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Explore the history, motivations, and impact of terrorism in the modern era, with a focus on the psychology behind acts of terror. From cyber terrorism to political attacks, understand the mechanics and evolving nature of terrorism.
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The Psychology of Terror The reconstruction of terrorism since 2000 Prof. Craig Jackson Head of Psychology Division BCU craig.jackson@bcu.ac.uk
Brief and Partial History “One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter” The attacks on September 11 confirmed that terrorism had acquired a new face Terrorists were now engaged in a campaign of suicide and mass murder on a huge scale Previously it had been possible to believe that there were limits beyond which even terrorists would not go After the thousands of deaths on September 11, it was evident that at least one group would stop at nothing.
Cyber Terrorism Cheap Most vulnerable point £500 Million budget
History of UK Political Terror Attacks February 1974 12 killed and 14 hurt when a bomb planted by the IRA blows up on a coach carrying soldiers and families from Manchester to their base in Catterick October-November 1974 IRA steps up its campaign, killing 28 people and injuring more than 200 in attacks on British pubs in Birmingham, Guildford and Woolwich, south-east London March 1979 Shadow Northern Ireland secretary AireyNeave, a close friend of Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher, is murdered when a car bomb planted by the Irish National Liberation Army explodes as he drives up the exit ramp of the car park at the House of Commons July 1982 Two IRA bomb attacks on soldiers in London's Hyde Park and Regents Park kill 11 people and wound 50
History of UK Political Terror Attacks December 1983 6 people - including 3 police officers - are killed and 90 are injured when an IRA bomb explodes at London's Harrods department store October 1984 IRA bomb attack on the Grand Hotel in Brighton, where Tory party members are staying during their annual conference. 5 people die and 34 are wounded December 1988 Pan Am Boeing 747 crashes on the town of Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 on board after a bomb explodes. 11 people in Lockerbie are also killed September 1989 A bomb at the Royal Marines School of Music in Deal, Kent, kills 11 bandsmen and wounds 22 others. July 1990 Tory MP Ian Gow, opposed an Anglo-Irish agreement on Northern Ireland, killed by an IRA bomb which exploded at his Sussex home.
History of UK Political Terror Attacks April 1992 A huge car bomb outside the Baltic Exchange in London's financial district kills three people and wounds 91 March 1993 Two children die when bombs explode in two litter bins in Warrington, Cheshire. Jonathan Ball 3, and Tim Parry 12, are killed as they walk through the shopping centre. April 1993 London's financial district is again targeted as an IRA lorry bomb devastates the Bishops gate area, killing 1 and wounding 44. February 1996 An IRA ceasefire comes to a bloody end when a large bomb explodes in London's Docklands area, killing 2 people and causing massive damage.
Non-Political UK Terror April 1992:
Brief and Partial History “One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter” The attacks on September 11 confirmed that terrorism had acquired a new face Terrorists were now engaged in a campaign of suicide and mass murder on a huge scale Previously it had been possible to believe that there were limits beyond which even terrorists would not go After the thousands of deaths on September 11, it was evident that at least one group would stop at nothing.
Brief and Partial History The word 'terrorism' entered into European languages in the wake of the French revolution of 1789 In the early revolutionary years, it was largely by violence that governments in Paris tried to impose their radical new order on a reluctant citizenry As a result, the first meaning of the word 'terrorism', as recorded by the AcadémieFrançaise in 1798, was 'system or rule of terror'. This serves as a healthy reminder that terror is often at its bloodiest when used by dictatorial governments against their own citizens
Brief and Partial History Terrorism was not always like it is now Its history is as much European as Middle Eastern, and as much secular as religious Far from being wilfully indiscriminate, it was often pointedly discriminate Yet there are some common threads that can be traced through the history of terrorism What happened on September 11 was a new twist in an old story of fascination with political violence
Assassination During the 19th Century terrorism underwent a fateful transformation Associated today with non-governmental groups 1878-81 the small band of Russian revolutionaries of 'NarodnayaVolya' (the people's will) used the word 'terrorist' proudly They developed certain ideas that were to become the hallmark of subsequent terrorism in many countries. They believed in the targeted killing of the 'leaders of oppression'; they were convinced that the developing technologies of the age - symbolized by bombs and bullets - enabled them to strike directly and discriminately.
