War Terrorism is self explanatory and is violence used indiscriminately (without a care for its effects or who is killed) against a civilian population and is often justified as a “Necessity of War”, such as when RAF bombed Dresden in Germany on the 13th February – 15th of February during world war two completely levelling the town to the ground killing children and women with up to 40,000 casualties altogether and being considered as one of the most questionable actions by Britain and USA.
International terrorism covers a wide range of terrorist actions which have international effects. This means it affects another country or more than one. Such as the Al Qaeda 9/11 bombings which killed nearly 3000 civilians from over 90 different nationalities and which can also be classified as urban terrorism and due to wars of liberation.
Terrorism can sometimes be used against governments to achieve political aims for a particular group of people who want to break free from the control of another power and gain independence and freedom and have to use terrorism to achieve it this would be War of Liberation. An example of this kind of terrorism is the Rhodesian war which lasted from 1964 – 1979 and led to universal suffrage. It was between the White minority and the Black community, two groups fought to free the black community from both British and White control one method was threatening any black people who worked for the White to stop working therefore making it a lot more difficult for the White minority to rule the country.
Terrorism is commonly attacks on civilians such as the 7th of July London bombings which targeted the busses and tube trains which is where there would definitely be a lot of casualties and also cause a major disturbance in the transportation system. These attacks were brutal and cold blooded killing 52 innocent civilians and the four suicide bombers, injuring up to 700 and hugely damaging country’s telecommunications infrastructure. The terrorists gained huge publicity and the attack would be classed as urban terrorism because the attack occurred in a city and injured and killed innocent civilians.
There are a few large terrorist attacks such as the 9/11 bombings in New York which have gained huge amounts of publicity and are considered as terrorism because of the fact that seemingly innocent civilians were injured and killed and their families torn apart and that a building which represented America was destroyed. Although we think that Al Qaeda who is believed to be behind the attack are terrorists they themselves don’t think they are terrorists, they consider themselves freedom fighters who are fighting for their rights to live a fair and equal life. The purpose of this attack was to gain publicity for their cause and to strike fear and terror into the hearts of American civilians which assists them further in their campaign to fight for their beliefs and their destiny. Both of these attacks are classed as urban terrorism since they were done in a city which would maximise the casualties and the damage caused but they could also arguably be Terrorism in Wars of Liberation because Al Qaeda want British and American troops out of their country so they were fighting for their own freedom.
There are differences and similarities between the different types of terrorism which can sometimes be hard to define but a motive for all terrorists is to strike fear and panic into the hearts of the targeted population, Such as when the Palestinians attacked the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in Germany in 1972. This is classified as International Terrorism because they carried out a terrorist attack in a country not itself a target, which could be similar to urban terrorism since a lot of the attacks occur in cities and aim to create fear but it’s also different since it is not international and does not aim to affect another country only the one targeted.
In conclusion to the question what is terrorism? I believe that terrorism is a planned act, or threat of violence to inflict fear and terror upon a nation using one or more of the five different categories of terrorism, Government Terrorism, Urban Terrorism, War Terrorism, International Terrorism and Terrorism in wars of Liberation usually terrorist attacks fall into more than one of these categories but they nearly always fit better into one than the rest so it is therefore categorised as that type. But people disagree about the meaning of terrorism because in USA’s point of view the 9/11 Al Qaeda bombings was terrorism and the retaliation was in “defence” of their country but in the Arabs perspective they were fighting for their own freedom and that USA are the terrorists because they are invading their countries and stealing from them. So there are different opinions of what terrorism actually is, it depends on which side of the conflict that you are on.
