Terrorism

CRIMINAL JUSTICE ISSUES: International law; political issues; terrorism; violent crime

SIGNIFICANCE: Long a significant factor in other parts of the world, large-scale terrorism became a primary law-enforcement issue in the United States after the surprise terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and threats of terrorism have reshaped criminal justice in the United States.

Terrorism is notoriously difficult to define for several reasons. The first reason is the problem of perspective: One person’s terrorist may be another person’s freedom fighter. For example, many people in the Middle East regard the al-Qaeda operatives who perpetrated the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States as heroes. By contrast, during the American Revolution, the British regarded the Sons of Liberty as terrorists.

A second problem is the mismatch of analytical units that can lead to circular thinking. For example, if an organization or group is labeled as “terrorist,” then its actions are automatically seen as “terroristic,” even though it was labeled terrorist because of its earlier terroristic actions and statements. A third problem is that “terrorism” can be meaninglessly overinclusive. Some people have argued that the definition of terrorism used in the Patriot Act of 2001 is overly broad. In sum, defining terrorism has been one of the most intractable aspects of the study of crime. Because of difficulties including the inherent biases, clarity of purpose, and disagreements about which phenomena to include, no one definition can be relied upon.

Under the definition used here, terrorism almost always involves some form of coercion, through either actual or threatened violence. Not all violence needs to be against human targets. For example, the Weather Underground, a radical leftist organization of the late 1960s and 1970s, attacked mainly structures and attempted to limit harm to human life. Similarly, the Narodnaya Volya (People’s Will) of nineteenth-century Russia was adamant about the protection of the innocent and targeted only the czar and his support system.

At its core, terrorism is a technique of communication. Acts of terror are designed to communicate messages to audiences larger than those targeted by the acts themselves. When the Provisional Wing of the Irish Republican Army blew up a police station in Belfast, it did so not to deliver a message to the police officers who were attacked, but to send a message to the wider audiences of the British and Ulster Protestant authorities.

Because terrorist target selection is often symbolic, terror is sometimes called “propaganda of the deed.” Allied with this point, the message communicated is often a sociopolitical one; some form of change is desired. For example, the Zapatista rebels of Mexico desire agrarian reform and got the attention of the national government by taking hostages and capturing key government facilities.

Finally, terrorism can be practiced by either insurgents or governments. Insurgent organizations often try to place their issues before wider, perhaps national, audiences to bring about changes in how things are done. In contrast, governmental terror usually strives to quiet dissent or to oppress some within governmental control. In addition to these general types of terror, there are also variations on these themes, including transnational terror, cyberterrorism, ethnonational terror, and narcoterrorism.

Historical Antecedents

Violent oppression and opposition may be endemic to the leadership of humans by other humans, but some of the earliest accounts of activities that would now be recognized as terrorism come from the ancient Holy Land of the Middle East. During the Roman occupation of what was then called Judea, in what is now Israel, Jewish Zealots known as Sicarii killed Jewish moderates, burned financial records, and staged other assaults on Roman order. Their goal was to provoke Roman authorities to commit counter-atrocities that would turn all Judeans against Roman rule. The name of the Sicarii comes from their choice of weapon: a dagger or short sword called the sica that they used to dispatch enemies in crowded public places in broad daylight. Attackers would strike their victims, then feign horror at what they were seeing and thereby escape detection. The Sicarii campaign of terror made all Judeans feel unsafe and helped to incite Jews to open rebellion against the Romans.

Another early Middle Eastern terrorist movement was that of the Hashishim, who operated from the eleventh through the thirteenth centuries and from whose name the term “assassin” is derived. Their name literally means “hashish eaters,” so called because they were known to ingest hashish before making their attacks. The Assassins desired to invoke the coming of the Messiah, as well as to protect their religious autonomy from Seljuk oppression, by killing government officials. Again, daggers were the weapon of choice, largely for religious reasons.

The Thuggee, or Thugs, of India were professional assassins in a cult that operated for several centuries, until British rule was firmly implanted in India. The Thugs killed mostly randomly, paying homage to their god Kali. In contrast to other organizations of terror, the Thugs used silk ties to strangle their victims, an artistic flourish rarely employed before or since.

