given up its hopes, and Terrorism feels bolder than ever."The term
"terrorism" comes from French terrorisme, from Latin terror, "great fear", "dread", related to the Latin
verb terrere, "to frighten". The terror cimbricus was a panic and state of emergency in Rome in response
to the approach of warriors of the Cimbri tribe in 105BC. The French National Convention declared in
September 1793 that "terror is the order of the day". The period 1793–94 is referred to as La Terreur
(Reign of Terror). Maximilien Robespierre, a leader in the French revolution proclaimed in 1794 that
―Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible.

The Committee of Public Safety agents that enforced the policies of "The Terror" were referred to as
"Terrorists".[10] The word "terrorism" was first recorded in English-language dictionaries in 1798 as
meaning "systematic use of terror as a policy".

Although the Reign of Terror was imposed by the French government, in modern times "terrorism"
usually refers to the killing of innocents by a private group in such a way as to create a media spectacle.
This meaning originated with Russian radicals in the 1870s. Sergey Nechayev, who founded People's
Retribution in 1869, described himself as a "terrorist".[12] German anarchist writer Johann Most helped
popularize the modern sense of the word by dispensing "advice for terrorists" in the 1880s.

In the late 1930s, the International community made a first attempt at defining terrorism. Article 1.1 of the
League of Nations' 1937 Convention for the prevention and punishment of Terrorism,[31] which never
entered into force, defined "acts of terrorism" as "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".

According to United States Law Code, the term ―terrorism‖ means premeditated, politically motivated
violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.

The current US national security strategy defines terrorism as "premeditated, politically motivated
violence against innocents."

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The USA PATRIOT Act defines terrorism activities as "activities that (A) involve acts dangerous to
human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the U.S. or of any state, that (B) appear to be
intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, (ii) to influence the policy of a government by
intimidation or coercion, or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination,
or kidnapping, and (C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S."

Boaz Ganor (2005) "Terrorism is the deliberate use of violence aimed against civilians in order to
achieve political ends".

Walter Laqueur (2002)"Terrorism constitutes the illegitimate use of force to achieve a political objective
when innocent people are targeted."

In this sense, after surveying the various academic definitions of terrorism, Vallis concluded that:

"Most of the formal definitions of terrorism have some common characteristics: a fundamental motive to
make political/societal changes; the use of violence or illegal force; attacks on civilian targets by
"nonstate"/"Subnational actors"; and the goal of affecting society. This finding is reflected in Blee‘s
listing of three components of terrorism:

 Acts or threats of violence;


 The communication of fear to an audience beyond the immediate victim, and;
 Political, economic, or religious aims by the perpetrator(s)."

Characteristics:

United Nations General Assembly has proposed the characteristics of terrorism as follows;

Any person commits an offence within the meaning of this Convention if that person, by any means,
unlawfully and intentionally, causes:

(a) Death or serious bodily injury to any person; or

(b) Serious damage to public or private property, including a place of public use, a State or government
facility, a public transportation system, an infrastructure facility or the environment; or

(c) Damage to property, places, facilities, or systems referred to in paragraph 1 (b) of this article, resulting
or likely to result in major economic loss.

Terrorist Group Typologies:

It is obvious that a great variety of different characteristics exist in terms of defining terrorism.
Consequently, it should be noted, as historian Richard Drake pointed out, ―no definition of terrorism can
possibly cover all the various forms of state and individual or group violence that have appeared
throughout history‖.

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This book categorizes foreign terrorist groups under one of the following four designated, somewhat
arbitrary typologies: nationalist-separatist, religious fundamentalist, new religious and social
revolutionary. This group classification is based on the assumption that terrorist groups can be
categorized by their political background or ideology. The social revolutionary category has also been
labeled ―idealist.‖ Idealistic terrorists fight for a radical cause, a religious belief, or a political ideology,
including anarchism.

A fifth typology, for right-wing terrorists, is not listed because right-wing terrorists were not specifically
designated as being a subject of this study. This is not to minimize the threat of right-wing extremists in
the United States, who clearly pose a significant terrorist threat to U.S. security, as demonstrated by the
Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995.

Approaches to terrorism:

The Multi causal Approach

Terrorism usually results from multiple causal factors—not only psychological but also economic,
political, religious, and sociological factors, among others. Because terrorism is a multi-causal
phenomenon, it would be simplistic and erroneous to explain an act of terrorism by a single cause, such as
the psychological need of the terrorist to perpetrate an act of violence.

For Paul Wilkinson (1977), the causes of revolution and political violence in general are also the causes
of terrorism. These include ethnic conflicts, religious and ideological conflicts, poverty, modernization
stresses, political inequities, lack of peaceful communications channels, traditions of violence, the
existence of a revolutionary group, governmental weakness and ineptness, erosions of confidence in a
regime, and deep divisions within governing elites and leadership groups.

The Political Approach

The root causes of terrorism can be found in influences emanating from environmental factors.
Environments conducive to the rise of terrorism include international and national environments, as well
as sub national ones such as universities, where many terrorists first become familiar with Marxist-
Leninist ideology or other revolutionary ideas and get involved with radical groups. Russell and Miller
identify universities as the major recruiting ground for terrorists.

Various examples of international and national or sub national theories of terrorism can be cited. An
example of an international environment hypothesis is the view proposed by Brian M. Jenkins (1979) that
the failure of rural guerrilla movements in Latin America pushed the rebels into the cities. Jenkins also
notes that the defeat of Arab armies in the 1967 Six-Day War caused the Palestinians to abandon hope for
a conventional military solution to their problem and to turn to terrorist attacks.

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The Organizational Approach

Some analysts, such as Crenshaw (1990: 250), take an organization approach to terrorism and see
terrorism as a rational strategic course of action decided on by a group. In her view, terrorism is not
committed by an individual. Rather, she contends that ―Acts of terrorism are committed by groups who
reach collective decisions based on commonly held beliefs, although the level of individual commitment
to the group and its beliefs varies.‖ By most accounts, the established terrorist leaders give instructions to
their lieutenants to hijack a jetliner, assassinate a particular person, bomb a U.S. Embassy, and so forth,
while leaving operational details to their lieutenants to work out. The top leader may listen to his
lieutenants‘ advice, but the top leader makes the final decision and gives the orders.

The Physiological Approach

The physiological approach to terrorism suggests that the role of the media in promoting the spread of
terrorism cannot be ignored in any discussion of the causes of terrorism. The diffusion of terrorism from
one place to another received scholarly attention in the early 1980s. David G. Hubbard (1983) takes a
physiological approach to analyzing the causes of terrorism. He discusses three substances produced in
the body under stress: norepinephrine, a compound produced by the adrenal gland and sympathetic nerve
endings and associated with the ―fight or flight‖ physiological response of individuals in stressful
situations;

The Psychological Approach

In contrast with political scientists and sociologists, the relatively few psychologists who study terrorism
are primarily interested in the micro-level of the individual terrorist or terrorist group. The psychological
approach is concerned with the study of terrorists per se, their recruitment and induction into terrorist
groups, their personalities, beliefs, attitudes, motivations, and careers as terrorists.

General hypothesis of terrorism:

If one accepts the proposition that political terrorists are made, not born, then the question is what makes
a terrorist. Although the scholarly literature on the psychology of terrorism is lacking in full-scale, it does
appear to focus on several theories. One, the Olson hypothesis, suggests that participants in revolutionary
violence predicate their behavior on a rational cost-benefit calculus. The notion that a group rationally
chooses a terrorism strategy is questionable.

Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis

The frustration-aggression hypothesis of violence is prominent in the literature. This hypothesis is based
mostly on the relative-deprivation hypothesis, as proposed by Ted Robert Gurr (1970), and reformulated
by J.C. Davies (1973) to include a gap between rising expectations and need satisfaction. Another
proponent of this hypothesis, Joseph Margolin (1977: 273-4), argues that ―much terrorist behavior is a
response to the frustration of various political, economic, and personal needs or objectives.‖ According to
Franco Ferracuti (1982), a University of Rome professor, a better approach than these and other
hypotheses, including the Marxist theory, would be a subculture theory.

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Negative Identity Hypothesis

Using Erikson‘s theory of identity formation, particularly his concept of negative identity, the late
political psychologist Jeanne N. Knutson (1981) suggests that the political terrorist consciously assumes a
negative identity. Negative identity involves a vindictive rejection of the role regarded as desirable and
proper by an individual‘s family and community. In Knutson‘s view, terrorists engage in terrorism as a
result of feelings of rage and helplessness over the lack of alternatives.

Narcissistic Rage Hypothesis

The advocates of the narcissism-aggression hypothesis include psychologists Jerrold M. Post, John W.
Crayton, and Richard M. Pearlstein. Taking the terrorists- as-mentally-ill approach, this hypothesis
concerns the early development of the terrorist. In Post‘s view, a particularly striking personality trait of
people who are drawn to terrorism ―is the reliance placed on the psychological mechanisms of
―externalization‖ and ‗splitting‘.‖ The psychology of the self is clearly very important in understanding
and dealing with terrorist behavior, as in incidents of hostage-barricade terrorism.