Assassination Above all, they believed that the Tsarist system against which they were fighting was fundamentally rotten They propagated what has remained the common terrorist delusion that violent acts would spark off revolution Their efforts led to the assassination of Tsar Alexander II on 13 March 1881 That event failed completely to have the revolutionary effects of which the terrorists had dreamed
Assassinations Continued Terrorism continued for many decades to be associated primarily with the assassination of political leaders and heads of state This was symbolized by the killing of the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand by a 19-year-old Bosnian Serb student, Gavril Princip, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 The huge consequences of this event were not the ones that Princip and his fellow members of 'Young Bosnia' had envisaged Princip could not believe that the assassination had triggered the outbreak of world war in 1914. In general, the extensive practice of assassination in the 20th Century seldom had the particular effects for which terrorists hoped.
Terrorism Evolves In the half-century after the World War Two, terrorism broadened well beyond assassination of political leaders and heads of state In some European colonies, terrorist movements developed, often with two distinct purposes. 1: to put pressure on the colonial powers (such as Britain, France, and the Netherlands) to hasten their withdrawal. 2: to intimidate the indigenous population into supporting a particular group's claims to leadership of the emerging post-colonial state. India's achievement of independence in 1947 was mainly the result, not of terrorism, but of the movement of non-violent civil disobedience led by Gandhi In Malaya, communist terrorists launched a major campaign in 1948, but they failed due to a mixture of determined British military opposition and a programme of political reform leading to independence
Civilians as Targets Terrorism did not end after the winding-up of the main European overseas empires in the 1950s and 1960s. It continued in many regions. In South-East Asia, Middle East and Latin America there were killings of policemen and local officials, hostage-takings, hijackings of aircraft, and bombings of buildings In many actions, civilians became targets. In some cases governments became involved in supporting terrorism, almost invariably at arm's length so as to be deniable. The causes espoused by terrorists encompassed not just revolutionary socialism and nationalism, but also in a few cases religious doctrines. Law, even the modest body of rules setting some limits in armed conflict between states, could be ignored in a higher cause.
Civilians as Targets How did certain terrorist movements come to be associated with indiscriminate killings? September 1970 - Palestinian terrorists hijacked several large aircraft and blew them up on the ground in Jordan but let the passengers free Viewed by many with as much fascination as horror September 1972, 11 Israelis were murdered in a Palestinian attack on Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games at Munich This event showed a determination to kill: the revulsion felt in many countries was stronger than two years earlier
Justification A justification offered by the perpetrators of these and many subsequent terrorist actions in the Middle East was that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza (which had begun in 1967) was an exercise of violence against which counter-violence was legitimate. The same was said in connection with the suicide bombings by which Palestinians attacked Israel in 2001-2002. In some of the suicide bombings there was a new element which had not been evident in the Palestinian terrorism of 2 or 3 decades earlier: Islamic religious extremism.
Beyond the State In the 1990s, a new face of terrorism emerged. Osama Bin Laden, son of a successful construction engineer became leader of a small fanatical Islamic movement Al-Qaida Its public statements were an odd mixture of religious extremism, contempt for existing Arab regimes, hostility to US dominance, and insensitivity to the effects of terrorist actions Many of its leaders, having helped to free Afghanistan of Soviet occupation in the 1980s, now developed the broader ambition of resisting western dominance, especially in Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt In pursuit of these ambitions they killed hundreds in bombings of US embassies in Africa in August 1998
New Kind of Terrorism Here was a new kind of movement that had a cause a network, that was not confined to any one state whose adherents were willing to commit suicide if they could thereby inflict carnage and destruction on their adversaries Since their aims were vague and apocalyptic, there was little scope for any kind of compromise or negotiation
United Nations • Main emphasis at the UN was on limited • practical measures • Series of 12 international conventions between 1963 and 1999, particular terrorist actions, such as aircraft hijacking and diplomatic hostage-taking, were prohibited • As the 1990s progressed, and concern about terrorism increased, the UN General Assembly embarked on discussions about defining and outlawing terrorism generally. Its Legal Committee issued a rough draft of a convention, which: • Reiterates that criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstances unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or other nature that may be used to justify them.
