Understanding Terrorism: Definition, Criteria, And Differentiation From Other Forms Of Violence - An Essay.

The Definition of Terrorism

The overview of terrorism may be different for different countries, but it is important to understand the act of terrorism has changed over time, and to understand this it is important to have a clear notion of what terrorism is, and how it is different from the other types of violence. Terrorism can be defined as the illicit use of violence against civilians, to fulfill political aims. This is a very subjective definition provided, but in reality, there is no legal definition of terrorism. The main issue is that it is difficult to differentiate terrorism, from the other type of political violence or crime, for instance, the state-based armed conflict, non-state conflict, one-sided violence, hate crime, genocide/ethnic cleansing, and homicide. The difference between the mentioned violence is not clear, because they are having an agenda, and it affects the lives of the civilians. This paper will focus on a variety of aspects of terrorism, to have a clear understanding of what terrorism is. This essay will be focusing on the criteria for terrorism, how terrorism can be distinguished from other types of violence, a small synopsis will also be provided about the current threat, how war, terrorism, and human rights are related will also be discussed. Additionally, statistical data along with graphical representation will be provided to show how many people have died because of Terrorism till 2017.

The committer, victim, method, and the purpose of any action state how violent the outcome of terrorism is. As already mentioned, the definition and characteristics of terrorism differ. Bruce Hoffman in his book Inside Terrorism has described the act of terrorism as violent action, or action that threatens violence (Hoffman, 2018). Activities like political disagreement, non-violent resistance, or any kind of activism will never lead to terrorism. There are many cases where it has been seen that the authorities have limited the individual’s freedom of expression, as a measure of counter-terrorism. Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch have published news related to this as to how authorities to counter-attack terrorism have limited freedom of expression (Laqueur, 2017). It has been noticed that in terrorism most private and public property is damaged. Any political, economic, religious, and various other social actions are taken can be counted as terrorism. As an example, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) can be cited as an example where they mentioned the political goal and its desire to establish itself as the Caliphate (Combs, 2017). On the other side action taken by the white extremist have led to visible socio-political motivations, and this can be regarded as an act of terrorism. If any acts that have been committed do not have a clear goal, it cannot be termed terrorism, but it can be called a violent crime.

Any action can be categorized as terrorism if it has a psychological impact beyond the people who have been targeted. Any action that creates fear/terror through brutality, and goes beyond the act of warfare can be considered terrorism. People are being randomly chosen, who do not engage themselves in hostilities, who are non-combatants, neutral. This kind of condition is not sufficient enough to be called an act of terrorism (Chomsky, 2015). The US State Department considers acts of terrorism if anybody attacks their military installation, or any armed military personnel when any military hostilities do not exist, whereas, in situations when the state military hostility exists, this situation is not considered terrorism. Terrorist activities are mostly conducted by an organization that is easily identifiable and has a chain of command or a conspiratorial structure of the cell, or by a small group of individuals who are directly influenced by logical aims (Wilkinson, 2016).  Terrorist activities must be done by a subnational or non-state entity group. If the same action is committed by the armed forces of nation-states, they have been categorized differently, such as war crimes or one-sided violence.  

Criteria for Terrorism

Ways to distinguish terrorism from the other forms of violence

The criteria that have been mentioned above, will help in separating terrorism from the other types of violence, based on simple differences-

When a person or group of individuals who are identified as non-state actors kills the civilians, and do not have any specific political, economic, or social aim or intention can be stated as a homicide (Connolly, and Gordon, 2015).

When violence is spread by non-state actors against the civilians, based on ethnicity, sexuality, gender, or disability and does not have any political or social intent to spread fear can be termed a hate crime (Chan, Ghose, and Seamans, 2016).

Terrorist activities must be done by a subnational or non-state entity group. If the same action is committed by the armed forces of nation-states, they have been categorized differently, such as war crimes or one-sided violence (Fjelde et al., 2021).   

General overview of terrorism and examples 

Since the end of the 20th century, the ideology and the political opportunities have made a lot of countries engage themselves in the spread of international terrorism, often it has been disguised as a supporting movement of national liberation (Koehler, 2019). The difference between political violence and terrorism has become less. It has been noticed that groups engaged in guerrilla combating techniques have been using terrorist tactics and additionally the problem of jurisdiction and legality was hidden. These kinds of problems have led social scientists to discover the definition of terrorism (Wight, 2017). Terrorism cannot be defined based on criminality, but the victims of terrorist attacks are mostly innocent civilians. Terrorism is a way to inculcate fear amongst the people with an intention. The terrorist attacks are mostly secretive in nature.