Terrorist Motivation:

In addition to drawing on political science and sociology, this study draws on the discipline of
psychology, an attempt is made to explain terrorist motivation and to answer questions such as who
become terrorists and what kind of individuals join terrorist groups and commit public acts of shocking
violence. Most psychological analyses of terrorists and terrorism, according to psychologist Maxwell
Taylor (1988), have attempted to address what motivates terrorists or to describe personal characteristics
of terrorists, on the assumption that terrorists can be identified by these attributes. Indeed, there appears to
be a general agreement among psychologists who have studied the subject that there is no one terrorist
mindset. This view, however, itself needs to be clarified.

The topic of the terrorist mindset was discussed at a Rand conference on terrorism coordinated by Brian
M. Jenkins in September 1980. The observations made about terrorist mindsets at that conference
considered individuals, groups, and individuals as part of a group. The discussion revealed how little was
known about the nature of terrorist mindsets, their causes and consequences, and their significance for
recruitment, ideology, leader-follower relations, organization, decision making about targets and tactics,
escalation of violence, and attempts made by disillusioned terrorists to exit from the terrorist group.
Within the field of psychology, the personality dynamics of individual terrorists, including the causes and
motivations behind the decision to join a terrorist group and to commit violent acts, have also received
attention. Other small-group dynamics that have been of particular interest to researchers include the
terrorists‘ decision-making patterns, problems of leadership and authority, target selection, and group
mindset as a pressure tool on the individual.

The social psychology of political terrorism has received extensive analysis in studies of terrorism, but the
individual psychology of political and religious terrorism has been largely ignored. A lack of data and an
apparent ambivalence among many academic researchers about the academic value of terrorism research
have contributed to the relatively little systematic social and psychological research on terrorism. A

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principal reason for the lack of psychometric studies of terrorism is that researchers have little, if any,
direct access to terrorists, even imprisoned ones.

The Process of Joining a Terrorist Group:

Individuals who become terrorists often are unemployed, socially alienated individuals who have dropped
out of society. Those with little education, such as youths in Algerian ghettos or the Gaza Strip, may try
to join a terrorist group out of boredom and a desire to have an action-packed adventure in pursuit of a
cause they regard as just. Some individuals may be motivated mainly by a desire to use their special
skills, such as bomb-making. The more educated youths may be motivated more by genuine political or
religious convictions. The person who becomes a terrorist in Western countries is generally both
intellectual and idealistic. Potential terrorist group members often start out as sympathizers of the group.
Recruits often come from support organizations, such as prisoner support groups or student activist
groups. From sympathizer, one moves to passive supporter. Often, violent encounters with police or other
security forces motivate an already socially alienated individual to join a terrorist group. Although the
circumstances vary, the end result of this gradual process is that the individual, often with the help of a
family member or friend with terrorist contacts, turns to terrorism. Membership in a terrorist group,
however, is highly selective. Over a period as long as a year or more, a recruit generally moves in a slow,
gradual fashion toward full membership in a terrorist group.

Psychologist Eric D. Shaw (1986:365) provides a strong case for what he calls ―The Personal Pathway
Model,‖ by which terrorists enter their new profession.

The components of this pathway include early socialization processes; narcissistic injuries; escalatory
events, particularly confrontation with police; and personal connections to terrorist group members, as
follows:

The personal pathway model suggests that terrorists came from a selected, at risk population, who have
suffered from early damage to their self-esteem. Their subsequent political activities may be consistent
with the liberal social philosophies of their families, but go beyond their perception of the contradiction
in their family’s beliefs and lack of social action. Family political philosophies may also serve to sensitize
these persons to the economic and political tensions inherent throughout modern society. As a group, they
appear to have been unsuccessful in obtaining a desired traditional place in society, which has
contributed to their frustration. The underlying need to belong to a terrorist group is symptomatic of an
incomplete or fragmented psychosocial identity. (In Kohut’s terms—a defective or fragmented “group
self”). Interestingly, the acts of security forces or police are cited as provoking more violent political
activity by these individuals and it is often a personal connection to other terrorists which leads to
membership in a violent group.

During the 1980s and early 1990s, thousands of foreign Muslim volunteers (14,000, according to Jane‘s
Intelligence Review)—angry, young, and zealous and from many countries, including the United States—
flocked to training camps in Afghanistan or the Pakistan-Afghan border region to learn the art of combat.
They ranged in age from 17 to 35. Some had university educations, but most were uneducated,

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unemployed youths without any prospects. Increasingly, terrorist organizations in the developing world
are recruiting younger members. The only role models for these young people to identify with are often
terrorists and guerrillas. Abu Nidal, for example, was able to recruit alienated, poor, and uneducated
youths thrilled to be able to identify themselves with a group led by a well-known but mysterious figure.

The Terrorist as Mentally Ill:

A common stereotype is that someone who commits such abhorrent acts as planting a bomb on an
airliner, detonating a vehicle bomb on a city street, or tossing a grenade into a crowded sidewalk café is
abnormal. The psychopathological orientation has dominated the psychological approach to the terrorist‘s
personality. As noted by Taylor, two basic psychological approaches to understanding terrorists have
been commonly used: the terrorist is viewed either as mentally ill or as a fanatic. For Walter Laqueur
(1977:125), ―Terrorists are fanatics and fanaticism frequently makes for cruelty and sadism.‖
Criminologist Franco Ferracuti has noted that there is ―no such thing as an isolated terrorist—that‘s a
mental case.‖ Mentally unbalanced individuals have been especially attracted to airplane hijacking. David
G. Hubbard (1971) conducted a psychiatric study of airplane hijackers in 1971 and concluded that
skyjacking is used by psychiatrically ill patients as an expression of illness. His study revealed that
skyjackers shared several common traits: a violent father, often an alcoholic; a deeply religious mother,
often a religious zealot; a sexually shy, timid, and passive personality; younger sisters toward whom the
skyjackers acted protectively; and poor achievement, financial failure, and limited earning potential.

There have been cases of certifiably mentally ill terrorists. Klaus Jünschke, a mental patient, was one of
the most ardent members of the Socialist Patients‘ Collective (SPK), a German terrorist group working
with the Baader-Meinhof Gang. Jerrold Post (1990), a leading advocate of the terrorists-as-mentally ill
approach, has his own psychological hypothesis of terrorism. According to psychologist Risto Fried, the
terrorist‘s interpersonal world is characterized by three categories of people: the terrorist‘s idealized
heroes; the terrorist‘s enemies; and people one encounters in everyday life, whom the terrorist regards as
shadow figures of no consequence.

The Terrorist as Suicidal Fanatic:

The terrorist as fanatic emphasizes the terrorist‘s rational qualities and views the terrorist as a cool,
logical planning individual whose rewards are ideological and political, rather than financial. This
approach takes into account that terrorists are often well educated and capable of sophisticated, albeit
highly biased, rhetoric and political analysis. The terrorist is often labeled as a fanatic, especially in
actions that lead to self-destruction. Although fanaticism is not unique to terrorism, it is, like ―terrorism,‖
a pejorative term. In psychological terms, the concept of fanaticism carries some implications of mental
illness, but, Taylor

(1988:97) points out, it ―is not a diagnostic category in mental illness.‖ Fanaticism, in Taylor‘s view, may
indeed ―...be part of the cluster of attributes of the terrorist.‖ However, Taylor emphasizes that the
particular cultural context in which the terrorist is operating needs to be taken into account in
understanding whether the term might be appropriate.

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Suicide Terrorists:

Deliberate self-destruction, when the terrorist‘s death is necessary in order to detonate a bomb or avoid
capture, is not a common feature of terrorism in most countries, although it happens occasionally with
Islamic fundamentalist terrorists in the Middle East and Tamil terrorists in Sri Lanka and southern India.
It is also a feature of North Korean terrorism.

The world leaders in terrorist suicide attacks are not the Islamic fundamentalists, but the Tamils of Sri
Lanka. The LTTE‘s track record for suicide attacks is unrivaled. Its suicide commandos have blown up
the prime ministers of two countries (India and Sri Lanka), celebrities, at least one naval battleship, and
have regularly used suicide to avoid capture as well as simply a means of protest. LTTE terrorists do not
dare not to carry out their irrevocable orders to use their cyanide capsules if captured. According to
scholars of Muslim culture, so-called suicide bombings, however, are seen by Islamists and Tamils alike
as instances of martyrdom, and should be understood as such. The Arabic term used is istishad, a
religious term meaning to give one‘s life in the name of Allah, as opposed to intihar, which refers to
suicide resulting from personal distress. The latter form of suicide is not condoned in Islamic teachings.

Sociological Characteristics of Terrorists in the Cold War Period:

It is fallacious to assume that one can compare characteristics of members of numerous terrorist groups in
various regions of the world and then make generalizations about these traits. For example, terrorists are
largely single young males from urban, middle-class or upper-middle-class backgrounds with some
university education would not accurately describe many members of terrorist groups operating in the
1990s. Increasingly, terrorist groups are recruiting members who possess a high degree of intellectualism
and idealism, are highly educated, and are well trained in a legitimate profession.