Terrorism has played a role in American history from the inception of the nation. The Sons of Liberty and the Minutemen of the American Revolution were prototerrorists and insurgents, respectively.

The first use of the term “terrorism” in the modern sense of the word comes from the time of the French Revolution. The Jacobins were the first to use the term and used it with affection, but the positive connotations they invested in the term did not last very long. However, the rapid evaporation of positive connotations of “terrorism” should not be read to indicate that since the French Revolution all terrorists have been regarded as monsters.

One of the most significant and fascinating terrorist organizations of the nineteenth century was Russia’s Narodnaya Volya, whose “Narodniki” members were anticzarist socialists. Possessing an egalitarian organization and a well-read membership, the Narodniki aimed at achieving a “blow at the center.” Even more interesting than their organization is their commitment—uncommon in the modern world—to protecting the innocent. The Narodniki targeted specific individuals and would, at their own peril, protect nontargets from the violence they sought to visit upon the czarist regime. They wrestled philosophically with their right to resort to violence for the furtherance of their political aims and concluded that they could secure this right only by forfeiting their own lives.

Modern Trends

The twentieth century witnessed many important changes in the application and perception of terrorism. For example, the struggle against European imperialism in the developing world saw the birth of a number of terrorist organizations, including the Jewish Irgun, who struggled against the British rule in Palestine, and the Irish Republican Army, with its attempt to drive all British authority from Ireland.

Since the mid-twentieth century, religiously inspired terrorism has proliferated greatly, most notably in the Middle East. However, religious purposes have blended with more secular aims. Organizations such as Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, al-Gama’a al Islamiyya, al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, and others have mingled religious and political agendas, sometimes cooperating, sometimes clashing. Many newer groups have formed from splits from older groups. These splits often occur over religio-political disagreements.

The impact of Islamist terrorism on American criminal justice takes several forms. First, the United States has been involved in the Middle East for many years—most prominently in its support of the Jewish state of Israel, which has been almost constantly in conflict with its predominantly Muslim neighbors since its creation in 1948. One result of American involvement in the Middle East has been to make the United States itself a target of some of the region’s Islamist organizations that practice terrorism. Two of the four countries that the US Department of State's Bureau of Counterterrorism has designated as state sponsors of terrorism are in the Middle East: Syria was first designated in December 1979 and Iran was first designated in January 1984. Al-Qaeda, the international organization behind the September 11, 2001, attacks, is another notable example.

Leftist Terror

Some organizations on the left side of the political spectrum have sought to launch workers’ revolutions with terrorist violence. Notable examples have included Russia’s Red Army Faction, Italy’s Red Brigades, Mexico’s Zapatistas, Peru’s Tupac Amaru and Sendero Luminoso, and America’s own Weather Underground. Such groups attempt to raise the consciousness of the proletariat to bring about revolutions against the upper classes and replace existing regimes with Marxist or socialist governments.

After the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union during the early 1990s, a major funding and ideology source for Marxism-motivated terror groups dried up, and leftist organizations were weakened. The Weather Underground collapsed due to a perceived failure to bring about the desired changes in consciousness in the American underclass.

Single-Issue and Domestic Terrorism

Some organizations form around single socio-political issues and employ terror to further those issues. For example, radical opponents of abortion have bombed abortion clinics, hoping to end abortions through violence because they believe they are protecting unborn people by doing so. Groups such as Earth First! employ coercive means to protect the environment.

Far from being less significant due to their narrower platforms, single-issue terror organizations may be more problematic for law enforcement than ideologically broader groups precisely because they are more focused. Although target selection by such groups may be more predictable, the members’ fervent beliefs and commitments to their causes may make them even more vicious and tenacious than other types of terrorists.

Terrorism has played a role in American history from the inception of the nation. The Sons of Liberty and the Minutemen of the American Revolution were prototerrorists and insurgents, respectively. On the political Left are groups such as the Weather Underground and the Symbionese Liberation Army, and on the political Right are groups such as the Order; the Covenant, Sword, and the Arm of the Lord; and other organizations of the Christian Identity movement. Also on the Right are groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, Posse Comitatus, Aryan Nation, and others with neo-Nazi and hate-based ideologies.