Terrorist Groups In the past there have been strong disagreements about whether certain movements were or were not terrorist: e.g. Jewish extremist group Irgun in Palestine in the 1940s Viet Cong in South Vietnam from the late 1950s to the mid-1970s Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland from the late 1960s onwards Famously, in 1987-88 the UK and US governments labelled the African National Congress of South Africa 'terrorist': a questionable attribution even at the time not because there had been no violence, but because the ANC's use of violence had been discriminate and had constituted only a small part of the ANC's overall strategy.
International Revulsion The new face of terrorism as mass murder is significantly changing such debates The extremism of the September 11 attacks has led to a strong international reaction. As a result, none of the 189 member states of the UN opposed the USA's right to take military action in Afghanistan after the events of September 11, and none has offered explicit support for Al-Qaida By engaging in crimes against humanity, the new face of terrorism may have contributed to its own eventual demise.
Dr. Theodore John Kaczynski 16 bombs 1978 - 1995 3 killed 23 injured Freedom Club
Richard Reid Attempted bombing on AA 63 22 Dec 2001 Shoe bomber
Beltway Sniper Attacks Oct 2002 John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo Washington DC snipers in blue Chevrolet Caprice Demanded 1 Million USD to fund Islamic Training Camps 10 killed 3 critically injured
False Flag Terrorism Nero burned Rome to blame the Christians A.D. 64 US provoked Mexican-American war 1846 USS Maine sinking 1898 Lusitania sinking 1915 Reichstag fire 1933 Hitler’s staged attack on the Gleiwitz radio station 1939 The “surprise attack” at Pearl Harbor 1941 Bay of Pigs conspiracy 1961
Terrorism 2000 Al-Qaeda terrorist network carried out two separate attacks against the United States in 2000 and 2001. a suicide bombing of the U.S. naval destroyer USS Cole in the Yemenese port of Aden on October 12, 2000, claimed the lives of 17 U.S. sailors. a coordinated suicide attack using four hijacked U.S. commercial aircraft as missiles on September 11, 2001, resulted in the deaths of 2,783 innocent people. The September 11 attacks represent the most deadly and destructive terrorist attack in history and claimed more lives than all previous acts of terrorism in the United States combined. The attack of September 11 represented the first successful act of international terrorism carried out in the United States since the bombing of the World Trade Centre in February 1993.
Eco Terrorism Bilateral term Anarcho Primitivism Green Anarchism Radical Environmentalism
Consumer Terrorism Lone wolf operations Monetary motives Disgruntled employees / ex-employees
Black Panthers • 10 point programme • We want power to determine the destiny of our black and oppressed communities' education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present day society. • We want completely free health care for all black and oppressed people. • We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of black people, other people of colour, and all oppressed people inside the United States. • We want an immediate end to all wars of aggression. • We want full employment for our people. • We want an end to the robbery by the capitalists of our Black Community. • We want decent housing, fit for the shelter of human beings. • We want decent education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. • We want freedom for all black and oppressed people now held in U. S. Federal, state, county, city and military prisons and jails. We want trials by a jury of peers for all persons charged with so-called crimes under the laws of this country. • We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, peace and people's community control of modern technology • FBI J Edgar Hoover • “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country,”
Shoot to Kill Policy Extreme powers to police Ultimate deadly force No prosecution
Further Reading Terrorism and International Order by Lawrence Freedman et al. (Routledge and Kegan Paul for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1986) The Terrorists: From Tsarist Russia to the O.A.S by Roland Gaucher (Secker and Warburg, 1968) The Age of Terrorism by Walter Laqueur (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1987) Terrorism and the Liberal State (2nd edition) by Paul Wilkinson (Macmillan, 1986) The Assassins by Bernard Lewis, Oxford University Press, April 1987 The Day that Shook the World by the BBC News Team (BBC Books, 2001)
