Essay1

Terrorismattacks on civilians and noncombatants for political purposeshas

an ancient history. In earlier eras, terrorism was often religiously motivated.
In the first century c.e. Jewish Zealots fought the Romans; the Assassins, a Shii
sect of Islam, killed Muslims who disagreed with their practices in the 11th
century; and Hindu Thugees in India killed innocents as part of ritualistic
practices from the 7th to the 19th century From the 18th to the late 20th century,
most terrorists were motivated by nationalist or political causes. Contemporary
terrorism is systematic, political, conveys a message, and generates fear.
Terrorism may be committed by a state or by individual groups, although some
dispute the use of the term for governmental actions. In English the term
terrorism derives from the French revolutionary reign of terror under Maximilien
Robespierre, when thousands were sent to their deaths, often at the guillotine, in
179394.
After World War II nonstate groups often adopted terrorist tactics to achieve
political goals. Terrorism was usually the tactic of the weak and disaffected who
lacked access to or possession of high technology and sophisticated weapons of
war. In the modern era, the media and instant communications provided terrorists
with ready platforms to publicize their programs and grievances. Publicity on a
global scale permitted terrorists to have a psychological impact far beyond single
deeds, thereby greatly magnifying their effects.
In their struggles against imperial powers, Third World liberation movements
sometimes adopted terrorist tactics by attacking civilians as well as colonial
armed forces to achieve national independence. Third World leaders often
argued that these tactics were no less terrifying or horrific than the bombing of
villages, the use of napalm, or the imprisonment of thousands in concentration
camps. However, governments tended to apply the term terrorist only to those
groups they disliked or opposed, and to ignore or downplay those groups or
countries that used similar tactics against their own citizens or enemies.
During the 1960s70s leftist groups were responsible for numerous terrorist
attacks in Europe. The Baader Meinhof Gang, militant German anarchists,
bombed U.S. military installations and police stations and attempted to
assassinate Alexander Haig, the supreme Allied commander of NATO, as well as
bankers and media moguls. After most of their leaders had been imprisoned or
had died, the Meinhof Gangs attacks ended in the 1990s. The communist Italian
Red Brigades also kidnapped and killed leading establishment figures. In its
struggle against the British, the nationalist Provisional irish republican army (IRA)
planted bombs in shopping malls and killed Lord Louis mountbatten, first earl
Mountbatten of Burma, and narrowly missed killing British prime minister
margaret thatcher. Similarly, the nationalist Basque party (ETA) attacked Spanish
leaders and placed bombs at targets with heavy civilian use.

In the Middle East small Palestinian Marxist-Leninist groups skyjacked civilian

airliners in dramatic and well-publicized attacks that brought world attention to
the Palestinian national cause. The palestine liberation organization (PLO) also
launched terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians as well as the military. At the
1972 Munich Olympic Games, Palestinians attacked and killed Israeli athletes.
Israel retaliated by killing Palestinian leaders in Beirut and in Europe. The
Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), under Abdullah Ocalan, mounted a separatist
insurgency against turkey; the PKK placed bombs on buses and other civilian
sites and was outlawed by the Turkish government.
In Asia the nationalist tamil tigers in Sri Lanka attacked civilians, and the
Japanese Red Army, a leftist paramilitary group, launched attacks in Europe and
elsewhere. In 1995 the group Aum Shinrikyo released the poison gas sarin in the
Tokyo subway.
Terrorism escalated throughout much of South America and Latin America in the
1970s80s. During the 1970s the Argentina military junta and right-wing death
squads terrorized and killed opponents. In Chile General augusto pinochets
regime tortured and disappeared opponents. The Pinochet regime was also
implicated in the car bombing assassinations of a Chilean diplomat and Pinochet
opponent, Orlando Letelier, and a U.S. colleague in downtown Washington, D.C.,
in 1976. During the same period, the Shining Path terrorized villagers and
political leaders in Peru, while narco-terrorism by criminal drug cartels killed
judges, police, and others in Colombia. Similarly, leftwing guerrilla forces and
right-wing death squads killed thousands of civilians as well as religious and
nongovernmental volunteers from the international community in El Salvador.
The government in Guatemala used terrorism to repress its Amerindian
population.
From the 1960s onward a wide variety of political groups opposing the vietnam
war and the conservative establishment or struggling for civil rights in the United
States also adopted terrorist tactics. The Weathermen and other groups
kidnapped high-profile individuals, bombed military and research installations,
and sometimes killed law enforcement officers. In 1995 terrorists from the far
right bombed a federal office building in Oklahoma City, killing over 100 people
and wounding 400.
There was a revival of religiously motivated terrorism beginning in the later part
of the 20th century. As Yugoslavia split apart, sectarian violence escalated.
Similarly, clashes among Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs in India proliferated. Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi was killed by her Sikh bodyguard, and the Mumbai stock
exchange was bombed. The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran provided the
impetus and support for numerous Islamist groups in the Middle East, including
hizbollah in Lebanon and hamas in the occupied Palestinian territories of the
Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Both of these groups used suicide bombers in an
attempt to achieve their goals.

