NEAR EAST UNIVERSITY

NEAR EAST UNIVERSITY

Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences Department Of International Relations

Master Thesis

Terrorism

The New World War

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Jouni Suistola

Submitted By: Hussam Ibrahim Mayas (20053582)

Nicosia 2008

Near East University

Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences Department of International Relations

Master Thesis

TERRORISM

The New World War

Supervisor:

Proffessor Dr. Jouni Suistola

Submitted By:

Hussam Ibrahim Mayas

(20053582)

Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus

2008

Hussam Ibrahim Mayas: Terrorism, The New World War

Approval of Director of the Graduate School of Social Sciences

We certify that this is satisfactory for the award of degree of Master of Arts in International Relations

Examining Committee in Charge:

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Zeliha Khashman Department of International Relations (Chairman of the Jury)

Prof. Dr. Jouni Suistola Department of International Relations

Dr. Dilek Latif Department of International Relations

Near East University

Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences Department of International Relations

JURY REPORT

ACADEMIC YEAR: 2007-2008

Student Information

Full Name: Hussam Ibrahim Mayas Nationality: Jordanian

Institution: Near East University Department: International Relations

Thesis

Title

Terrorism “The New World War”

Description This thesis is a part of an important discussion about a significant issue in the field of international relations. The first chapter introduces the history of terrorism and the international terrorism in general.

Chapter two discusses the beliefs of terrorists and solving the problem of whether terrorism is connected with a religion or not. Chapter three discusses international security and terrorism in the Middle East. The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is the case study of this thesis; the case study is talking about the Jordanian Foreign Policy and the Global War on Terrorism and The Jordanian Policy and Counter-Terrorism.

Supervisor Prof. Dr. Jouni Suistola

Jury’s Decision

The Jury has decided to accept the student’s thesis.

The decision has been taken unanimously.

Jury Members

Number Attending: 3 Date 03.07.2008

Name: Signature:

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Zeliha Khashman Prof. Dr. Jouni Suistola

Dr. Dilek Latif

03.07.2008

Chairman of the Department Assoc. Prof. Dr. Zeliha Khashman ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First of all I would like to thank my Almighty God who gave me the abilities and helped me to do anything that was possible by me.

I am then very much thankful to my supervisor Prof. Dr. Jouni Suistola who has contributed in the preparation of my thesis to complete it successfully as he gave me full support toward the completion of my thesis.

I would like to thank my parents who gave their lasting encouragement in my studies and enduring these all expenses and supporting me in all events, so that I could be successful in my life time.

I specially thank to my mother whose prayers have helped me to exceed all problems that I faced.

Special thanks to my father who helped me to make my future brighter.

I am also very much thankful to my best friend Kezban Alpan and Mr. Mohammad Dalloal who gave me their precious time to help me and giving me their devotion and valuable information which I really need to complete my thesis.

Furthermore, I am thankful to Near East University academic staff and all those persons who helped me or encouraged me incompletion of my thesis.

Hussam Ibrahim Mayas

3-7-2008.

ABSTRACT

A definition of terrorism and a review of the theory of terrorism are first provided. It is stated that the objectives of terrorism are not those of conventional combat, but are instead to gain specific concessions, to gain publicity, to cause widespread disorder, to provoke repression, or to punish certain groups or individuals, it is stressed that the actual amount of violence carried out by terrorists has been greatly exaggerated. Terrorism has not yet had a major impact on the international order. Also discussed are the new targets and new capabilities of terrorists, the use of terrorism by some nations as a means of waging surrogate warfare against other nations, and future directions of terrorism. A chronology of recent terrorist organizations is appended.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgement………...1

Abstract………....2

Table of Contents………..……… ..3

Introduction ………...……...5

Chapter I Terrorism: The Tackled Issue

1.1.1 Terrorism since World War II………....14

1.1.2 Modern Terrorism since 1960s………...15

1.1.3 Terrorism and the Future………...……….16

1.2 The Differences between Terrorism and a Struggle………..18

1.3 Terrorists and Community……….20

1.3.1 The Mind of Terrorists………20

1.3.2 The Threat of Terrorism………..22

1.4 Causes of Terrorism………...24

1.5 Terrorists Goals and Motivations……….…..26

1.6 Media and Terrorism………..28

1.7 Common Types of Terrorist Tactics………..29

1.7.1 Bombings………29

1.7.2 Kidnapping and Hostage-Taking………31

1.7.3 Armed Attacks and Assassinations……….31

1.7.4 Hijacking and Skyjacking………...……32

Chapter II Terrorism: Islam and Terrorism

2.2 The Threat that Causes the Unrest to the U.S.A (Osama bin Laden)………39

2.2.1 Al-Qaeda……….41

2.2 Is Suicide Terrorism Religiously Motivated?...43

2.3 How Many Arab Youth have been Recruited by Al-Qaeda Lately and Why?...46

Chapter III The American Perspective and Terrorism in the Middle East

3.2 The International Security and Terrorism in the Middle East……….………..54

3.3 The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (Case Study)……….60

3.3.1 A Brief History about the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan……….61

3.3.2 Kings of Jordan and Political Events………...62

3.3.3 The Jordanian Foreign Policy and the Global War on Terrorism………...63

3.3.4 The Jordanian Policy and Counter-Terrorism……….66

3.3.5 Terrorist Attacks in Jordan………..68

CONCLUSION……….…….70

BIBLIOGRAPHY………..75 APPENDEXIS………...…………79

Introduction

he threat of terrorism has increased gradually over the last 30 years. With advances in technology, terrorist acts have become much more destructive and the perpetrators of those acts are more elusive. Few parts of the world have been untouched by the current wave of terrorism that began in the late 1960’s.

T

For many politicians the new world war is the suitable name for Terrorism; in other words we can say that terrorism nearly became the only thing that is spreading fear among the rulers as kings and presidents. For most politicians terrorism is considered as a forerunner of a new world war, for others it is more dangerous than a world war as you do not really know who your enemy is or whom you are dealing with.

Before a discussion of terrorism is possible, everyone has first to understand the meaning of the word “Terrorism“. For more illustration, what is the difference between a terrorist and a freedom-fighter or a revolutionary? And what exactly constitutes a state terror?

A terrorist is an individual or group who uses acts of violence and intimidation to achieve a desired social, political, or religious outcome. In American society, a terrorist is also defined as any group

or individual that uses violence to oppose the US domestic or foreign policy. What this definition of terrorism fails to recognize is the revolutionary or guerilla force that is combating an unresponsive or oppressive government.