Age

Russell and Miller found that the average age of an active terrorist member (as opposed to a leader) was
between 22 and 25, except for Palestinian, German, and Japanese terrorists, who were between 20 and 25
years old. Another source explains that the first generation of RAF terrorists went underground at
approximately 22 to 23 years of age, and that the average age shifted to 28 to 30 years for second-
generation terrorists (June Second Movement). In summarizing the literature about international terrorists
in the 1980s, Taylor (1988) characterizes their demography as being in their early twenties and
unmarried,

In many countries wracked by ethnic, political, or religious violence in the developing world, such as
Algeria, Colombia, and Sri Lanka, new members of terrorist organizations are recruited at younger and
younger ages. In general, terrorist leaders tend to be much older.

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Educational, Occupational, and Socioeconomic Background

Terrorists in general have more than average education, and very few Western terrorists are uneducated or
illiterate. Russell and Miller found that about two thirds of terrorist group members had some form of
university training. Between 50 and 70 percent of the younger members of Latin American urban terrorist
groups were students. The Free University of Berlin was a particularly fertile recruiting ground for
Germany‘s June Second Movement and Baader-Meinhof Gang. Highly educated recruits were normally
given leadership positions, whether at the cell level or national level. Older members and leaders
frequently were professionals such as doctors, bankers, lawyers, engineers, journalists, university
professors, and midlevel government executives. Russell and Miller found that more than two-thirds of
the terrorists surveyed came from middle-class or even upper-class backgrounds.

General Traits

Terrorists are generally people who feel alienated from society and have a grievance or regard themselves
as victims of an injustice. Many are dropouts. They are devoted to their political or religious cause and do
not regard their violent actions as criminal. They are loyal to each other but will deal with a disloyal
member more harshly than with the enemy. They are people with cunning, skill, and initiative, as well as
ruthlessness. They show no fear, pity, or remorse. Terrorists have the ability to use a variety of weapons,
vehicles, and communications equipment and are familiar with their physical environment, whether it is a
747 jumbo jet or a national courthouse. A terrorist will rarely operate by himself/herself or in large
groups, unless the operation requires taking over a large building.

Marital Status

In the past, most terrorists have been unmarried. Russell and Miller found that, according to arrest
statistics, more than 75 to 80 percent of terrorists in the various regions in the late 1970s were single.
Encumbering family responsibilities are generally precluded by requirements for mobility, flexibility,
initiative, security, and total dedication to a revolutionary cause. Roughly 20 percent of foreign terrorist
group memberships apparently consisted of married couples, if Russell and Miller‘s figure on single
terrorists was accurate.

Physical Appearance

Terrorists are healthy and strong but generally undistinguished in appearance and manner. The physical
fitness of some may be enhanced by having had extensive commando training. They tend to be of
medium height and build to blend easily into crowds. They tend not to have abnormal physiognomy and
peculiar features, genetic or acquired, which would facilitate their identification. Their dress and hair
styles are inconspicuous. In addition to their normal appearance, they talk and behave like normal people.

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Origin: Rural or Urban

Guerrilla/terrorist organizations have tended to recruit members from the areas where they are expected to
operate because knowing the area of operation is a basic principle of urban terrorism and guerrilla
warfare. According to Russell and

Miller, about 90 percent of the Argentine ERP and Montoneros came from the Greater Buenos Aires area.
Most of Marighella‘s followers came from Recife, Rio de Janeiro, Santos, and São Paulo. More than 70
percent of the Tupamaros were natives of Montevideo. Most German and Italian terrorists were from
urban areas: the Germans from Hamburg and West Berlin; the Italians from Genoa, Milan, and Rome.

Gender: Males

Most terrorists are male. Well over 80 percent of terrorist operations in the 1966-

76 periods were directed, led, and executed by males. The number of arrested female terrorists in Latin
America suggested that female membership was less than 16 percent. The role of women in Latin
American groups such as the Tupamaros was limited to intelligence collection, serving as couriers or
nurses, maintaining safe houses, and so forth.

Gender: Females

Practicality, Coolness: - German intelligence officials told Eileen MacDonald that ―absolute
practicality...was particularly noticeable with women revolutionaries.‖ By this apparently was meant
coolness under pressure. According to Christian Lochte, the Hamburg director of the Office for the
Protection of the Constitution, the most important qualities that a female member could bring to terrorist
groups, which are fairly unstable, were practicality and pragmatism: Female terrorists have also been used
to draw male targets into a situation in which they could be kidnapped or assassinated.

Dedication, Inner Strength, Ruthlessness: -Lochte also considered female terrorists to be stronger,
more dedicated, faster, and more ruthless than male terrorists, as well as more capable of withstanding
suffering because ―They have better nerves than men, and they can be both passive and active at the same
time.‖ According to MacDonald, since the late 1960s, when women began replacing imprisoned or
interned male IRA members as active participants, IRA women have played an increasingly important
role in ―frontline‖ actions against British

troops and Protestant paramilitary units, as well as in terrorist actions against the

British public. As a result, in the late 1960s the IRA merged its separate women‘s

sections within the movement into one IRA.

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Single-Mindedness:- Female terrorists can be far more dangerous than male terrorists because of
theirability to focus single-mindedly on the cause and the goal. After many years of observing German
terrorists, Lochteconcluded, in his comments to MacDonald, that women would not hesitate toshoot at
once if they were cornered. ―For anyone who loves his life,‖ he toldMacDonald, ―it is a good idea to
shoot the women terrorists first.‖ In his view,woman terrorists feel they need to show that they can be
even more ruthlessthan men.

CONCLUSION:

In profiling the terrorist, some generalizations can be made on the basis on this examination of the
literature on the psychology and sociology of terrorism published over the past three decades. One finding
is that, unfortunately for profiling purposes, there does not appear to be a single terrorist personality . This
seems to be the consensus among terrorism psychologists as well as political scientists and sociologists.
The personalities of terrorists may be as diverse as the personalities of people in any lawful profession.
There do not appear to be any visibly detectable personality traits that would allow authorities to identify
a terrorist. Another finding is that the terrorist is not diagnosably psychopathic or mentally sick. Contrary
to the stereotype that the terrorist is a psychopath or otherwise mentally disturbed, the terrorist is actually
quite sane, although deluded by an ideological or religious way of viewing the world. The only notable
exceptions encountered in this study were the German anarchist terrorists, such as the Baader-Meinhof
Gang and their affiliated groups. The German terrorists seem to be a special case, however, because of
their inability to come to terms psychologically and emotionally with the shame of having parents who
were either passive or active supporters of Hitler.

International terrorists generally appear to be predominately either leftist or Islamic. A profiling system
could possibly narrow the statistical probability that an unknown individual boarding an airliner might be
a terrorist if it could be accurately determined that most terrorists are of a certain race, culture, religion, or
nationality. In the absence of statistical data, however, it cannot be determined here whether members of
any particular race, religion, or nationality are responsible for most acts of international terrorism. Until
those figures become available, smaller-scale terrorist group profiles might be more useful.

Terrorist and guerrilla groups do not seem to be identified by any particular social background or
educational level. They range from the highly educated and literate intellectuals of the 17 November
Revolutionary Organization (17N) to the scientifically savvy ―ministers‖ of the AumShinrikyo terrorist
cult, to the peasant boys and girls forcibly inducted into the FARC, the LTTE, and the PKK guerrilla
organizations. Most terrorist leaders have tended to be well educated.

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TERRORISM AS POLITICAL VIOLENCE:

Differing sociological perspectives encourage contrasting views of political violence. Insofar as


functionalism assumes that order and peace are normal, violence is an aberration, a presumably temporary
deviation from the normal state of human social life. Even archaic versions of functionalism (e.g.,
Germanic ―combat theories‖) arguing that war is necessary to sustain national identity and strength do not
imply acceptance of nongovernmental violence, especially assaults on public order and authority, as other
than deviant behavior. More liberal and critical theories tend to posit that violence is an understandable
response to oppression and exploitation, the last resort of the deprived and desperate. Whether reflecting
anarchist objections to regimentation, communist or socialist critiques of capitalism, or simply liberal
objections to excessive ―possessive individualism,‖ critical theories presume that political and/or
economic inequalities are the sources of collective violence. While acknowledging that social inequities
may be causally involved, particularly in originating conflicts, analytical or ―structural‖ conflict theories
(Collins 1975) attend more to the possibility that violence may be a product of strategic

and tactical decisions in a process of ongoing conflict. That interests or values may not be reconcilable is
accepted, as is the proposition that various forms of violent action may be political options within the
perceptual range of parties in conflict. It is increasingly clear that terrorism is most usefully defined, for
empirical research purposes, as the deliberate targeting of more or less randomly selected victims whose
deaths and injuries are expected to weaken the opponent‘s will to persist in a political conflict.Terrorist
acts are political, rarely involving psychopathology or material deprivation.

Research by the authors and by others in the Middle East is consistent in finding no causally significant
association between social disadvantage and support for terrorist acts, or involvement in organized
terrorism. The great majority of Palestinians were found to approve of violence against Israelis, and a
clear majority of Israeli Jews support violence against Palestinian and other opposition groups. On both
sides, enthusiasm for terrorist acts is unrelated to poverty and probably greatest among the more educated.
The general conclusion of Krueger &Maleckova (2003) is that terrorism is better understood not as a
direct or indirect response to poverty but as a response to feelings of indignity and frustration developed
in repressive political environments.