In the mid-to-late 2010s, domestic terrorist attacks rose in the United States, according to the Washington Post and data from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in 2021. Most of these attacks were committed by right-wing extremists including White supremacists, anti-Muslim terrorists, and anti-government terrorists. Between 2015 and 2021, far-right terrorists were implicated in 267 plots or attacks and killed a total of ninety-one people, while far-left terrorists were involved in 66 incidents and killed a total of nineteen people. Domestic terrorist attacks peaked in 2020, with more than 100 separate incidents. On January 6, 2021, supporters of Republican president Donald Trump waged an insurrection at the US Capitol in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to President Joe Biden, a Democrat. Among this group were members of antigovernment militias and white supremacist groups.

Prevalence of Terrorism

It may not be an exaggeration to say that there is no place on Earth in which human beings live in any numbers that is not, or has not been, affected by terrorism. Terror has been the resort of groups as diverse as Earth First!, the Jewish Defense League, Hamas, and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam of Sri Lanka.

With a few notable exceptions, before 2001, Americans observed terrorism only from afar, on television and through other media. The events of September 11 gave Americans a healthy respect for the threat of terrorism. Strengthened law-enforcement systems and logistical difficulties make the mounting of future attacks of that scale against US targets difficult.

The rise of the extremist Islamic group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) beginning in 2014 also brought the threat of terrorism closer to home, particularly in the Middle East and Europe but also in the United States. While ISIS, whose aim is to establish an Islamic caliphate, had not organized any large-scale attacks on US soil as of mid-2024, the group had succeeded in recruiting a significant number of Americans to sympathize with their cause and even to travel to Iraq and Syria to take part in the fight. By the end of 2015 alone, according to research conducted by the George Washington University Program on Extremism, approximately 250 Americans had or had tried to travel to Syria to fight with ISIS and there were around nine hundred open investigations against American sympathizers with ISIS; more than seventy people had been prosecuted between March 2014 and December 2015 for ISIS-related activities (which included plots to take part in acts of domestic terrorism on the group's behalf). Due to ISIS's methods of propaganda, including the use of the Internet for training and recruiting, the threat of homegrown terrorism had greatly increased by 2017. That year, the United States and several other Western countries, including France, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, saw a number of instances of small-scale terrorist attacks for which ISIS claimed responsibility. Many of these attacks were carried out by driving a vehicle into a crowd of pedestrians, a method that ISIS has allegedly encouraged.

Islamic State groups are active in several nations and regions, including Afghanistan, Libya, the Indian Subcontinent, Bangladesh, the Philippines, West African, the Greater Sahara, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Mozambique. The US State Department listed these IS groups as foreign terrorist organizations between 2014 and 2021. In August 2021, the Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K) launched an attack that killed about 183 people, including 13 US troops as they were evacuating from the country. Since then ISIS-K has targeted Shiite Muslims in Afghanistan.

Terrorist organizations can spark widespread fighting. This occurred in October 2023, when the Palestinian group Hamas launched an attack in Israel, killing about 1,200 Israeli civilians and taking about 250 hostages--including women, children, and elderly Israelis--into Gaza. In the months that followed, Israel pummelled Gaza, attempting to find the hostages and cripple the Hamas organization. Six months later, more than 33,000 Palestinians were dead and tens of thousands had been injured.

Cyberterrorism

Cyberterrorism has the potential to create widespread chaos and damage. Actors have spread misinformation, attacked infrastructure and industrial sites, and accessed government secrets. In some cases these attacks have apparently been launched to disrupt elections, influence public and trade policies, or obtain information. For example, in May 2024, Canada revealed Chinese spies attempted to access information through eight Members of Parliament and a Senator. Also in early 2024, Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic all accused Russian cyber spies of targeting government and infrastructure networks.

Hackers have also been critical elements in military operations. For example, in January 2024, Russian agents hacked residential webcams in Kyiv, Ukraine, during Russia's war on its neighbor. The hackers changed the angles of the cameras to expose air defense systems in the city before Russia launched a missile attack.

Investigation

Inadequate government responses to nonstate terrorism may be the most important factor in the success and continuation of terrorism. If states respond either repressively or too meekly, they may encourage terrorists and worsen their own situations. However, finding a proper balance between strong armed response and diplomacy is inherently difficult and made even more so by the fact that every case may require a unique and unprecedented solution.