Hostage-taking, hijacking, assassination, bombing and killing civilians are some types of terrorism that we are facing in every single day. In order to understand terrorist motivations, one should first determine the political, social, or religious goals of the terrorist organizations.

We could say that terrorism in the modern sense is violence or other harmful acts committed or even threatened against civilians for political or other ideological goals. Most definitions of terrorism include only those acts which are intended to create fear or "terror", are perpetrated for an ideological goal (as opposed to the attacks), and deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants.

Many definitions also include only acts of unlawful violence which already causes the unrest in the place.

According to the Longman word wise dictionary the definition of terrorism is:

“The use of violence such as bombing, shooting, or kidnapping to obtain political demands such as making a government do something”.¹

There is a critical difference between a revolutionary group that is trying to overthrow a dictator, and a terrorist organization that is using intimidation and force to enforce its view of the world on an unwilling society. It is only through understanding what the terrorist is trying to accomplish and why,

1 Longman. World wise dictionary, 639.

that their actions and motivations can be understood. Yasser Arafat² said in the 1974 UN General Assembly in order to distinguish between a terrorist and a freedom-fighter:

“The difference between the revolutionary and the terrorist lies in the reason for which each fights. For whoever stands by a just cause and fights for the freedom and liberation of his land from the invaders, the settlers and the colonialists can not possibly be called terrorists”.³ He continued: “And yet, I, as chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, hereby once more declare that I condemn terrorism in all its forms, and at the same time salute those sitting before me in this hall who, in the days when they fought to free their countries from the yoke of colonialism, were accused of terrorism by their oppressors, and who today are the faithful leaders of their peoples, stalwart champions of justice and freedom."⁴

Defining terrorism is difficult and controversial, since its tactics overlap those of conventional military. Consequently, the line between terrorism and other forms or kinds of violence tends to be blurred. Terrorism is a conspiratorial style of violence calculated to alter the attitudes and behavior of multiple audiences. It targets the few in a way that claims the attention of the many. Thus, a lack of proportion between resources deployed and effects created, between the material power of actors and the fear their actions generate is typical. Among systematic and organized modes of civil or international violence, terrorism is distinguished by its high symbolic and expressive value. The discrepancy between the secrecy of planning and the visibility of results gives it even more shock value.

Terrorism is a fact considered as a virtually inconceivable to many people who are under the threat of terrorism. It is also an unimaginable destructive power for any person or place. As a result, we

2Yasser Arafat in that time was the Palestinian Chairman; he passed away on November, 11, 2004, to move everything to the new Palestinian Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

3Lloyd Pettiford, David Harding, Terrorism: The New World War, (Arcturus Publishing Limited, 2003), 30.

4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_terrorism [01.03.2008].

are asked to understand and explain what terrorism means and in what shapes it exists in order to take the first step in a long-term program for reducing terrorism in the whole world for a safe life for all humans, for our children’s life, laments of mothers on their sons, to get rid of inside horror and to erase memories which are full of victim scenes without finding anyone somehow to atone for the loss of life and suffering of innocents. As a conclusion and after reading and reading we can say that terrorism is the cruelest crime as it has totally innocent victims. Furthermore, if the personal suffering is not enough while experiencing terrorism, terrorism frogmarches governments into actions that abandon hard- earned freedoms of modern civilization.

Terrorism is a simple blinding format hate which has been created in order to change a policy of a country because there are many ways to change a political system in a peaceful, rational and logical ways. We can negotiate and ask for our political requests and rights in a political diplomatic way instead of making terror attacks and killing innocent people.

Every country in the world has to fight terrorism (Counter Terrorism) as terrorist organizations are threatening our lives and properties in every day we are living: Ultimately, I have to say that we don’t have to wait until it is too late.

The questions about this thesis will be about describing terrorism, giving a brief history about terrorism and how did it start, the terrorist organizations, the relationship between religions and terrorism, the mind of terrorists, the American perspective in the Middle East as it is full of terrorism and the connection between Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda terrorist organization.

My special question is if the Jordanian foreign policy supports terrorism or is it an active policy in fighting terrorism (counter terrorism) as the Jordanian Government had been attacked by many painful terror attacks during the last few years.

Chapter One

Terrorism: The Tackled Issue

Chapter : Terrorism: The Tackled Issue І

1.1 A Brief History of Terrorism

here is no doubt that the International Terrorism nowadays has became one of the most important factors that are threatening our international community and our social lives. The history of terrorism, resolving its contradictions is not an easy subject; it is a messy case but also a moral maze. The last updated statements assure that there are more than 170 active terrorist organizations which are some how applying the roles that they are required to do.⁵

T

There are many definitions of terrorism but all have a common point of departure. Terrorism is characterized first and foremost by the use of violence. This violence includes hostage taking, hijacking, bombing, and other indiscriminate attacks which usually are targeting at civilians. However, the purpose of violence and motivation behind it are the issues where most of the disagreements related to terrorism begin.

5http://www.aljazeeratalk.net/forum/showthread.php?t=71218, trs. [05.06.2008].

Traditionally, terrorism has been separated from criminal acts on the basis of political legitimacy.

According to those sympathetic to terrorist causes the violence undertaken is the only way to draw attention to the plight and grievances of a specific group as opposed to an individual. With little recourses for change, other than violence, some view terrorism as an acceptable method of righting injustice while others see it as egregious act. Historically such causes have included ideological, ethnic and religious exclusion or persecution.⁶

Terrorism has been used by a broad array of political organizations in furthering their objectives;

they include both right-wing and left-wing political parties, nationalistic, and religious groups, revolutionaries and ruling governments. The presence of non-state actors in widespread armed conflict has created controversy regarding the application of the laws of war. For the US the Talibanis and members of al-Qaeda have been “illegal enemy combatants”, and thus, outside of the Geneva Convention⁷ dealing with the treatment of prisoners -of-war.

An International Round Table on Constructing Peace, Deconstructing Terror (2004) hosted by Strategic Foresight Group recommended that a distinction should be made between terrorism and acts of terror. While acts of terror are criminal acts as per the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373 and domestic jurisprudence of almost all countries in the world, terrorism refers to a phenomenon

6 John Baylis, Steve Smith, The Globalization of World's Politics, An Introduction to International Relations, 3rd Ed. (Oxford University press, 2005), 480.