Traditional notions about violence are misleading insofar as they lead terrorism researchers to focus on
psychopathologies (see, for example, Robins & Post 1997) or material disadvantage instead of the
political contexts in which terrorist acts occur. A priority for research is to connect the emergence of
terrorism to the political histories of the settings in which people come to see it as an option in their
struggles over who will have what life chances. Recognizing that terrorism is the product of a blending of
demographic, economic, and political determinants, a panel of the National Research Council (Smelser&
Mitchell 2002) observed that regions most likely to generate terrorist threats have a history of colonialist
exploitation by Western interests, and more recently of postcolonial economic and cultural penetration.
These facts have facilitated identification of the West as the source of global economic and political
disadvantage, military weakness, and cultural malaise, which provides a credible focus for resentment and
moral outrage in the recruitment of terrorists and the mobilization of supporters and sympathizers.

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TERRORISM AS COMMUNICATION:

The considerable and growing literature on the role of the media in framing images of criminality readily
extends to terrorism (Jenkins 2003). Since the nineteenth century caricatures of anarchists in newspapers
(deranged, bearded bombers), the established media have encouraged the belief that political violence in
opposition to authority is both criminal and crazy Suicidal attacks are similarly pictured as the irrational
or obviously misguided acts of uninformed people driven by despair or fanaticism. Even when some
recognition is given to the possibility that grievances may arise from real injustices, reportage in
mainstream outlets tends to accentuate the theme that grievances never justify violence. The consistent
message is that violence expresses hate, which only leads to reciprocal violence in destructive escalations
of hostilities. Who is blamed for ongoing terrorist violence depends on which media one examines. For
example, Western, especially American, media reports generally blame Palestinians and their supporters
for the ongoing violence between Arabs and Israelis, whereas non-Western media reports in outlets such
as al Jazeera generally blame Israel and supporters—especially the United

States. Certainly alternative views are more often expressed in outlets independent of the politics and
economics of mainstream, especially Western, media competition. Sympathetic comments accepting
terrorism as an understandable, perhaps even legitimate, form of defense and protest against oppression
and threat are more likely to appear in radical, underground, or non-Western communications. Whether
alternative descriptions and interpretations of terrorists and terrorism should be disseminated is a major
issue in debates over counterterrorism policies. Reminiscent of the idea that collective violence (food
riots, strikes, ethnic and racial clashes, etc.) signals authorities that something is amiss , terrorism has
been analyzed as a communication through violence that problems exist (Schmid& de Graaf 1982). The
usual assumption is that peaceful methods of seeking the redress of grievances have failed, so that
violence is left as the only way in which to force attention to the aggrieved. Governmental and other
organizational authorities are predisposed to minimize the risks of either public sympathy for terrorists or
public fear of terrorism. Accordingly, the inclination in counterterrorism policymaking is to deny
legitimacy to oppositional violence and to discourage the media from granting too public a voice to those
who resort to or sympathize with terrorism. A complicating factor is that a satiation effect has been noted
as a contributor to terrorism, in that acts of terrorism must be ever more horrendous in order to overcome
the tendency for newsmakers and their publics to become inured to ―ordinary‖ violence. The dilemma for
authorities is how to minimize publicity for terrorists without pushing them to increasingly destructive
acts. Research to explicate the linkages between media and government policies on the one hand and the
escalation of terrorism on the other is urgently needed. Given that terrorists are only further incensed by
being ignored or belittled, one intriguing possible line of investigation would be to determine how much
facilitating instead of impeding public discussion of terrorists‘ claims might reduce the number and
savagery of their attacks.

Arguments for censorship:

1. Terrorists use the media for propaganda, which helps recruit new supporters.

2. Publicity is a major goal of terrorism.

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3. Detailed reporting of incidents gives potential terrorists suggestions and models for action.

4. Information broadcast during an incident can be useful to the terrorists involved.

5. Media presence can endanger hostages.

6. Reporting terrorist acts can lead to imitation.

7. Media reports may panic kidnappers into killing their victims.

8. People without respect for others‘ lives should not be enabled to command public attention

by using violence.

9. Describing terrorist acts might promote sadism in some members of the public.

10. Reporting terrorist outrages might provoke vigilantism and revenge attacks on the group for

whom the terrorists claim to be acting.

Arguments against censorship:

1. Not reporting terrorist atrocities might lead people to less negative judgments of terrorists.

2. Publicity can be a substitute for violence.

3. Censorship might force terrorists to raise the level of violence.

4. Not reporting terrorist events would encourage rumors, which might be worse.

5. Media presence can help prevent police actions that cause unnecessary casualties among

both terrorists and victims.

6. Censorship enables officials to label any dissidents as terrorists, thus undermining

legal safeguards.

7. Media credibility would decline.

8. Lack of news might result in a false sense of security, leaving the public unprepared

to deal with terrorist attacks.

9. Lack of awareness would keep the public from understanding the political situation.

10. Feeling deprived of information might increase public distrust of the authorities.

11. Terrorists‘ claims that democracies are not really free would gain credibility.

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Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B)

Formation

The Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B) was established in 1992, reportedly with assistance
from Osama bin Laden‘s International Islamic Front (IIF). On April 30, 1992, several of the HuJI-B
leaders addressed a press conference at the Jatiya Press Club in capital Dhaka and demanded that
Bangladesh be converted into an Islamic State.

The outfit‘s activities, however, were noticed in June 1996 after the Awami League (AL) came to power.

The HuJI-B was proscribed by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led coalition Government on
October 17, 2005.

Leadership

The HuJI-B is led by Shawkat Osman alias Sheikh Farid. ImtiazQuddus is the general secretary of the
outfit. The outfit's operations commander, Mufti Abdul Hannan was arrested in Dhaka on October 1,
2005.

Objectives and Ideology

HuJI-B aims to establish Islamic Hukumat(rule) in Bangladesh by waging war and killing progressive
intellectuals. It draws inspiration from bin Laden and the erstwhile Taliban regime of Afghanistan. At one
point of time, the groups issued a slogan, AmraSobai Hobo Taliban,Bangla Hobe Afghanistan (We will
all become Taliban and we will turn Bangladesh into Afghanistan). HuJI-B recruits are indoctrinated in
the mould of radical Islam.

Areas of Activity and Influence

The coastal area stretching from the port city of Chittagong south through Cox's Bazaar to the
Myanmarese border, notorious for piracy, smuggling and arms running, is the principal area of activity of
the HuJI-B.

The group reportedly maintains six camps in the hilly areas of Chittagong, where its cadres are trained in
the use of weapons. Unconfirmed reports also indicate that it maintains six training camps near Cox's
Bazaar.

The HuJI-B cadres allegedly also infiltrate frequently into the eastern corridor of India to maintain
contacts with terrorist and subversive outfits of the region. HuJI-B has been found to be responsible for a
number of terorist attacks orchatrsted in Indian urban centres in recent years.

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Finance

The HuJI-B reportedly receives financial assistance from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan through
Muslim Non-Governmental Organisations in Bangladesh, including the AdarsaKutir, Al Faruk Islamic
Foundation and Hataddin. It is also suspected to be generously financed by the ISI of Pakistan.

Activities

The HuJI-B intensified its subversive activities after the Awami League formed the Government in June
1996.

On February 19, 1996, 41 HuJI-B activists were arrested with firearms from Cox‘s Bazaar. The arrested
cadres were sentenced to life imprisonment by a court, but all of them were released on bail by the High
Court after the four-party alliance assumed power in October 2001.

Three HuJI-B cadres made a failed attempt on the life of poet ShamsurRahman at his residence in Dhaka
on January 18, 1999.

It was involved in a number of incidents, including the killing of journalist ShamsurRahman, on July 16,
2000, in Jessore. Later, police arrested 10 HuJI-B activists and sealed its office at a Dhaka suburb,
Khilgaon, Interrogations revealed that HuJI-B cadres had planned to kill 28 prominent intellectuals,
including National Professor KabirChoudhury, writer TaslimaNasreen and the Director General of the
Islamic Foundation, Maulana Abdul Awal.

The HuJI-B has been accused of plotting twice to assassinate the then Prime Minister and AL supremo,
Sheikh Hasina in July 2000. Security forces on July 20, 2000, during routine security checks, recovered
explosive devices weighing 76-kilograms at or near the places she was scheduled to visit in her native
Gopalganj district, including near the venue of a public meeting she was slated to address. The key
suspect in the plot was Mufti Abdul Hannan. He had allegedly been instrumental in the manufacture of
the explosives at a soap factory––Sonar Bangla Chemical Industries Limited––near Gopalganj.

Mufti Abdul Hannan, on November 1, 2007, also confessed to have been instrumental in the grenade
attack on the August 21, 2004 AL rally in Dhaka.

IslamiChhatraShibir (ICS)

Formation

The IslamiChhatraShibir is the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, which came into
existence in 1941.

Leadership and Organisation

Nurul Islam Bulbul is the Central President of the ICS. Mohammed Nazrul Islam is the Secretary General
of the outfit. Other important leaders are: Kamal Ahmed Sikder, A S M Faruq, Muhammad
MujiburRahmanManju, Muhammad Raisul and A S M Ashraf Mahmud Uzzal.