In the 20th century itself, the term eco-terrorism became quite common, here the environment is destroyed so the political aim can be fulfilled, or at times it is also an indication of war, for instance burning of the oil fields in Kuwait by the army of Iraq during the Persian Gulf War (Hallion, 2015). Apart from this illegal poaching or lumbering of tress, that has been intended to disrupt the environment and affect a particular country. After the end of the 20th century, the practice of terror changed considerably, terrorism became the benchmark of a variety of political movements that stretched from extreme right to extreme left in the political system. The advancement in technology and digitalized and modern automatic weapons, electrically detonated explosives (Rubin, and Rubin,  2015), gave a new direction to the terrorist, and along with that the development of the air travel also provided new opportunities to the terrorist. Previously, terrorism was an official policy carried on in the totalitarian state, the biggest example that can be cited is Adolf Hitler of Germany and Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union (currently Russia). In these places, people were arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and executed without any legal permission, which created fear in the minds of the people and the people were convinced by saying that there are economic, social, and political aims behind doing such acts (Cox, 2017). The United States also suffered a lot from the terrorist attacks, one such was the attack by the Puerto Rican nationalists (the FALN), various antiabortion groups, and foreign-based organizations (Thomas, 2015). The 1990s was a nightmare for the American soil, as it faced the most infamous attack on the World Trade Centre, in the city of New York, and along with that, there was also a bombing incident that took place in Oklahoma, where around 168 innocent civilians lost their lives (Hamwey et al., 2020). Along with that US government faced a lot of attacks on targets overseas, that included their military base in Saudi Arabia, the US Embassy in Kenya, and Tanzania. In addition to that, there was an additional explosion that took place by the suicide bombers and led to the death of 17 sailors who were there on the ship, this incident happened in the USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden. Out of all the deadliest terrorist attacks that happened in the year 2001, in the month of September, in which suicide terrorists, in association with the Al-Qaeda, hijacked 4 commercial airplanes, two of them were crashed into the twin tower of the World Trade Centre, and the next was crashed in the Pentagon building near Washington, DC (Pfefferbaum, Palka, and North,  2021) and another was crashed in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.   This attack killed almost 3000 innocent people.

Differentiation of Terrorism from Other Types of Violence

Many factors have led to the development of terrorism threat on both the domestic and international fronts-

The first is the lone offenders, the terrorist threat has evolved from large group conspiracies to lone-offender attacks, here the individuals often use the online platform, to mobilize the violence quickly (Liem et al., 2018). The lone offenders do not have a clear group affiliation or guidance and hence it is very challenging to recognize, investigate and get hold of them. The FBI focuses on partnerships and tips from the public to recognize such individuals and counterattack them. 

The second is with the evolution of social media and the internet, the international and the domestic violent extremist have been creating a strong presence on the internet and has been using messaging platforms, online platforms, videos, and publication to create fear amongst the people (Hossain, 2015). The development of the internet and the presence of terrorists on social media sites have helped international and domestic terrorists gain unprecedented access to the lives of the people, and that has enabled attacks on the people. As an example, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) can be cited as an example where they mentioned the political goal and its desire to establish itself as the Caliphate and asks people to carry out simple attacks or join the foreign fighters (Siebert, Von Winterfeldt,  and John, 2016).

This fact cannot be denied that the acts of war or terrorism affect and challenges the human rights framework. Human rights become useless when the people and their lives are being targeted deliberately, or collateral damage is being caused because of the mass bombing, which leads to sickness, disease, suffering, destruction of homes, and finally death. In cases where the war goes on for years, every human right granted to the people is being adversely affected. The health system, education, work, personal life, supply of food water, and security are all hampered (Sriram, Martin-Ortega, and Herman, 2017). In addition to that, the freedoms granted by the government are limited. The condition of the minority section is already worse, and with war, it becomes worse. War and terrorism are a major breakdown for humanity, in both cases, it degrades the values and the human rights, and the legal system promises to protect them, in such conditions cannot provide sufficient support. Even after the challenges, human rights operate but in a limited way, though much cannot be done, but still, a certain amount of support and justice is provided (Findley, and Young, 2012). National emergencies like war and terrorism put aside human rights for some time. Though there are certain rights, for instance, the right to life or the right to be free from torture, inhuman and degrading treatment can never be limited or restricted. These are the fundamental rights that need to be kept in mind even after there is an uncertain situation in a particular state.

There are many cases where it has been seen that the authorities have limited the individual’s freedom of expression, as a measure of counter-terrorism. Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch have published news related to this as to how authorities to counter-attack terrorism have limited freedom of expression. terrorism is a major breakdown for humanity, in both cases, it degrades the values and the human rights, and the legal system through promises to protect them, in such conditions cannot provide sufficient support. Even after the challenges, human rights operate but in a limited way, though much cannot be done, but still, a certain amount of support and justice is provided (Foot,  2020). Even after restricting human rights because of terrorism, the government still possesses some obligation towards the citizens for instance protecting them from attacks, compensating them, for the losses they have suffered, and lastly, not engaging them in any kind of work that would risk their lives. Several problems take place related to human rights regarding fighting back against terrorism and additionally continuous tension takes place between the government and the civilians.