Two major issues confront the investigation of terrorism in America. First, intelligence gathering and analysis is crucial to the prevention of terrorist attacks. Second, resources including additional officers and equipment are needed to extend the blanket of coverage and enhance response capabilities of local law enforcement.

The best way to meet terrorist threats is to be forewarned and prepared. Having and understanding information regarding preparations, funding sources, travel, and ties makes interdiction of terrorism possible. Local law enforcement plays a major role in this undertaking by being a major source of valuable information that, when combined with other intelligence, enables agencies responsible for intelligence analyses to determine levels of threat.

Logically, then, to prevent terrorism, all that would be required would be total scrutiny of all activities and sufficient personnel to analyze intelligence as it is received. In a tyrannical state, this solution may be possible, provided there are sufficient resources. However, aside from the inherent logistic difficulties, another major problem exists in this model. In a democracy, the wholesale invasion of privacy attendant to total surveillance will not be tolerated. In the United States, the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees citizens protection from search and seizure of their homes and persons except in cases in which warrants have been issued upon probable cause of wrongdoing. The goal and challenge for law enforcement in this regard is to provide the maximum amount of protection to citizens that is consonant with constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties.

Despite limitations on the intelligence gathering ability of law enforcement posed by the US Constitution, and by policies, laws, and regulations that contain the spirit of the Constitution in this regard, much can be done by law enforcement to investigate potential terrorists. For example, information that can be gathered without warrants—but through subpoenas—includes bank records, flight itineraries, telephone records, and credit card transactions. Additionally, recording of conversations with third parties, vehicle tracking, and observing buildings from the air are all permissible investigative activities not requiring demonstration of probable cause.

As the first line of defense and as an important source of intelligence, local law-enforcement agencies need to have sufficient resources and training to provide the high-quality service Americans need from them. However, during the first several years after September 2001, the needed resources were slow in arriving, despite the obvious need and acts of heroism shown by local law enforcement. Meanwhile, additional duties have been required of police, while no additional personnel have provided to assist. These increased demands have meant that already thinly stretched services are further taxed, decreasing the ability of dedicated officers to provide the levels of service they want to offer.

The first Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in the US was established in New York City in 1980. Since September 11, 2001, there has been a concerted effort to bridge communication barriers among US law-enforcement agencies, to provide sorely needed resources, and to enhance cooperation among different agencies. Part of the reason for this is that the American criminal justice system is a patchwork of different agencies. Organizations at the same jurisdictional levels have traditionally not had to cooperate, so coordination across jurisdictional levels likely will be that much more of a challenge. By 2021, there were some 200 JTTF offices nationwide and hundreds of federal, state, and local agencies participating.

Prosecution and Punishment

Prosecution of suspected terrorists has been undertaken primarily at the federal level, even though many of these suspects have committed crimes that are normally punishable at the state level. This is due primarily to the greater resources of the federal agencies involved with the investigation—primarily the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)—and prosecution—primarily through the US attorney’s offices.

Punishments for terrorists, in the United States and abroad, have varied from nothing or home detention to summary execution. Leading figures of the Weather Underground were released from custody because of the illegal means used by the FBI to gather intelligence against them. In Italy, the “pentiti” (repentant) law allowed many Red Brigades members to escape significant punishment in exchange for information that was used against other members of the organization. In the United States, Timothy McVeigh was executed for his role in the terrorist bombing of the federal office building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in 1995.

These wide variations in punishments are due in part to at least three issues. First, the threats offered by different terrorist organizations are not all of the same level; some are more dangerous than others. Second, when terrorist organizations enjoy some measure of popular support within their own countries, their governments may wish to avoid appearing repressive by “overpunishing” them. Finally, in cases in which security forces overstep their authority by conducting illegal searches or seizures, the evidence they collect may be deemed inadmissible—as in the case of the Weather Underground in the United States.

Responses to Terrorism by Democracies

Because of their need to preserve civil liberties, democracies face the greatest challenges in dealing with terrorism. As has been discussed, how a government responds to terror may be one of the most significant determinants of whether terrorism continues. Weak responses may encourage terrorists to continue their campaigns, while overly violent responses by a government may polarize citizens and strengthen the position of terrorists.