7 The Geneva Conventions which were adopted before 1949 were concerned with combatants only, not with civilians. Some provisions concerning the protection of populations against the consequences of war and their protection in occupied territories are contained in the Regulations concerning the laws and customs of war on land, annexed to the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. During World War I The Hague provisions proved to be insufficient in view of the dangers originating from air warfare and of the problems relating to the treatment of civilians in enemy territory and in occupied territories. The International Conferences of the Red Cross of the 1920's took the first steps towards laying down supplementary rules for the protection of civilians in time of war. The 1929 Diplomatic Conference, which revised the Geneva Convention on wounded and sick and drew up the Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war, limited itself to recommending that "studies should be made with a view to concluding a convention on the protection of civilians in enemy territory and in enemy occupied territory.

http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/INTRO/380?OpenDocument . [23.03.2008].

including the actual acts, the perpetrators of acts of terror themselves and their motives. There is disagreement on definitions of terrorism. However, there is an intellectual consensus globally, that acts of terror should not be accepted under any circumstances. This is reflected in all important conventions including the United Nations counter terrorism strategy, the decisions of the Madrid Conference on terrorism, the Strategic Foresight Group and ALDE Round Tables at the European Parliament.⁸

It is nearly impossible to ascertain when what we nowadays call terrorism traces was first time used, but some say that its roots Go back at least by some 2,000 years. Terrorism has been practiced throughout history and throughout the world; terrorism has been practiced without referring at the term of terrorism. Roman emperors used many ways of terrorism. Tiberius (reigned AD 14–37) and Caligula (reigned AD 37–41) are two examples of Roman emperors who used banishment, expropriation of property and execution as means to discourage opposition to their rule.⁹

Sicarii was a highly organized religious sect which consisted of men of lower orders who were active in the Zealot struggle in Palestine (AD 66–73), they were attacking their enemies by daylight, and also they preferred to attack on holidays when crowds of people were gathering in Jerusalem. Sica (a short sword) was their favorite weapon; they were hiding this weapon under their coats.¹⁰

The victims of the Sicarii included Jonathan the High Priest, though it is possible that his murder was orchestrated by the Roman governor Felix. Some of their murders were met with severe retaliation by the Romans on the entire Jewish population of the country. On some occasions, they could be bribed to spare their intended victims. If the narrative of Barabbas is not an invention to create a parable, even convicted Sicarii were occasionally released on promising to spare their opponents, though there is no evidence for this practice outside the Gospels, which are largely in accord on this point. Once, Josephus

8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism. [23.03.2008].

9 http://www.terrorismfiles.org/encyclopaedia/terrorism.html. [25.03.2008].

10 WalterLaqueur, Terrorism, (The Chaucer Press, 1980), 18.

relates, after kidnapping the secretary of Eleazar, governor of the Temple precincts, they agreed to release him in exchange for ten of their captured comrades.¹¹

The English word ‘terrorism’ comes from the “regime de la terreur” that prevailed in France from 1793-1794.¹² Some say that the phenomenon of terrorism was started during the French revolution in France in 1789, which finished the rule of King Louis the 16^th.¹³ Before 1789 terrorism was considered as a kind of vandalism but since terrorism has been to be considered as a political case with a political motivation.

The Russian Narodnaya Volya (NV), or according to Walter Laqueur, the father of the modern revolutionary terrorism, launched a terror campaign against the autocratic regime of the Czar. Narodnaya Volya’s Program was a mix of democratic and socialist reforms, its program contained convocation of the Constituent Assembly (for designing a Constitution); introduction of universal suffrage; permanent people’s representation, freedom of speech, press, and assembly; communal self-government; exchange of the permanent army with a people’s volunteer corps; transfer of land to the people; gradual placement of the factories under the control of the workers; and granting oppressed peoples of the Russian Empire the right to self- determination.

Between 1878 and 1881 the NV assassinated government officials and attempted to assassinate the Czar himself, first the NV tried to blow up a train in which the Czar was traveling

11 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicarii. [01.06.2008].

12Mark Burgess, “a brief history of terrorism”, Center for Defense Information, (2003).

13 Dr.Mohammad Moa’nis Mohib Al-Deen. “Terrorism in the Criminal Law,” trs. Doctoral Dissertation. Al- Mansoura University, Faculty of Law, (1983), 7.

14 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narodnaya_Volya. [ 01.06.2008].

by, after that he tried to assassinate the Czar by detonating a mine in the Romanovs’ winter palace. Finally, the NV was crushed by the Russia’s secret police.

In the second half of the 19^th century, terrorism was adopted by adherents of anarchism in Western Europe, Russia, and the United States as revolutionary movements as they believed that the best way of a political change is the revolution or the assassination of persons in positions of power, as a response and during the few years (1865 to 1905) a number of kings, presidents, prime ministers, politicians and government officials were killed by anarchists' guns or bombs.¹⁶

Religious, nationalist and political roots are the main parts or catalysts that switched-on the new era of terrorism. Terrorism started first as a religious reflection in order to defense religion by killing the apostate. In his book “Fear and Trembling: Terrorism in Three Religious Traditions”, David C. Rapoport claims:

“Before the 19th century, religion provided the only acceptable justifications for terror.”¹⁷

1.1.1 Terrorism since World War II

In the wake of the World War II, when many terrorism movements emerged, the main focus for such terrorist activities mainly shifted from Europe itself to that continent’s various colonies. After the defeat of the Axis powers and through the Middle East, Asia and Africa many nascent nationalist movements raised up to resist the European attempts to resume colonial business as usual, these terrorist activities tried to dispelling the myth of European invincibility.¹⁸These groups or terrorist

15 Ann G. Gaines, Terrorism, (Chelsea house publishers, 2001), 46.

16 http://www.terrorismfiles.org/encyclopaedia/terrorism.html. [29.03.2008].

17Mark Burgess, “a brief history of terrorism”, Center for Defense Information, (2003).

18 Ibid.

activities were known as nationalistic and anti-colonial groups as they conducted guerilla warfare.

Excellent examples are the Jewish Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Cypriot EOKA.

1.1.2 Modern Terrorism Since 1960s

Terrorism, the war of small groups against states, is on the rise since the end of the cold war and the collapse of communism. The new war is not anymore mostly between states, but mostly against states.

