Terrorism or not ? The various forms of terrorism.

In an attack, the first question that we ask ourselves, or that the media ask, is, was it terrorism ?

Indeed, it is important to redefine this term, which is very broad.

In the end, no one really knows what is called terrorism or not. With our present history, we tend to associate terrorism with Daesh, I mean, if you into the web and you search "terrorism", you will first found articles about terrorism by Al-qaeda or Daesh.

But think again, this is unrelated and the forms of terrorism are very broad, And that is why we will make a point about the different forms.

A simple definition: it is the use of terror for ideological, political or religious ends.

So here, we discover multiple forms :

- individual terrorism, provoked by rebels, anarchists, or nihilists (admitting moral freedom),

- organized terrorism, advocated by groups defending different ideologies (e.g. extreme left, extreme right, etc.),

- state terrorism,

- cyberterrorism.

These are the four biggest types of terrorism, Let’s take a closer look at each of them :

- Individual terrorism is a practice that developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

François Claudius Koënigstein dit Ravachol (1859 - 1892) or Ravachol. A French anarchist, arrested, tried and sentenced to death for the attacks he carried out in Paris in 1892.

I don’t know if we can call him like that, but it was like the precursor of individual terrorism.

- Then , the organized terrorism, When it is practised by a group of people who do not represent a government, it is simply called terrorism.

In the 1960s and 1970s, extreme left and extreme right terrorism was the most important, with different political goals, leading to direct or indirect struggle with the state.

And, since the 1990s, Islamist terrorism has taken a big place internationally. Its authors justify it as a response to the political situation in Israel-Palestine and Iraq.

This answers your questions, it this place in organized terrorism.

- The state terrorism : State terrorism is a controversial concept used to refer to state-led “terrorist acts”. State terrorism is also referred to in cases where terrorist actions have been sponsored, manipulated or complacently ignored by a state, or when there is no measures to stop it.

Some exemples : Carlo Rosselli and his brother Nello, Italian anti-fascist exiles, were murdered in France in 1937 by members of the French Hood, most likely at the request of the Mussolini regime that financed this group.

Ramón Mercader, one of the executioners working for the NKVD (URSS), murdered Leon Trotsky in Mexico in 1940.

- FInaly, the cyberterrorism : The increasing influence of computer networks in the activities of populations and States and their degradation through “cyber-attacks” has given rise to the idea of a possible “cyber-terrorism”

The National Center for Digital Intrusion Response (NCDIR) was founded in 2007 by the FBI with a support budget of $3 million to address cybercrime. The goal is to protect U.S. cyber infrastructure.

Then, in that categories, we found diferrend ideas, that can be religious ideas, political ideas or economic ideas.

But it is not the categories of terrorism, but rather the engines that push to do it.

I hope, that after this article, you will have easier to recognize an act of terrorism.

JC