When their governments failed to provide the means for legitimate political
dissent or jobs, many disillusioned Muslim young people around the world joined
Islamist organizations that used encouraged Jihadis (fighters of holy war) to use
terrorism to oust corrupt regimes and establish regimes based on sharia, Islamic
law. Many Islamic groups were hostile to the West, particularly the United States.
Much of their anger was fueled by the spread of Western culture, which
threatened or undermined old traditions and practices. Many young jihadis
gained military training and experience fighting with the taliban and other Islamic
mujahideen groups against the Soviet occupation in afghanistan in the 1980s.
After the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan, the Taliban managed to wrest power from
its rivals and established an extreme theocracy. Its leader, Mullah Omar, provided
a safe haven for one of the most extreme Islamic groups, al-qaeda, which was
led by a disaffected Saudi Arabian, osama bin laden. In 1998 bin Laden issued a
fatwa (religious proclamation) urging jihad against the United States. Al-Qaeda
members placed bombs that killed hundreds in Nairobi, Kenya, and attacked a
U.S. military ship in Yemen.
On suicide missions al-Qaeda members skyjacked planes that crashed into the
world trade center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., on
September 11, 2001. These were the most devastating terror attacks that the
United States had ever experienced on its home territory. The United States and
coalition forces retaliated and successfully overthrew the proal-Qaeda Taliban
regime in Afghanistan; however they failed to destroy either the Taliban or alQaeda. Osama bin Laden managed to escape and continued to orchestrate
terror attacks against U.S. forces and supporters. These included suicide bomb
attacks on trains in Madrid, Spain, and the transit system in London, England.

Essay2
Terrorism is a problem which the country has been continuously facing for more
than two-three decades but now has emerged as a global problem against which
an internationally united battle has to be fought incessantly. Violent behaviour in
order to create an atmosphere of fear in the society or a part of it for political
ends is generally termed as Terrorism. It is an organized and systematic use of
violence to achieve an end. Many a times words like terrorism, insurgency, civil
war, revolution, guerilla war, intimidation and extremism are often used
interchangeably. Though they differ in kind and meaning, one thing is
fundamental to all - the word violence. For instance, great practitioners of fear
and violence like Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao etc cannot be called Terrorists.
Moreover, violence used for personal gains like dacoity or robbery cannot be
termed as Terrorism. Terrorism, as understood in the simplest sense will always
include a target group, death and destruction of property through acts of violence
and a perverted political purpose. It is also illegal and unlawful in nature with a
purpose of creating fear and panic in the minds and psyche of people at large, to
make the masses feel impotent and helpless, to discourage rational thinking and
to lead to a reactionary tendency in the people.
Terrorists resort to various ways to accomplish these goals like planting crude
home-made bombs, hand-grenades or other explosives in a shopping centre or a
crowded place like a railway-station or a bus stand or even a bus, train or
aeroplane, kidnapping, assassination or hijacking. Different terrorist activities all
over the world may have
different aims, but a few goals, common to all may be underlined. It may be
because they want a regime to react or they intend to mobilize a mass support
through fear, to eliminate opponents or enemies or to magnify their cause.
To talk of terrorism in India, it is essentially a political creation. The cross-border
militancy in Kashmir, the Naxalite violence in Bengal, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and
the ULFA terrorism in Assam have all narrow political goals. The problem of
identity created terrorism to rise in Nagaland and Mizoram, vengeance became
the cause of terrorism in Manipur and Tripura while 'class-enemity' causes the
Naxalite violence in different parts of Bengal, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh. The
blowing up of the Air India Boeing 'Kanishka' killed nearly 300 innocent people,
the anti-Sikh riots after the assassination of Mrs.Indira Gandhi resulted in a
massacre of more than 300 Sikhs in Delhi, the violence against KashmiriPandits, the Naxalite insurgency are all various faces of the demon of terrorism.
Terrorism is one of the major threats to world peace toady. Terrorist activities of
the Irish Republican Army, terrorism in Sri Lanka spread by the LTTE, Red Army
in Japan, Palestinian Guerrillas in Israel, Kurds in Iraq, Basques in Spain, Red
Brigade in Italy etc are all instances of terrorism all over the world. The terrorist
attack on World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in USA on September 11, 2001,
the siege of innocent children as hostages in Russia etc indicate at the growing

magnitude of the problem. The attack on Parliament in India on December 13,

2001 or the attack on the Legislative Assembly in Jammu and Kashmir on
October 1, 2001 or the attack on American Information Centre in Kolkata on
January 22, 2002 were all handiworks of terrorists. These attacks are intended to
capture National and International attention. But these latest attacks have been
made to challenge the symbols of democracy and prosperity. The inhuman
massacre of innocent human beings reveals the sadistic indulgent of anti-social,
anti-human and anti-peace, violence loving distorted individuals under the false
garb of Islam or Jehad.
The world has to unite in order to face this growing menace of terrorism. The
world cannot survive with bloodshed, violence and fear. There is every chance of
this world being destroyed by this madness. Thus strict measures and serious
efforts should be made to end all violence and shedding of innocent blood.