In our modern time, terrorism planted in us to be an essential part which can not be separated of our daily lives. Many terrorist groups improved themselves and became powerful terrorist organizations. During the 1960s and 1970s, the number of those groups that might be described as terrorist groups swelled and spread out to include not only nationalists, but also those motivated by ethnic, religious and ideological considerations.

The Palestinian Liberation Organization, the Basque ETA and the Provisional Irish Republican Army are some examples on such groups.¹⁹

19 Ibid.

1.1.3 Terrorism and the Future

Terrorists have shown unbelievable ability to adapt to the techniques and methods of counter- terror agencies and intelligence organizations over the long term. Terrorist organizations also try always to apply any available means of technology in order to ease and increase the accuracy of achieving their goals. Often they use a network organization, which also complicates the tasks of security forces and reduces the predictability of operations. Terrorists have improved and are improving their sophistication and abilities in all aspects of their operations. The aggressive use of modern technology for information management, communication and intelligence has increased the efficiency of these activities.²⁰

Terrorism threat is not so much about what actually happens or what will happen, but rather about what might have happened, or what might happen in the future. In the meantime, crimes on much bigger scale are actually being committed around the world. What we are scared of now is what might be coming next. And that, in its turn, depends very much on the spectacularisation of the event through the media, by politicians, etc.

As explained by Derrida²¹, terrorism is not about "what is presently happening or what has happened in the past but the precursory signs of what threatens to happen. It is the future that determines the unappropriability of the event, not the present or the past. Or at least, if it is the present

20 http://www.terrorism-research.com/future/. [01.04.2008].

21Jacques Derrida, an Algerian-born French philosopher, known as the founder of deconstruction. His voluminous work has had a profound impact upon literary theory and continental philosophy. His best known work is Of Grammatology.

or the past, it is only insofar as it bears on its body the terrible sign of what might or perhaps will take place, which will be worse than anything that has ever taken place".²²

Furthermore, the globalization has improved the technical capabilities of terrorists and given them global reach but has not altered the fundamental fact that terrorism is the weakest form of irregular warfare and represents the extreme views of a limited minority of the global population. In other words, the globalization has changed the scoop of terrorism but not its nature. Although globalization has improved the technical capabilities of sub-state groups and individuals, it has not conveyed one-sided or absolute benefits to terrorist. The same technologies and processes which offer terrorism its global reach also enable more effective means of states to combat them.

No one could expect what future will bring to us.²³ Edmund Burke, the Eighteenth century philosopher, said: “You can never plan the future by the past”,²⁴ on the other hand, Abba said about the same case: “The history book on the shelf is always repeating itself”,²⁵ ultimately, and as a conclusion, we can recognize that no one in the world we are living in can suppose or expect what is the exact future for terrorism.

22 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Derrida. [23.05.2008].

23 No one can predict if terrorist organizations will use the nuclear weapons in their terror attacks or not.

24Lloyd Pettiford, David Harding, Terrorism: The New World War, (Arcturus Publishing Limited, 2003), 180.

25 Ibid.

1.2 The Differences between Terrorism and a Struggle

ur argument will be about one of the most important disagreements between the countries in all over the world as some groups are using power against other groups, the vagueness here is as both of these groups are calling himself in the right way and the other is a terrorist. Perhaps that is what is going on in the world politics nowadays. For example, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States of America became the only superpower in the world.²⁶ It tries to claim that the American point of view is the only view which is true without paying attention to any other point of view. As a result, you can notice and realize that the American hegemony has been spread to cover nearly all the world.²⁷ At the same phase, the way of using force became the only ideology which can be used in this time not just inside the terrorist’s minds but also in the minds of the state.

O

The Neorealism sees the power as a possibly useful means which already most countries in all over the world are seeking to have in order to improve their armies (Kenneth Waltz). Kant said about war, that the nature of the state is the state of war. Bruce Russett believes that with enough democracies in the world, it "may be possible in part to supersede the 'realist' principles”.²⁸

26 The USA and after the collapse of the USSR became the only massive power which can control the whole world, in other words we can say that the world we are living in after the collapse of the USSR became a uni-polar world (the American Hegemony). For more information read about the Realism Theory and the Neorealism Theory which are related to international relations field.

27 T.V.Paul, John A. Hall, International Order and the Future of World Politics, (Cambridge University press, 1999), 123-141.

28 Kenneth Waltz. Structural Realism after the Cold War: International security, (2000), 5-41.

However, the international community is still mixed between the two idioms (terrorism-struggle) and until now it is not easy to distinguish between them; but the idea is that countries are looking to violence according to their interests. In other words, violence is acceptable if it’s suitable with the interests of the state; such as the War in Iraq, but if it’s unsuitable it would be, of course, a terrorist action. We could take a look over what has been going on in Palestine under the Israeli occupation since 1948. The Israeli military instrument has attacked against civilian people until now. Yet, the Israeli leadership calls the fighting of the Palestinian people terrorism! At the same time the world did not accept the creation of the state of Palestine.²⁹

When the winners of the Second World War decided to establish the United Nations the goal was to keep the peace and further the cooperation between the nations and also protect the human rights and support the independency of the nations.

The main idea here is that every nation is looking at any action which helps its interests as an acceptable action; but in the same time the actions are not be acceptable for the other nations, which call them a terrorism. Here we face the complicated problem of how to find a common definition which should be universal.

29 David W. Lesch, The Middle East and the United States, 3rd Ed. (West view press, 2004), 191-203.

1.3 Terrorists and Community

hat is the main goal of terrorists? How can terrorists change government’s policy? What is our duty as civilians in counter-terrorism? What terrorists want from us as civilians? What is the main factor that serves terrorists against us as civilians? All of these questions are considered as a clue in order to learn what terrorism and terrorists mean.

W

The principle goal of terrorists is to terrify civilians and governments into acquiescing to their political demands as it is the only way that they have to achieve their interests. The only way that they can achieve this is by creating a huge or substantial amount of fear and horror to make people believe that their life is significantly under danger and threatened by potential terrorism.

Our duty as civilians is to prevent the fear that terrorists plant in the bottom of our hearts because terrorists lose their power over us when they lose what they want us to feel and believe. If we could achieve this, then terrorists would lose the control on our behaviors. Finally, we have to know that being afraid means that you are facilitating the goals of terrorists.

1.3.1 The Mind of Terrorists

Terrorism is considered as a political problem. It is true but also terrorism is considered as a human behavior³⁰ as terrorists are humans who have their own psychology and way of thinking. The psychology of terrorists is still considered as a vague case as knowing or even guessing what they exactly want or how do they commit their terrorist attacks of killing innocent victims, as women and children, bombing buildings and cars, hijacking airplanes, assassinations and kidnapping. Their targets are still a blurred case, which according to many scientists is not related with policies but with psychology.