Executive Council is the highest decision-making body of the outfit. The ICS has a central secretariat,
comprising eight members. In addition, the ICS has established 6 divisions countrywide: Dhaka Division,

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Chittagong Division, Sylhet Division, Rajshahi Division, Khulna Division and Barisal Division. Each
division has several districts and other units under its jurisdiction.

Objective

According to the outfit, its objectives are to struggle for changing the existing system of education on the
basis of Islamic values, to inspire students to acquire Islamic knowledge and to prepare them to take part
in the struggle for establishing Islamic way of life.

A significant aim of the outfit is to establish an Afghanistan-Taliban type Islamist regime in Bangladesh.
Consequently, the outfit is opposed to forces of modernization, secularism and democracy.

Area of Influence

The ICS is one of the strongest student fronts in the Universities of Chittagong, Dhaka, Rajshahi and
Jahangirnagar. It is also emerging as a dominant group in the Khulna and Sylhet Universities. Within the
vast madrassa (religious seminary) structure in Bangladesh, the ICS is reported to be a dominant and
uncontested organisation.

External Linkages

As one of the largest Islamist student organisations in South Asia, the ICS maintains a close relationship
with various Islamist fundamentalist organisations of different countries. In 1979, the ICS secured
membership of International Islamic Federation of Student Organisation (IIFSO). Its former President Dr.
S A M Taher was also the Secretary General of IIFSO. The outfit is also a member of the World
Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY).

The outfit is also reported to be maintaining close links with the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI),
Pakistan‘s external intelligence agency. With the help of the latter, it is reportedly working to support
Islamist subversive agenda in many regions in India, particularly in areas bordering Bangladesh. The ISI
is also reportedly providing substantial amount of funds to the ICS. Other Islamic countries, particularly
Saudi Arabia, have provided a major proportion of its financial resources.

The ICS is also reported to be maintaining close links with various terrorist outfits operating in South
Asia and Afghanistan. These terrorist outfits reportedly carry out their activities in Bangladesh through
the ICS. The ICS reportedly helps them recruit and indoctrinate fanatic youth. A significant number of
them were reportedly sent to Pakistan and Afghanistan during the reign of the Taliban regime where a
large number of fanatic youth come under the direct command of Osama bin Laden.

The ICS is also part of a larger network Islamist extremist network of the HUJI, Jamaat-e-Islami, and
IslamiOikyoJote. This network has assisted the terrorist outfits in developing an effectual infrastructure
for training as also a network of clandestine camps and shelters for stockpiling weapons and supplies in
Bangladesh.

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Jama'atulMujahideen Bangladesh (JMB)

Origin

The Jama'atulMujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) is reported to have been formed in 1998 in the Jamalpur
district.

While the exact origin is shrouded in mystery, its existence came to notice on May 20, 2002 with the
arrest of eight Islamist militants at Parbatipur in the Dinajpur district along with 25 petrol bombs and
documents detailing the outfit's activities. Subsequently, on February 13, 2003, the JMB is reported to
have carried out seven bomb explosions in the ChhotoGurgola area of Dinajpur town in which three
persons were wounded.

Some reports suggest that it is the youth front of the Al Mujahideen, an organisation allegedly formed in
the mid-1990s but whose existence is still ambiguous, whereas others indicate that the JMB is another
name for the vigilante Islamist group the Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB).

The JMB was proscribed by the Government on February 23, 2005.

Objectives and Ideology

The Jama'atulMujahideen Bangladesh (Party of the Mujahideen) aims at establishing the rule of Islam in
Bangladesh through an armed struggle. The outfit is opposed to the establishment of democracy and calls
for the conduct of government under Islamic law.

On August 17, 2005, while claiming responsibility for the serial blasts through leaflets, in Bangla and
Arabic, left at the site of the explosions across the country, the JMB said: "We're the soldiers of Allah.
We've taken up arms for the implementation of Allah's law the way Prophet, Sahabis and heroic
Mujahideen have done for centuries… It is time to implement Islamic law in Bangladesh. There is no
future with man-made law."

The JMB said the blasts were its "third call" to establish Islamic rule in Bangladesh. "If ignored and [if]
our people are arrested or persecuted, Jama'atulMujahideen will take the counter-action," the leaflets said.
They also warned the United States and Britain against occupation of Muslim lands: "It is also to warn
Bush and Blair to vacate Muslim countries, or to face Muslim upsurge."

Espousing a radical variant of Islam, the outfit is opposed to cultural functions, cinema halls, shrines and
NGOs. One of the objectives of JMB is to free Muslims of the influence of 'anti-Islam forces' and
practices that brought women out of their houses.

Leadership and Growth

MaulanaSaidurRahman is known to be currently heading the JMB after the March 30, 2007 execution of
the top six militant leaders of the outfit. On November 16, 2008 security forces came close to arresting
SaidurRahman who used to live in a rented house in the Mirpur locality of national capital Dhaka.

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Although the raid resulted in the arrest of a JMB ehsar(full-time worker) identified as Mohammad Hanif
alias Kamal, SaidurRahman managed to escape.

In the early hours of March 30, 2007, six top militants of the JMB, including its 'supreme commander'
MaulanaAbdurRahman and second-in-command, Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai were executed in
different jails in Bangladesh. The other senior leaders of the outfit who were hanged were Majlish-e-
Shura(the highest decision-making body) members Abdul Awal, KhaledSaifullah and AtaurRahman
Sunny and suicide squad member IftekharHasan Al-Mamun. All of them had been pronounced guilty by
the Supreme Court of involvement in the killing of two judges in Jhalakathi in November 2005. On
March 4, 2007, President Iajuddin Ahmed had rejected the mercy petitions filed by the convicted
militants paving the way for their execution.

Prior to the March 30, 2007 execution, JMB was led by a triumvirate consisting of its ‗supreme
commander‘ AbdurRahman, a former activist of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai of
the Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB) and Muhammad Asadullah al-Ghalib, an Arabic language
lecturer at the Rajshahi University and chief of the Ahle Hadith Andolon Bangladesh (AHAB). Of these,
MaulanaRahman was projected as spiritual leader of the organisation while Bangla Bhai functioned as the
second-in-command and the outfit‘s 'operational chief'. On March 2, 2006, AbdurRahman, surrendered
after a 34-hour siege on his East Shaplabagh hideout in Sylhet City, 200 kilometres northeast of capital
Dhaka. Arrested along with Rahman were his wife, sons, daughters, grandson, domestic helps and some
associates. Four days later, on March 6, 2006 the JMB number two Siddiqul Islam hiding in a tin-shed in
the remote Rampur village under the Muktagachha sub-district of Mymensingh, 120 kilometres north of
Dhaka, was wounded and captured, after skirmishes with the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB). Asadullah
al-Ghalib had been arrested since February 23, 2005.

Operational details of the outfit were overseen by a seven member Majlish-e-Shura. Apart from
AbdurRahman and Siddiqul Islam, the Shura consisted of AtaurRahman Sunny (arrested on December
14, 2005), Abdul Awal (arrested on November 18, 2005), RakibHasanRussel alias Hafez Mohammad
(arrested on February 28, 2006), FaruqHossain alias KhaledSaifullah, ‗commander‘ of the Rangpur-
Dinajpur region (arrested on April 26, 2006) and Salahuddin alias Salehin, ‗commander‘ of the Sylhet-
Mymensingh region (arrested on April 25, 2006).

Some of the other leaders of the outfit were MaulanaAkram-uzzaman, AbdurRouf, MaulanaShahidul
Islam, MaulanaMahadi, Sheikh MaulanaNoman, MaulanaManjur Ahmed, most of whom were reportedly
trained in Afghanistan. MaulanaFariduddinMasud, a former Director of the Government-run Islamic
Foundation, is also suspected to be a top leader of the JMB. He was arrested on August 22, 2005 from a
London-bound flight at the Zia International Airport in Dhaka.

The JMB has grown primarily due to the nonchalant attitude of the Government and partly because of the
official promotion. For instance, the eight JMB cadres arrested from Parbatipur on May 30, 2002 were
subsequently released on bail and investigations were stalled after the case documents went missing in a
"mysterious" fire at the Parbatipur police station.

The outfit's growth received a boost after the Bangladesh National Party-led coalition Government under
Prime Minister Khaleda Zia came to power in 2001. Many members of the JMB and JMJB have
invariably been found to be cadres of the IslamiChhatraShibir (ICS), student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami,

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a partner in the ruling coalition. Such unbroken linkages with the Jamaat-e-Islami have helped the outfit
immensely not just in terms of unhindered growth but also in terms providing relief in the event of
intermittent official action. Following the August 17, 2005 developments, during which the outfit carried
out serial blasts in 63 of the 64 Districts in the country, international pressure grew on the government
forcing it to take action against the outfit.

Prior to that, the JMB, for long, promoted the building of mosques and Madrassas (seminaries), some of
which have developed into effective training centres for the outfit's radical mobilisation. For example,
with assistance from Ghalib, JMB cadres used the facilities of some 700 mosques built across Bangladesh
by the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society, which is based in Kuwait.