The Current Threat of Terrorism

This fact cannot be denied that the acts of war or terrorism affect and challenges human psychology. During war and terrorism, the people and their lives are being targeted deliberately, or collateral damage is being caused because of the mass bombing, which leads to sickness, disease, suffering, destruction of homes, and finally death. In cases where the war goes on for years, every human right granted to the people is being adversely affected. The health system, education, work, personal life, supply of food water, and security are all hampered. Apart from this physical and economic infrastructure, displacement of people also takes place. In short, the normal life of people is hampered tremendously. The impact can last for generations. With the change in the type of war, and the pattern of terrorism the lives of the people are at more risk now, and the casualty rate has also increased tremendously. In contemporary times, it has been stated that the 90% of the casualties are civilians, and amongst them, the majority constitutes women and children (Fausor de Castro et al., 2022) As a terrorism and war weapon rape and sexual violence is used as a tactic to dominate and instil fear amongst the people.  

The employment of children as combatants in harsh battles is a particularly depressing trend in warfare, particularly in the last 10 years. Child soldiers may be found in every corner of the world and are involved in almost every battle. In Africa, where children as young as 9 years old have been involved in violent warfare. The majority of juvenile soldiers are aged 14 to 18 years (Lasley, and Thyne, 2015). Both rebel groups and government forces recruit children as child soldiers.

State signatories to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child must guarantee that children under the age of 15 are not involved in hostilities. Many people, however, believe that this is too low, and efforts have been made to increase the minimum age to 18 years old. The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of minors in armed conflict (which has 143 signatories as of November 2011) increased the minimum age to 18. European countries do not enlist minors under the age of 17 years and do not deploy soldiers under the age of 18 into combat (Rosen, 2015). Although this is ostensibly for training reasons exclusively, the UK has the lowest recruiting age in Europe at 16 years old and for this, they have been criticized a lot.

There are many ways by which conflict affects young people. Regarding the above-mentioned situation of child soldiers, young people make up the great majority of troops, particularly in countries and during times of national military duty. As a result, it may be claimed that young people are on the front lines of war victims. Taking into consideration of the professionalized armies, young individuals from disadvantaged social origins are frequently enrolled since they have fewer options to make a fair livelihood (Thomas, 2016).

The Relationship Between War, Terrorism, and Human Rights

Terrorist organizations frequently target young individuals as potential terrorist attack agents, irrespective of the motivation, as seen by the 2005 London bombings. This is sometimes ascribed to certain young people's identity-searching, which makes them particularly receptive to radical beliefs and values. Terrorist attacks can also explicitly target young people, as seen by the assaults in Norway in 2011 and attacks on schools in the Caucasus (Saltzman, Solomyak, and Pat-Horenczyk,  2017).

It was estimated that around 26, 445 around the world died because of terrorist attack in the year 2017. The average number of people who died over the last decade was around 21,000. The number of death cases may vary from year to year. For instance, in 2010 the death cases because of terrorism were 7, 287 and in the year 2014 it was 44, 490 (Ritchie et al., 2022). The information can be related to the graph presented below- 

In 2017, about 56 million individuals died, with slightly over 26,000 of them dying as a result of terrorism. Terrorism was responsible for every 2000th fatality, or 0.05 percent of all deaths (Ritchie et al., 2022).

Terrorist activity, on the other hand, might fluctuate dramatically from year to year. Perhaps 2017 was an unusually low or high year. Considering the pattern over the last several decades, it can see that it fluctuated between 0.01 percent and 0.02 percent in the 1990s and early 2000s, grew to 0.08 percent in 2014, and then fell to 0.05 percent in 2017 (Ritchie et al., 2022). As a result, it was a reasonably high year for terrorist deaths, albeit not the highest. This could be better understood from the graph presented below-

The number of terrorist deaths by region in 2017 is depicted in this graph. 95 percent of the 26,445 terrorism-related deaths recorded in the Global Terrorism Database happened in the Middle East, Africa, or South Asia. Europe, the Americas, and Oceania collectively accounted for less than 2% of all deaths (Ritchie et al., 2022). 

Conclusion

Thus, this essay can be concluded by saying that terrorism is defined as the use of illegal violence against people to achieve political goals. Although this is a highly subjective description, there is no legal definition of terrorism. The fundamental difficulty is distinguishing terrorism from other forms of political violence or crime, such as state-based armed conflict, non-state conflict, one-sided violence, hate crime, genocide/ethnic cleansing, and homicide. Terrorism may be defined as any activity that has a psychological impact on anyone other than those who are targeted. Terrorism may be defined as any activity that causes dread or terror by brutality and goes beyond the act of battle. Since the close of the twentieth century, ideology and political chances have led many nations to participate in the expansion of international terrorism, which is frequently camouflaged as a support movement for national liberation. Health care, education, jobs, personal life, food and water supplies, and security are all impeded. People are also displaced as a result of this physical and economic infrastructure. In summary, people's daily lives are severely impeded. The ramifications can be felt for centuries. People's lives are now more at danger as a result of the shift in the nature of conflict and the pattern of terrorism, and the casualty rate has risen dramatically.

Statistical Data on Terrorism Fatalities

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