Terrorists believe that they have a right legitimate grievance. If most terrorists do not meet diagnostic criteria for a major mental illness or for sociopathy, should one conclude that they are rational? This is absolutely right, terrorists are humans like us. If one terrorist is out of his mind or has a psychological problem then the others have to think in a pure rational way. This raises the question of the explanatory power of rational choice theory the theory that terrorist action derives from a conscious, rational, calculated decision to take this particular type of action as the optimum strategy to accomplish a sociopolitical goal.

A distinction should be made between rational choice theory and other individual or group psychological theories of terrorism. The latter try to explain why people are inclined toward a type or style of behavior (e.g., to be a terrorist), while rational choice theory, derived from economics, assumes this behavioral proclivity as a given and attempts to explain how changes in policy—the rules of the

“game” that is played between terrorists and governments—might predictably alter behavior. Since

30Jeff Victoroff,“the Mind of the Terrorist”, Journal of Conflict Resolution, (2005).

rational choice theory considers both policy and individual behavioral responses to policy, it combines the top-down and bottom-up approaches.

1.3.2 The Threat of Terrorism

In these days, you would have to be living on moon in order not to have heard about bin Laden, al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups; it seems to be impossible not to find anyone who can not tell nearly everything about four, five or even more terrorist groups.

In the world we are living in, we have many terrorist groups; some of the most successful terrorist groups were the vast array of guerilla, partisan or resistance movement s . Every terrorist group is trying to be the best as if they were in a race. Being a famous terrorist group depends on how many victims you enlisted in your criminal file, how many trading centers you bombed, how many airplanes did you hijack.

Terrorist organizations are different from each other according to their power, armors, technology, the way of organization and their beliefs. There are two general categories of organization;

hierarchical and networked. The main factor that determines whether a terrorist organization adopts the hierarchical or the networked structure as a main system depends on the age of that organization. In other words, the newer terror organizations tend to adapt and adopt the network model. Terrorist organizations that are associated with political activities or other organizations tend to adapt the hierarchical structure in order to coordinate terrorist violence with political action.³¹

31 http://www.terrorism-research.com/groups. [04.04.2008].

Since the start of the twentieth century, many terror attacks took place on the soil of many worlds’ countries, In the terrorists illogical quest for accomplishing their unjustified and vague demands, most of these terror attacks were painful and left hundreds or thousands victims behind, and those victims have no mistake except being in the same place where the terror attacks took place.

Although the first decade of the twenty-first century did not finish yet, I can say that this decade is full of painful terror attacks, victims and fear. The Red Brigade Leader Renato Curci said:

“It is necessary to kill today to live tomorrow”.³² For more illustration, this section will tackle briefly these terror attacks that took place in the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries.

The threat of terrorism rose in the 1990s, and the former CIA counter-terrorist head, Paul Pillar said:

"The long history of terrorism is reason enough to expect that it will always be a problem and usually a significant one. It is a product of such basic facts of human existence as the discontent that it is sometimes strong enough to impel people toward violence, the asymmetries of the weak confronting the strong, and the vulnerability of almost every facet of civilization to physical harm at the hands of those who find a reason to inflict harm. If there is a ‘war’ against terrorism, it is a war that cannot be won. Counterterrorism, even though it shares some attributes with warfare, is not accurately represented by the metaphor of a war. Unlike most wars, it has neither a fixed set of enemies nor the prospect of coming to closure, be it through a ‘win’ or some other kind of denouement."³³

32 Lloyd Pettiford, David Harding, Terrorism: The New World War, (Arcturus Publishing Limited, 2003),

109.

33 Columnist Sultan Ahmed, “the roots of terrorism”, defense journal, (2006).

1.4 Causes of Terrorism

errorism has occurred throughout history for a variety of reasons. Causes of terrorism can be historical, cultural, political, social, psychological, economic, and religious or any combination of these.

T

Democratic countries usually have provided more fertile ground for terrorism as the nature of these democratic societies is open. In such societies citizens have equal and fundamental rights, civil liberties are legally protected and government control and constant surveillance of its citizens and their activities is absent.

In the other hand, repressive societies³⁴ have often provided more difficult environments for terrorists. But even police-states such as People's Republic of China, Myanmar, and Laos have not been immune to terrorism, despite limiting civil liberties and forbidding free speech and rights of assembly.³⁵

To understand how the terrorism penetrates our societies we should take a deep look on the reasons which perhaps create the terror. The main reasons are as follows:

34 Repressive societies are the societies in which the government closely monitors citizens and restricts their speech and movement, so we can say that almost everything is controlled by the government.

35http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761564344_2/Terrorism.html#s5. [14.05.2008].

 High population growth rates (so-called “youth bulges”),

 High Unemployment (poverty),

 Lagging economies,

 Political disenfranchisement,

 Extremism,

 Ethnic conflicts,

 Religious conflicts,

 Territorial conflicts.

A global research report An Inclusive World prepared by an international team of researchers from all continents has analyzed causes of present day terrorism. It has reached the conclusions that terrorism all over the world functions like an economic market. There is demand for terrorists placed by greed or grievances. Supply is driven by relative deprivation resulting in triple deficits-developmental deficit, democratic deficit and dignity deficit. Acts of terror take place at the point of intersection between supply and demand. Those placing the demand use religion and other denominators as vehicles to establish links with those on the supply side. This pattern can be observed in all situations ranging from Colombia to Colombo and the Philippines.³⁶

36 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism. [13.05.2008].

1.5 Terrorists Goals and Motivations

he objectives of terrorist operations are always influenced by the terrorists’ ideologies and motivations. Terrorist organizations with secular ideologies and non-religious goals often attempt to achieve highly selective and discriminate acts of violence to achieve a specific political aim. These organizations are considered as highly dangerous as their targets symbols of authority: government offices, banks, national airlines and multinational corporations with direct relation to the established order. Also they conduct attacks on representative individuals whom they associate with economic exploitation, social injustice, or political repression to make these devastating attack to create a huge shock and panic.³⁷

T

37 http://www.terrorism-research.com/goals/. [04.05.2008 ].