In 2003, decoded diaries of some arrested Islamist militants is reported to have revealed that the outfit had
training camps in 57 districts with bases at the Ahle Hadith mosques and seminaries. "They have well-
equipped training stations in all the 16 northern and some southern districts, and small stations in other
districts where they operate," the then Inspector of Joypurhat Criminal Investigation Department,
KhalilurRahman, had told The Daily Star.

Although the outfit was formed in Jamalpur district, its terrorist campaign is based in the North Bengal
region, Daily Star reported on August 28, 2005. Rahman's relatives in the Dinajpur and Rajshahi districts
helped him expand his organisational activities in these districts.

According to Growing Fanaticism and Extremism in Bangladesh: Shades of Taliban, published by the
opposition political party, the Awami League, the JMB is active in the Dinajpur, Joypurhat, Jamalpur and
Bagerhat districts.

Cadre and Organisation

The outfit is known to maintain about 10,000 fulltime and 100,000 part-time cadres. Reports also suggest
that there are approximately 10 lakh trainees of the outfit.

The cadres belong to a varied spectrum of the society, including teachers of universities, Madrassas and
ordinary people. There are different wings of the outfit, including those related to finance, public
relations, external links and the publicity and recruitment wing, which is reportedly the largest of them
all. While a relatively small wing looks after armed training, the intelligence wing has cells in different
political and non-governmental organisations.

Finances

The JMB has reportedly received funds from individual donors in countries like Kuwait, the UAE,
Bahrain, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Libya. Several international NGOs such as the Kuwait-based Revival
of Islamic Heritage and Doulatul Kuwait, UAE-based Al Fuzaira, KhairulAnsar Al Khairia, Bahrain-
based Doulatul Bahrain and the Saudi Arabia-based Al Haramaine Islamic Institute have provided, over
the years, a generous amount of funding to the outfit.

The JMB and its leaders are reported to have invested in a large number of shrimp farms and cold
storages in the south-western region of Bangladesh. The outfit is also alleged to be involved in activities
such as money laundering which ensures a steady flow of finances to its coffers. Funds through the

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Hundi(illegal money laundering mechanism) channel are generated through operatives in places such as
Dhaka, Jessore and Chittagong.

JMB cadres and students of Madrassas affiliated to the outfit collect tolls regularly for running the
organisation, according to Daily Star.

JMB leader AsadullahGhalib, who is also the Ahle Hadith Andolon Bangladesh chief, after his arrest on
February 23, 2005, admitted to have spent 'crores of taka' for building mosques and seminaries, giving
military-style training to Madrassa students and other organisational works. Similarly, JMB chief
AbdurRahman's international connections are spread over few Islamic countries, including Saudi Arabia.

Weaponry

An analysis of the seizures from JMB cadres and their hideouts indicate that the outfit uses or has access
to time bombs, detonators, petrol bombs and RDX explosives. Militants of the JMB are known to receive
extensive training in the explosive making. The JMB's involvement in the August 17, 2005 country-wide
bombings is also a pointer towards its explosive making and planting expertise.

The JMB is also reported to be procuring its arms and explosives from the militant groups in Pakistan,
Myanmar, Thailand, India and China, which is brought into the country through the land and sea routes.

Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB)

Formation

The Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB), an Islamist vigilante outfit that espouses the ideals of the
Taliban, attempts to ensure that the northwestern region of the country is ‗swept clean‘ of the activities of
left-wing extremist groups, primarily the PurbaBanglar Communist Party (PBCP).

A certain section of the Bangladeshi media has indicated that the JMJB is an outgrowth of the Islamist
militant outfit Jama'atulMujahideen Bangladesh (JMB). Indeed there is considerable overlap between the
leadership of the JMB and the JMJB. Other reports have indicated that the JMJB is a youth front of the
outlawed militant group Harqat-ul-Jihad.

As per its senior leader MaulanaAbdurRahman, who is also the chief of JMB, the outfit was formed in
1998. However, when the JMJB first came to limelight on April 1, 2004, it was also known by other
names like Mujahidin Alliance Council, IslamiJalsha and Muslim RakshaMujahideenOikyaParishad.

Objectives and Ideology

The JMJB follows the ideals of the Taliban militia and propagates a movement based on Jihad. Its chief
has been quoted as stating that "our model includes many leaders and scholars of Islam. But we will take
as much (ideology) from the Taliban as we need."

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It has explicitly stated on more than one occasion that it does not subscribe to the prevailing political
system in Bangladesh and that it would "build a society based on the Islamic model laid out in Holy
Quran-Hadith."

The JMJB functions with an avowed objective of neutralizing the left-wing extremists, especially cadres
of the PBCP. The professed long-term goal of the outfit is to usher in an ‗Islamic revolution‘ in
Bangladesh through Jihad.

Leadership

In the early hours of March 30, 2007, JMJB chief Siddiqul Islam alias AzizurRahman alias Omar Ali Litu
alias Bangla Bhai was hanged in the Kashimpur jail, where he was kept since his arrest on March 6, 2006
from the remote Rampur village under the Muktagachha sub-district of Mymensingh, 120 kilometres
north of Dhaka after skirmishes with the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB). Hanged on the same day, were
five other top militants of the Jama‘atulMujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) including its ‗supreme
commander‘ MaulanaAbdurRahman. All these militants including Siddiqul Islam had been pronounced
guilty by the Supreme Court of involvement in the killing of two judges in Jhalakathi in November 2005.
On March 4, 2007, President Iajuddin Ahmed had rejected their mercy petitions paving the way for their
execution.

The highest decision-making body of the JMJB is the seven-member Majlish-e-Shura. Apart from
Siddiqul Islam and JMB chief AbdurRahman other members of the council included AshikurRahman,
Hafez Mahmud, TarekMoni and Khaled. Information regarding the Shura, after the March 30, 2007
executions, is not available.

‗Commander‘ Bangla Bhai hailed from Bogra district and claimed that as a college student, he had joined
the IslamiChhatraShibir (ICS), student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami. Bangla Bhai had also claimed that he
quit the ICS in 1995 after the Jamaat accepted female leadership, which according to him was a sacrilege.

On the other hand, MaulanaAbdurRahman was reported to have worked at the Saudi embassy in Dhaka
between 1985 and 1990. He studied at the Madina Islamic University in Saudi Arabia and has reportedly
traveled to India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, among other countries. His most recent visit to Pakistan was
reportedly in the year 2003.

Organisation

The JMJB reportedly has a three-tier organisation. The first tier of the outfit consists of activists called
Ehsarwho are recruited on a full-time basis and act at the behest of the higher echelons. The second tier,
known as GayeriEhsar, has over 100,000 part-time activists. The third tier involves those who indirectly
co-operate with the JMJB. According to JMJB leaders, the whole country has been divided into nine
organisational divisions. Khulna, Barisal, Sylhet and Chittagong have an organisational divisional office
each, while Dhaka has two divisional offices and Rajshahi three.

The outfit also had committees in each village and according to media reports villagers were being forced
to join the committees. If anybody refused, he was branded as a ‗collaborator‘ of the PBCP and taken to
the JMJB ‗trial centre‘.

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Areas of Activity and Headquarters

The JMJB created strong bases mostly in northwest Bangladesh, in the districts of Rajshahi, Satkhira,
Naogaon, Bagerhat, Jessore, Chittagong, Joypurhat, Natore, Rangpur, Bogra, Chittagong, and Khulna. It
has allegedly spread its network to most Madrassas (seminaries) and other educational institutions in
these districts.

The outfit also established at least 10 camps at Atrai and Raninagar in the Naogaon district, Bagmara in
Rajshahi district, and Naldanga and Singra in Natore district. There have been reports of JMJB recruits
being given training through recorded speeches of Osama bin Laden and the video footages of warfare
training at the Al Qaeda's Farooque camp (now defunct) in Afghanistan.

Some JMJB leaders reportedly stated that the outfit is headquartered in Dhaka. However, media reports
indicated all activities of the organisation revolving around Jamalpur.

Cadres

Bangla Bhai on occasions claimed that JMJB commands the strength of 300000 activists across the
country. The outfit has about 10,000 full-time activists and spends up to Taka seven hundred thousand on
them a month.

Weaponry

JMJB cadres during their vigilante operations in 2004 were seen with firearms. They also reportedly
wielded swords, other sharp weapons, hammers and hockey sticks. Reports have indicated that the JMJB
also had access to crude explosives.

Finance

Regarding the sources of income, Bangla Bhai was reported to have said, "People from all rungs of
society are generously paying us funds, no-one is pressurised for money. If someone happily makes a
donation, there's no problem."

AbdurRahman also was reported to have set up a mosque and a seminary with financial assistance from
the non-governmental organisationRabeta-e-Islam and another organisation, IslamiOytijjhoSangstha.

Activities

The JMJB activists are reported to have carried out over 100 vigilante operations in different regions,
including murders and attacks on people who they believe have committed crimes. Apart from these
activities, the JMJB cadres have also been accused of extorting protection money from traders and forcing
people to follow a certain variant of Islam.