The “hard-line” approach to fighting terrorism outlined by Paul Wilkinson in Terrorism Versus Democracy (2001) makes several important points. First, security forces in democratic states must act within the scope of their own authority and abide by relevant laws and democratic principles. Second, intelligence is central to success. Third, despite the importance of intelligence, security forces must be fully accountable to democratic institutions of government. Fourth, terrorist propaganda efforts must be countered as fully as possible. Finally, under most circumstances, governments should refrain, to the greatest extent possible, from conceding to terrorist demands.

Although there is much good in Wilkinson’s model, it also has weaknesses, as it tends to paint with a broad brush. For example, acting aggressively to counter propaganda may make a government appear as if it has something to hide. Additionally, cases have arisen in which making concessions to terrorists has led to cessations of hostilities.

The use of military forces in the pursuit of terrorists can be problematic. In a domestic context, a full military response to a terrorist threat would involve martial law, which requires the suspension of civil liberties, establishment of curfews, censorship, summary punishments, and other things. The use of the military in aid of civil power can be effective, provided the troops have proper training. However, an army is not a ready tool for peacekeeping and is not well suited for use in domestic crises. Thus, using an army for domestic terror response should be undertaken with care and circumspection.

Legislation against terrorism takes several forms. It may be preventive by attempting to address the underlying issues that have given rise to terrorists’ claims. It may be aimed at deterrence by making punishments so grim as to discourage would-be terrorists from risking capture. Finally, it may be enforcement-based, aiming to equip law enforcement with sufficient powers to detect, prevent, arrest, and successfully prosecute terrorists. Laws themselves cannot guarantee victory; many terrorists fight against the governments that write the laws. Also, humans interpret and enforce law, and so the law is only as effective a tool as its users make it.

Bibliography

Campbell, Alexia Fernández. "Why ISIS Recruiting in America Reached Historic Levels." The Atlantic, 6 Dec. 2015, www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/why-isis-recruiting-in-america-reached-historic-levels/433560/. Accessed 26 Jan. 2017.

Chaliand, Gérard, editor. The History of Terrorism: From Antiquity to ISIS. Updated ed., U of California P, 2016.

Chermak, Steven, et al. "What NIJ Research Tells Us About Domestic Terrorism." National Institute of Justice, 4 Jan. 2024, nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/what-nij-research-tells-us-about-domestic-terrorism. Accessed 11 July 2024.

Hoffman, B. Inside Terrorism. Victor Gollancz, 1998.

"Key Findings from the Global Terrorism Index 2024 Report." Vision of Humanity, 2024, www.visionofhumanity.org/maps/global-terrorism-index/#/. Accessed 11 July 2024.

Kushner, H., editor. Essential Readings on Political Terrorism: Analyses of Problems and Perspectives for the Twenty-first Century. Gordian Knot Books, 2002.

LaFree, Gary, and Joshua D. Freilich, editors. The Handbook of the Criminology of Terrorism. John Wiley & Sons, 2017.

Laqueur, Walter. No End to War: Terrorism in the Twenty-first Century. Continuum International Publishing, 2003.

Law, Randall. Terrorism: A History. 2nd ed., John Wiley & Sons, 2016.

Mack, R. L. Equal Justice: America’s Legal Response to the Emerging Terrorist Threat. U of Michigan P, 2004.

Rapoport, David C., and Yonah Alexander, editors. The Morality of Terrorism: Religious and Secular Justifications. 2nd ed., Columbia UP, 1989.

"Significant Cyber Incidents." Center for Strategic & International Studies, June 2024, www.csis.org/programs/strategic-technologies-program/significant-cyber-incidents. Accessed 11 July 2024.

Smith, B. Terrorism in America: Pipe Bombs and Pipe Dreams. State U of New York P, 1994.

"What Is Hamas and Why Is It Fighting with Israel in Gaza?" BBC News, 5 Apr. 2024, www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67039975. Accessed 11 July 2024.

Wilkinson, Paul. Terrorism Versus Democracy: The Liberal State Response. Frank Cass, 2001.