On the other hand, religiously oriented groups typically attempt to strike and cause as many casualties and victims as possible. The apocalyptic frame of reference (as the Bible or the Koran) they use is the main motivation for them for such acts. Here the loss of life is irrelevant: the more casualties the better.³⁸

The main goal of terrorism to produce widespread fear and disrupt the public's sense of safety by creating feelings of vulnerability and fear, intimidate and coerce civilians, obtain worldwide and national or local recognition for their cause by attracting the attention of the media, harass and weaken or embarrass government security forces so that the government overreacts and appears repressive.

Stealing money and equipments, especially weapons and ammunition, is vital to the operations of their group. Also they destroy facilities or disrupt lines of communication to create doubt that the government can provide for and protect its citizens, discourage foreign investments, tourism, or assistance programs that can affect the target country’s economy and support of the government in power, Influence government decisions, legislation, or other critical decisions, free prisoners or Satisfy vengeance, and attract the government to a guerrilla war by forcing government security forces to concentrate their efforts in urban areas. This allows the terrorist group to establish itself among the local populace in rural areas.³⁹’⁴⁰

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid.

40 http://www.redcross.org/preparedness/cdc_english/factsThreats.html. [04.05.2008].

.

1.6 Media and Terrorism

major segment of the global media is behaving in a manner that makes terrorism and mass killings more likely rather than less likely. They enable and encourage terrorist slaughter of innocents by supplying providing a propaganda bonanza for the terrorist cause.

Without the gain, there would be less incentive for the horrific behavior”.⁴¹ By these words Rachel Neuwirth started his article about how the media enable terrorism.

“A

Media or televised news coverage play a significant role to spread terrorism by expanding and increasing the number of audience who could watch or witness what James D. Kiras also the “theatre of terrorism” as nowadays one can watch the theatre of terrorism live through television.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) is a living example about how media supports and expands terrorism as nearly most of the world did not hear about Palestine or the Palestinian case before 1970s. The PFLP did many terrorist attacks using media as a means in order to spread their own political case, the Palestinian case. Excellent examples are the triple-hijacking and blowing up of airliners by the PFLP in 1970, and live coverage of hostage-taking by the Black September terror organization in Munich Olympics in 1972. During these terror attacks, terrorist used media to spread their political case and their opinions as they believed that media could be considered as the oxygen that sustains terrorism.⁴²

41Rachel Neuwirth , “how the media enable terrorism”, American thinker, (2006).

42 John Baylis, Steve Smith, The Globalization of World's Politics, An Introduction to International Relations, 3rd Ed. (Oxford University press, 2005), 483.

1.7 Common Types of Terrorist Tactics

n order to achieve their unannounced goals, terrorists are always using different kinds of terror tactics. These tactics have different styles and goals; one of these goals is to generate a substantial amount of fear; these tactics are:

I

1.7.1 Bombings

Bombing is considered as the most common kind of terrorist acts. To produce a bomb or an explosive device is easy and cheap. This kind of terrorist act also plants fear in the hearts of citizens and leave many victims and injured people.

Many terrorists are well trained to make explosives and bombs as they are inexpensive and easy to make. For example, in his confession about bombing the U.S. Embassy in Jordan, the Jordanian prime minister's office and the headquarters of Jordanian intelligence, Azmi Jayyousi said:

“I took explosives courses, poisons high level, then I pledged allegiance to Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, to obey him without any questioning”.⁴³

Nowadays bombs have become more effective and useful for terrorists: They are more lethal, smaller and harder to detect. The bombing of the two American embassies in Africa on August 7, 1998 is

43 http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/04/26/jordan.terror/ . [18.04.2008].

a clear example of the destructive power that bombs have: 200 people died and 5000 civilians were injured.⁴⁴

Suicide bombing is a common tactic of terrorist attacks. The main question here is a controversial subject. To be more precise, we have to ask ourselves if suicide bombings are related to Islam or not as we always hear? In order to answer this question, let’s read and analyze the next paragraph carefully.

In October, 2005, Dr. Pape was interviewed at a roundtable discussion sponsored by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life about his research conclusions on whether Islamic extremism motivates terrorism. Pape discussed his findings with is interviewer:

“The conventional wisdom is that suicide terrorism is motivated by religious fanaticism religious hatred combined with the promise of a martyr's paradise in the hereafter. What does your own research suggest? The conventional wisdom is mostly wrong. Suicide terrorism is not mainly the product of Islamic fundamentalism or any other evil ideology independent of circumstance. I have studied 462 suicide terrorists; over half are secular. The world leader in suicide terrorism is the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka - they're a Marxist group, a secular group, a Hindu group. The Tamil Tigers have committed more suicide terrorist attacks than Hamas or Islamic Jihad. Instead, what more than 95 percent of all suicide terrorist attacks since 1980 have in common is not religion, but a specific secular goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Chechnya to Kashmir to Sri Lanka to the West Bank, every suicide terrorist campaign since 1980 has had as its main objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw combat forces from territory that the terrorists prize”.⁴⁵

44 http://www.terrorism-research.com/incidents/. [18.04.2008].

45http://terrorism.about.com/od/causes/f/SuicideBombFAQ.htm . [18.04.2008].

1.7.2 Kidnapping and Hostage-Takings

Kidnapping is nearly the most difficult act for a terrorist group to be accomplished; terrorists are using kidnapping to establish a bargaining position for ransom or to secure their way to their next point or to release jailed comrades and to elicit publicity.⁴⁶Unlike kidnapping, hostage-taking provokes a confrontation with authorities. Terrorists usually use such a terror act in order to force the authorities to listen to them or to comply with their demands.⁴⁷

1.7.3 Armed Attacks and Assassinations

Armed attacks include, for example, raids and ambushes. Assassination is the act of murdering an important person⁴⁸ or the killing of a selected victim, usually by bombings or small arms. Drive-by shootings is a common technique employed by unsophisticated or a simple organized terrorist groups.

Historically, terrorists have assassinated many well-known politicians for many reasons. Also terrorists have assassinated other individuals or politicians for a psychological effect, for example, Anwar Sadat, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria.⁴⁹

46Ibid.

47 Ibid.

48 Longman Dictionary, Contemporary English, 74.

49 http://www.terrorism-research.com/incidents/. [18.04.2008].