Its cadres reportedly compelled local youths to keep beards, wear clothes up to the ankle, and the women
to wear a veil. They were also involved in attempts to discontinue the playing of music in hotels and
restaurants. There had been allegations that the outfit was enforcing harsh Islamic codes in the northwest
region. However, Bangla Bhai denied these allegations claiming that it was a propaganda exercise.

The activities of the outfit appeared to have stopped completely by mid- 2005.

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PurbaBanglar Communist Party (PBCP)

Formation

The PurbaBanglar Communist Party (PBCP) is among the many Maoist splinter organizations in
Bangladesh. It was founded in the year 1968 following a split in the Bangladesh Communist Party (BCP).
It has been outlawed since the time of the military regime of Zia-ur-Rehman. There has been a spurt in the
activities of the PBCP since the beginning of the year 2002, in a reversal of trend.

Leadership

MofakkarChowdhury is the chief of the PBCP.

Objectives and Ideology

The PBCP has a revolutionary agenda of capturing state power through armed struggle. Its draws
inspiration from the Chinese revolution.

In the opinion of the PBCP, oppression by the people of the then West Pakistani was the principal reason
that lead to the liberation war in the territories of the then East Pakistan following which Bangladesh was
formed. The PBCP is staunchly nationalist and perceives that India is a hegemon in the sub-continent,
which it says is the ‗principle contraction‘ facing Bangladesh. The PBCP is strongly opposed to the
presence of feudal elements in Bangladesh. Ideologically, it closer to the Marxist-Leninist groups of India
and wishes to launch a joint movement along with progressive parties in India, particularly the Naxalites
of West Bengal. The PBCP entertains the hope that China would, at some time in the future, provide
significant assistance in realising its goals.

Areas of activity

The PBCP has pockets of influence in south-west Bangladesh, bordering the Indian State of West Bengal.
Its presence can be noticed in districts such as Khulna, Satkhira, Bagerhat, Magura, Meherpur, Narail,
Kushtia, Jessore, Jhenidah, Chuadanga and Pirojpur.

Activities and Financing

PBCP cadres have reportedly been involved in acts of murder, robbery, extortion, land grabbing and
abduction for ransom. Bangladesh Home Minister AltafHossainChowdhury said, on April 8, 2002, in
Parliament that the PBCP was being encouraged by the Opposition to cause disturbances in some parts of
the country. Speaking in the context of all outlawed parties, and that includes the PBCP, the Minister
added that "Members of the outlawed parties are involved in rape, murder, dacoity, extortion, and other
terrorist activities", as well as in land grabbing.

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Reports indicate that the PBCP primarily targets landowners and contractors and extorts money from
them. It is believed that PBCP cadres harass businessmen for finances and torture people in remote
villages. The outlaws are alleged to be indulging in settling land disputes in rural areas. In the process of
adjudicating disputes, PBCP cadres collect money through their strong-arm tactics from both the parties
to a dispute. Besides, development activities undertaken by the government are yet another source of
‗income‘ for the PBCP. In its pockets of influence, the PBCP levies a ‗tax‘ on civil contractors who
undertake construction works such as laying roads and bridges and constructing culverts and schools.
Reports also hold that there is a certain degree of reluctance among contractors to undertake works owing
to the extortion threats of the PBCP. This has impeded development work in south-west Bangladesh.

The spurt in the PBCP‘s activities is a result of several hundreds of its surrendered cadres being released
by the erstwhile Awami League government a little ahead of the October 1, 2001-general elections. Also,
many more cadres, subsequently, secured bail. It is reported that, since the time these cadres gained
freedom, there have been vigorous attempts to regroup and perpetrate acts of violence. Reports indicate
that the outlaws had met with some degree of success in their efforts. Within the first three months of the
year 2002 alone, PBCP cadres had reportedly killed a little less than 100 persons, in 10 districts in south
west Bangladesh.

Also, between 1998 and 2002 April, PBCP cadres are believed to have killed 18 political activists
belonging to rival groups, reportedly for turf control, as well as to grab prime land. The PBCP also
publishes a journal Purba Bangla, meaning East Bengal.

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LEVELS OF ANALYSIS IN THEORIES OF INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM

But a globological perspective is not the only theoretical perspective that can be taken, and before turning
to the specifics of our ideas we begin by reviewing various levels of analysis at which one might construct
an explanatory theory of terrorist events, using the September 11 attack as an example.

Individual Level

Theories can be constructed, or if already existing, can be applied, to the individual terrorist—to try to
understand Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri or to speculate on what is going on in the mind of
suicide bombers. One also can theorize the interests, motives, and personalities of a variety of actors,
from George W. Bush to Tony Blair to Osama bin Laden. At this level of analysis, there is a vast
literature on the psychology of terrorists (see the extensive review in Hudson 1999).

Group and Social Movement

Explanatory theories also can be moved up a notch to focus upon collections of individuals, such as
terrorist organizations, cells, or fundamentalist religious-based social movements. Speculation here ranges
from trying to understand how perpetrators frame their issues, grievances, tactics, recruitment, and
training practices to organizational analyses of network and other forms of terrorist organization (Arguilla
and Ronfeldt 2001). Terrorist organizations also can be studied in a fashion similar to social movement
organizations (SMOs) employing theories about resource mobilization, frame analysis, political action
opportunity structures, and cycles of violence.

National Level

A third level would be to move the center of analysis up to the society, nation, or state, in, for instance,
trying to understand state policies and financial support that go to terrorist groups, or on the other side,
inquiring into the policies of states that might make them targets of terrorism.

But by and large the terrorists‘ groups were suppressed domestically, and some, like al-Qaeda, moved
abroad to be centered in more hospitable locales such as Afghanistan. The locus of attacks also shifted
toward countries like the United States, one of the principal supporters of autocratic regimes such as
Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Recent Changing trands in terrorism:

In these analyses terrorism seemed to be changing in some of the following ways.

Terrorist organizations shift toward a more network form. Newer terrorist organizations seemed to have
moved away from the earlier model of professionally trained terrorists operating within a hierarchical
organization with a central command chain and toward a more loosely coupled form of organization with
a less clear organizational structure. Similarly, whereas from the 1960s through the 1980s groups more
clearly were bound nationally (German, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, Irish, Palestinian, and so forth), more
recent organizations like al-Qaeda have members from multiple nationalities and organizational sites
outside the leadership‘s country of origin.

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The identity of terrorist organizations becomes more difficult to identify. Terrorist organizations also
seem to identify themselves or to claim responsibility for specific acts less often, such as the bombing of
the U.S. embassies in Africa or the events of September 11, which while purportedly organized by bin
Laden and al-Qaeda, never clearly were claimed by that organization. This is in contrast with earlier
terrorist organizations, which were much more clear in taking responsibility for their actions and defining
who they were, often with elaborate radical political ideologies.

Terrorist demands become more vague, hazy, and nonexistent. Earlier terrorist demands often were quite
specific: Black September demanded the release of comrades when they attacked Israeli athletes at the
1972 Munich Olympics; the Irish Republican Army (IRA) want the British out of Northern Ireland; the
PLO wants the Israelis out of the West Bank; and Basque independence is a clear desire of Euskadi Ta
AsKaTasuna (ETA). Similarly, the Marxist/radical/left logic behind earlier attacks on businessmen,
diplomats, and so forth also were well known. In contrast, there were no demands surrounding the 1998
U.S. embassy attacks or the events of September 11.

Terrorist ideologies become more religious. What has been called the new religious terrorism or holy
terrorism reflects the increasing prevalence of religion in the ideology of terrorist organizations, with the
most notable being Islamic fundamentalism, or political Islam, and also including Christian
fundamentalism (antiabortion terrorism); Messianic Zionism (behind Yitzhak Rabin‘s assassination); or
the religious sect AumShinrikyo, a Japanese terrorist group that released poisonous gas in a Tokyo
subway in 1995. There also seems to be an increase in groups with more vague, millennial, and religious
ideologies than earlier radical groups such as the German Red Army Faction, the Italian Red Brigades, or
the Japanese Red Army.

Terrorist targets are dispersed more globally. Where international terrorism of the 1960s and 1970s was
centered largely in Europe and the Middle East, by the 1990s it had moved to Africa (1998 attack on U.S.
embassies); Argentina (1992 truck bombing of Israeli embassy and 1994 bombing of a Jewish
Community Center); and the U.S. mainland proper (1993 WTC bombing and 2001 WTC/Pentagon
suicide airplane attacks).

Terrorist violence becomes more indiscriminate. Along with a geographical dispersion of targets, there
seems to be a move away from specific targets, for instance as when hundreds of civilian Kenyan and
Tanzanian embassy employees and passersby were killed to achieve the objective of bombing the U.S.
embassy. The 1993 and 2001 attacks of the WTC were also examples of more indiscriminate targets, as
opposed to earlier skyjacking of a national airline‘s plane in order to attain specific demands or the
kidnapping a particular politician (such as Aldo Moro by the Italian Red Brigades).