1.7.4 Hijacking and Skyjacking

Hijacking is the use of violence or threat to take control of a plane, vehicle or ship.⁵⁰Furthermore, Skyjacking is the taking of an aircraft, which creates a mobile hostage barricade situation. Skyjacking often provides the terrorists by the mobility to relocate the aircraft to a country that supports their cause and provides them with a human shield, making retaliation difficult.⁵¹

50 Longman Dictionary, Contemporary English, 768.

51 http://www.terrorism-research.com/incidents/. [18.04.2008].

Chapter Two

Islam and Terrorism

Chapter ІІ: Islam and Terrorism

2.1 Islam and Terrorism

slam is the religion of forgiveness, peace and mercy. Many people who do not know the exact meaning of Islam have called Islam a religion of loot, pillage, plunder, rape, torture and murder in order to further the interests of Islam, and they are calling the Holy Book of the Muslims, the Koran, as specific instruction manual of terrorism.⁵²

I

As a fact, during the Nineteenth and the Twentieth centuries terrorism in the Muslim and Arab world was not as we know it nowadays as a real terrorism or international terrorism because terrorism during these two centuries was an internal and local phenomenon. It was also not that complex case that causes sleeplessness in the American administration. Terrorism in the Muslim and Arab world was not really a predominant case.

There is a scientific rule which says that nothing in this world can stay stable; everything has to change. We were born as infants, then became babies, children, teenagers, young men, men, old men and finally we die. This rule can be applicable on anything. As a result, as terrorism in the Muslim and Arab world exists, it changed from an internal and local phenomenon to be the most prominent component of world terrorism.⁵³

Objectivity means being logical in telling the truth as it is without changing any statement or any idea in order to use it for your own benefit. Consequently, I will try to analyze the truth from all angles in order to be objective.

“Praise be to Allah, we seek His help and ask for his pardon. We take refuge in Allah from our wrongs and bad deeds. Who ever been guided by Allah will not be misled, and who ever has

52http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate/koran.html. [11.05.2008].

53Walter Laqueur, No End to War, Terrorism in the Twenty-first Century, (The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc. 2003), 30.

been misled, he will never be guided. I bear witness that there is no God except Allah no associates with Him and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and messenger”.⁵⁴

By these words, Osama bin Laden started his speech in which he explicitly announced the war on the United States of America (he called it the “Declaration of War”). These and other words were the start for violent development that changed the course of our world until these days. It should be noticed that nearly all Muslims have suffered from aggression and injustice which were imposed by the Zionist- Crusaders alliance and their collaborators. This aggression reached the climax in our life to the point that Muslim blood became cheap and our wealth became treated as a loot in the hands of the enemies.

Although we as Muslims know that bin Laden has nothing to do with Islam, we can not blame the West for believing that all Muslims are terrorists. Hoffman claims that to consider terrorism as a religious one the perpetrators or the terrorist must use religious scriptures, as the Koran or the Bible, to justify or explain their violent acts or to gain recruits.⁵⁵ Furthermore, there must be some sort of clerical figures involved in some leadership roles.⁵⁶

On the other hand, we have to remind that what is happening to us nowadays is the logical reaction of what bin Laden is doing. Nevertheless, he calls himself a Muslim who is fighting the enemy of God- as he claimed - in order to spread peace all over the world.

Ancient seeds and bitter harvests are the facts that nearly all Muslims are facing everyday all over the world. Muslim blood is spilled in Palestine and Iraq without even paying attention to what is going on there. Muslims’ rights as humans are hammered down and exposed by the massacres that took

54http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1996.html. [11.05.2008].

55 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_terrorism.html. [11.05.2008].

56 Ibid.

place in every part of the world as a payback of what bin Laden and his terrorist group did and are still doing.

As we can clearly see bin Laden’s group al-Qaeda - is actively committed to the acts of terrorism in many parts of the world and justifies them with the Koran. In fact, they use Koran as a curtain to hide their criminal actions. As a result, al-Qaeda is killing people, raping, torturing and murdering in order to fulfill their own interests and we –as Muslims- have to payback for every single terrorist action that they have committed, just because we are Muslims.

We as Muslims have to condemned all terrorist acts in all over the world especially the ones that been made by Muslims groups, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a well known Muslim scholar and preacher commented on such Muslim terrorist organizations by saying:

“Islam, the religion of tolerance, holds the human soul in high esteem, and considers the attack against innocent human beings a grave sin, this is backed by the Qur'anic verse which reads:

Who so ever kills a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he has killed all mankind, and who so ever saves the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind," (Al-Ma'dah:32). He added: “The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, is reported to have said, 'A believer remains within the scope of his religion as long as he doesn't kill another person illegally'".⁵⁷

Nowadays, we are living in a unipolar world, and the United States of America is the most powerful country in the world. The Americans can do and control anything or any country they want,

57 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yusuf_al-Qaradawi. [03.07.2008].

spread fear of the immense power of the United States. Consequently, the fear of the United States turns to a hate.⁵⁸’⁵⁹

To prove that bin Laden and al-Qaeda are using Islam as a curtain, let’s take a look of an interview on 23 December 1998 in the Time Magazine about if al-Qaeda has the intention to have a chemical or nuclear weapons bin Laden said:

“Acquiring weapons for the defense of Muslims is a religious duty. If I have indeed acquired these weapons, then I thank God for enabling me to do so. And if I seek to acquire these weapons, I am carrying out a duty. It would be a sin for Muslims not to try to possess the weapons that would prevent the infidels from inflicting harm on Muslims”.⁶⁰

As a conclusion, and according to me, it is a fact that almost anyone in the world could recognize Osama bin Laden just from his picture. It is because bin Laden is considered as the most-wanted guy in the world on the American’s terrorists list.

It is not a complex case to comprehend that al-Qaeda group or bin Laden are not fighting the enemy of God, as they claim, but they are spreading terrorism to achieve their own objectives using Islam and the Koran as an alibi. For more evidence and more illustration, let us read the following quotations for bin Laden:

58VOLL O. JOHN, “Understanding Terrorism”, a Harvard Magazine Roundtable, (2002).

59 T.V.Paul, John A. Hall, International Order and the Future of World Politics, (Cambridge University press, 1999), 123-141.

60 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/who/edicts.html

.

"I have benefited so greatly from the jihad in Afghanistan that it would have been impossible for me to gain such a benefit from any other chance and this cannot be measured by tens of years but rather more than that. ... Our experience in this jihad was great, by the grace of God, praise and glory be to Him, and the most of what we benefited from was that the myth of the superpower was destroyed not only in my mind but also in the minds of all Muslims. Slumber and fatigue vanished and so was the terror which the U.S. would use in its media by attributing itself superpower status or which the Soviet Union used by attributing itself as a superpower".⁶¹

2.2 The Threat that Causes the Unrest to the U.S.A (Osama bin Laden)

is full name is “Osama bin Muhammad bin 'Awad bin Laden”. He was born on 10 March 1957.

Officially he is usually called as “Osama bin Laden” or “Usama bin Laden”, "bin" means "son" in Arabic, thus, his name also tells his genealogy. Osama is the son of Muhammad, who was the son of Awad, and so forth. Bin Laden is considered to be an Islamic militant, and also he is considered to be the founder of the Jihadist organization Al-Qaeda.⁶²

H

Bin Laden nowadays is considered as one of the ten most wanted fugitives on the US Federal Bureau of Investigation's (F.B.I) list as for his involvement in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya and the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001. In conjunction with several other Islamic militant leaders, as they are completing each other, bin

61 http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1996.html. [12.05.2008].

62http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden. [12.04.2008].

Laden issued two fatwas / fatawa (an official order made by an important Islamic religious leader).⁶³ The first fatwa was in 1996 and the second one was in 1998. These two fatwas order Muslims to kill civilians and military personnel from the United States and allied countries until they withdraw military forces from Islamic countries (such as: Iraq and Afghanistan) and withdraw support from Israel.⁶⁴

Bin laden, asked every Muslim who can fight for Jihad to do it, he said:

"We declared jihad against the US government, because the US government is unjust, criminal and tyrannical. It has committed acts that are extremely unjust, hideous and criminal whether directly or through its support of the Israeli occupation". He continued: "For this and other acts of aggression and injustice, we have declared jihad against the US, because in our religion it is our duty to make jihad so that God's word is the one exalted to the heights and so that we drive the Americans away from all Muslim countries.As for what you asked whether jihad is directed against US soldiers, the civilians in the land of the Two Holy Places (Saudi Arabia, Mecca and Medina) or against the civilians in America, we have focused our declaration on striking at the soldiers in the country of The Two Holy Places. The country of the Two Holy Places has in our religion a peculiarity of its own over the other Muslim countries. In our religion, it is not permissible for any non-Muslim to stay in our country. Therefore, even though American civilians are not targeted in our plan, they must leave. We do not guarantee their safety, because we are in a society of more than a billion Muslims."⁶⁵

Bin Laden is viewed as a giant terrorist monster who appears and disappears as an illusion. No one can know where he is. The US government has tried to capture him, but we believe that the British and Americans are chasing a phantom enemy.

63 Longman Dictionary, Contemporary English, 576.

64 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden. [12.04.2008].

65 http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1996.html. [12.05.2008].

Constantly, any reader who is interested in political issues can recognize that the most powerful regime in the world (the USA) was humbled by one man Bin Laden who lives most of his time in a cave.

2.2.1 Al-Qaeda

Al Qaeda was founded in 1988 by Osama bin Laden. Al-Mujahideen, Muslim fighters who fought the Soviets following their 1979 invasion of Afghanistan, were Al-Qaeda's original primary membership base. Furthermore, Al-Qaeda has no home base or no stable accommodation location, but maintains cells in different countries in Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.⁶⁶ Al- Qaeda’s goals are to establish a pan-Islamic Caliphate throughout the world by working with allied Islamic extremist groups to overthrow regimes it deems "non-Islamic" by using terrorism as a tool for spreading their goals and for the expelling Westerners and non-Muslims from Muslim countries (as they claimed).

Al-Qaeda has conducted many terror attacks in the world, the bombings of the US Embassies in Nairobi, Dar Es Salaam and Kenya, Tanzania that killed at least 301 persons and injured more than 5,000 others, the three bombings targeted against the US troop presence in Aden, Yemen in December 1992⁶⁷ and the attacks of September, 11, 2001 on the World Trade Center (Twin Towers) in New York City and

66http://terrorism.about.com/od/groupsleader1/p/AlQaeda.htm. [12.05.2008].

67 Lloyd Pettiford, David Harding, Terrorism: The New World War, (Arcturus Publishing Limited, 2003),

133-136.

the Pentagon⁶⁸ are some of the terror attacks that were conducted by Al-Qaeda to spread terror all around the world.

George W. Bush, the President of the United States of America said about the aims of al Qaeda in Iraq:

"As to al Qaeda in Iraq, al Qaeda is going to fight us wherever we are. That's their strategy. Their strategy is to drive us out of the Middle East. They have made it abundantly clear what they want. They want to establish a caliphate. They want to spread their ideology. They want safe haven from which to launch attacks. They're willing to kill the innocent to achieve their objectives, and they will fight us. And the fundamental question is, will we fight them? I have made the decision to do so. I believe that the best way to protect us in this war on terror is to fight them,"⁶⁹

68 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11%2C_2001_attacks. [13.05.2008].

69Paul Watson & Steve Watson,“U.S. Government Uses Al-Qaeda to Attack Iran”, (2007).

2.3 Is Suicide Terrorism Religiously Motivated?

redible researchers agree that religion neither causes nor explains suicide terrorism. There are several reasons for agreeing with these researches. Not all suicide terrorists are religious. In fact,

C

the secular Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers (LTTE) have committed more suicide attacks since the 1980s than any other group.⁷⁰

When we look closely at the context in which suicide attacks take place, there are always particular grievances or perceived grievances in play that also explain the decision to use the tactic, an excellent example is Hamas, an Islamist Palestinian group, it has a clearly Islamic identity. But their goal as they claim is to establish an Islamist state in the West Bank and Gaza, their goal cannot be divorced from the political conflict between Israel and Palestine from which it springs. As a result, Hamas’s goal for committing suicide attacks is not a pure Islamic goal as it is interfered with policy.

When we are thinking about the possible relationship of religion to suicide terrorism, it is useful to distinguish between the group and individual suicide bombers.

As Robert Pape, who has comprehensively studied patterns in suicide terrorism, points out,

“individual attackers may be motivated by religion, but groups have strategic military goals”. Also he added that “nearly all suicide terrorist attacks have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland".⁷¹

In October, 2005, Dr. Pape was interviewed at a roundtable discussion sponsored by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life about his research conclusions on whether Islamic extremism motivates terrorism. Pape discussed his findings with is interviewer:

70 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_Tigers. [01.06.2008].

71 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Pape#On_suicide_terrorism. [01.06.2008].