If one reflects for a moment upon these changes, many of them suggest the process of globalization
(Robertson 1992; Sklair 1995; Sassen 1998; Boli and Thomas 1999; Tomlinson 1999; Barber
2001;Hoffman 2002; Tilly 2002c), raising the question of whether terrorism, like other economic,
cultural, and political aspects of life also is globalizing? That is, arguments about terrorist organizational
forms becoming more network-like and multinational in locale and membership remind of ideas about
new global network forms of business organizations and arguments about ideologies and demands
becoming less nationally specific are reminiscent of theories of how globalization involves cultural

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deterritorialization (Meyer et al. 1997; Tomlinson 1999). Finally, arguments about a growing dispersion
and indiscriminateness of terrorist violence also express a disregard for national boundaries and, as such,
a growing global, as opposed to national, character of terrorism.

GLOBALIZATION/TERRORISM

Some scholars interpret the link between globalization and terrorism in a causal fashion: globalization
generates a backlash or resistance that can take the form of terrorist attacks on national powers in the
forefront of the globalization processes. In this regard, some see terrorism as a defensive, reactionary,
solidaristic movement against global forces of cultural and economic change (Hoffman 2002). Barber
(2001:xii) sees terrorism as fostered by a ‗‗disintegral tribalism‘‘ and ‗‗reactionary fundamentalism‘‘
created by the expansion of ‗‗integrative modernization‘‘ and ‗‗aggressive economic and cultural
globalization.‘‘ This is the same general theoretical logic as Tilly‘s (1978) classic explanation of earlier
European collective violence as a defensive reaction to forces of modernization and rapid social change.
Substitute globalization for modernization/social change, and the Tilly hypothesis is reborn in Barber‘s
(2001) ‗‗McWorld versus jihad‘‘ thesis. Industrialization then and globalization now involve integration
into a larger web of economic transactions that threatens local authority and sense of place. The result is
defensive, reactionary mobilization, manifested in European food riots then and Middle Eastern terrorism
now.

World-System Theory

While world-system theorists normally are concerned with questions of development and
underdevelopment, they have advanced similar ideas (Sassen 1998). Chase-Dunn and Boswell (2002:2)
speak of the ‗‗reactionary force‘‘ of international terrorism as an antisystemic element or ‗‗globalization
backlash‘‘; Ali (2002:312) believes Islamic terrorists view religion as an alternative to the ‗‗universal
regime of neoliberalism.‘‘ Jurgensmeyer (2000) links the disruption of globalization with defensive
reactions that often take a religious character, and when that reaction is terrorism, it can take the form of
fundamentalist Arab-Islamic terrorist organizations.

World-Society/Polity Theory

While world-society theorists (Soysal 1994; Meyer et al. 1997; Ramirez, Soysal, and Shanahan 1997;
Boli and Thomas 1999; Frank, Hironaka, and Schofer 2000) have not addressed the issue of international
terrorism directly, they have documented the continued expansion of Western originated cultural models
of rationalized action and universal standards during the same period that we observe a rise in
international terrorism. To the extent that there is a possible causal relationship, world-society theory‘s
top-down model of the intrusion of the world-polity‘s global standards, expectations, norms, and
definitions of reality also might generate defensive backlash that might, under some circumstances, take
the form of international terrorism. Their model works in a complex way when it comes to predicting
rates of international terrorism. It would seem that the growth in world society provides a generalized
empowerment for international action on the basis that social existence is global existence and that social
problems are global problems.2 The expansion of global society should empower action across the globe
as a distinctly globological effect, which means that individuals in Latin America suffering from the side

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effects of economic globalization should feel just as globally empowered to engage in international
backlash terrorism as those of the Arab-Islamic Middle East. But this does not seem to be the case; there
is not as much international terrorism emanating from Latin America as from the Middle East, yet both
are or should be globally empowered (world-society effect) and angry (globalization creates resistance
effect). But the anger seems to be turned inward in Latin America and outward in the Middle East. What
accounts for differences of response? Relative openness, democracy, representational institutions, and
levels of functioning intermediary social organization may absorb, channel, or somehow provide outlets
for the tensions and anger set off by globalization. Their anger is channeled into electoral politics,
demonstrations, social movements, and domestic terrorism; in the more autocratic Arab-Islamic regimes,
dissent is suppressed more often, and there are fewer opportunities for its expression within the
institutionalized political opportunity structures of those states. As a result, given the same level of global
empowerment, the anger is turned outward to take the form of international terrorism more often than in
Latin America. There is also no doubt something of a curvilinear effect with linkages to world-society.
They empower and, given grievances, would have a positive effect upon contentious acts like
international terrorism. But continued linkage into world-society also would seem to have an integrative
effect and thereby would dampen terrorism rates, yielding an overall curvilinear relationship between
linkages to world-society and rates of international terrorism.

Blowback Theory

Crenshaw (2001:425) argues that ‗‗terrorism should be seen as a strategic reaction to American power,‘‘
an idea associated with Johnson‘s (2000) ‗‗blowback‘‘ thesis. In this view, the presence of empires—both
at the end of the last century and today—and the analogous unipolar military position of the United States
today (Brooks and Wohlforth 2002) provoke resistance in the form of terrorism. Johnson (2000) notes
that the Russian, Ottoman, and Habsburg Empires—which controlled multiple ethnic, religious, and
national peoples—led to a backlash, or blowback, by Serb, Macedonian, and Bosnian terrorist
organizations (the Black Hand, Young Bosnia, NarodnayaVolya). By analogy the powerful global
position of the United States, particularly in its role of propping up repressive undemocratic regimes,
constitutes something of a similar condition with Arab-Islamic terrorism as a result. The causal
mechanism here is that the projection of military power plants seeds of later terrorist reactions, as
‗‗retaliation for previous American imperial actions‘‘ (Johnson 2000:9).

Interpol

INTERPOL‘s activities are all based on the following four core functions:

Secure global police communication services

Interpol runs a global police communications system called I-24/7, which provides police around the
world with a common platform through which they can share crucial information about criminals and
criminality.

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Operational data services and databases for police

INTERPOL‘s databases and services ensure that police worldwide have access to the information and
services they need to prevent and investigate crimes. Databases include data on criminals such as names,
fingerprints and DNA profiles, and stolen property such as passports, vehicles and works of art.

Operational police support services

INTERPOL supports law enforcement officials in the field with emergency support and operational
activities, especially in its priority crime areas of fugitives, public safety and terrorism, drugs and
organized crime, trafficking in human beings and financial and high-tech crime. A Command and Co-
ordination Centre operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Police training and development

INTERPOL provides focused police training initiatives for national police forces, and also offers on-
demand advice, guidance and support in building dedicated crime-fighting components. The aim is to
enhance the capacity of member countries to effectively combat serious trans-national crime and
terrorism.

This includes sharing knowledge, skills and best practices in policing through INTERPOL channels and
the establishment of global standards on how to combat specific forms of crime.

Europol

Europol (contraction of European Police Office) is the European Union's criminal intelligence agency.
It became fully operational on July 1, 1999.

The establishment of Europol was agreed to in the 1992Maastricht Treaty, officially known as the Treaty
on European Union (TEU) that came into effect in November 1993. The agency started limited operations
on January 3, 1994, as the Europol Drugs Unit (EDU). In 1998 the Europol Convention was ratified by all
the member states and came into force in October.

Europol allocates its resources (around 410 staff and 90 Europol Liaison Officers or ELOs) from its
headquarters in The Hague. The size of Europol belies the fact that they are in constant liaison with
hundreds of different law enforcement organizations, each with their own individual or group seconded to
assist Europol's activities.

As of 2007, Europol covers all 27 member states of the European Union, including the recently acceded
new EU member states of Bulgaria and Romania, who were already members of Europol before joining
the EU in January 2007. This also happened with some of the Central European countries who joined the
EU in 2004; to make EU membership more gradual they had already become members of Europol in
2002.

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It has been decided that Europol will be converted to a full EU agency on 1 January2010, thus simplifying
the procedure to reform it; until then, reforms have to be made through an amendment to the Europol
Convention

Functions

Europol's aim is to improve the effectiveness and co-operation between the competent authorities of the
member states primarily by sharing and pooling intelligence to prevent and combat serious international
organized crime. Its mission is to make a significant contribution to the European Union's law
enforcement efforts targeting organized crime.

Europol has no executive powers. It is a support service for the law enforcement agencies of the EU
member states. This means that Europol officials are not entitled to conduct investigations in the member
states or to arrest suspects. In providing support, Europol with its tools – information exchange,
intelligence analysis, expertise and training – can contribute to the executive measures carried out by the
relevant national authorities.

Europol is a multi-disciplinary agency, comprising not only regular police officers but staff members
from the member states' various law enforcement agencies: customs, immigration services, border and
financial police, etc. Secondly, Europol helps to overcome the language barriers in international police
co-operation. Any law enforcement officer from a member state can address a request to their Europol
National Unit (ENU) in her/his mother tongue and receive the answer back in this language.

Three different levels of co-operation are possible: The first one is technical co-operation or to provide
training. The next step is strategic co-operation aimed at exchanging general trends in organized crime
and how to fight it and the exchange of threat assessments. The top level of co-operation includes the
exchange of personal data and requires the fulfillment of Europol's standards in the field of data
protection and data security.

History

Europol has its origins in TREVI, a forum for internal security cooperation amongst EEC/EC interior and
justice ministers created in 1975 and active until the Maastricht Treaty came into effect in 1993.

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