Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

TERRORISM, DEFINITION • 667Domestic terrorism and international terrorism often differ in thatthe former usually can be readily identified with some insurgentgroup that seeks formal recognition in the international community,but in the latter case, more often the acting group is sponsored bygovernments that wish to maintain a “plausible deniability” of havingany connection with the group, since acts of violence againstnoncombatant civilians in another sovereign jurisdiction are nothingless than acts of war. Another distinction is that while those responsiblefor acts of territorial terrorism often are seeking recognition aslegitimate governments or as new nation-states, such as the Basqueseparatists in northern Spain or IRA members in Northern Ireland,for international terrorists the reverse is often the case, namely, thatthey are seeking to attack the nation-state system for tactical or ideologicalreasons. Some key characteristics of international terrorisminclude the following:1. It is a form of psychological warfare intended to create reactionson the part of its audience. It seeks out civilian victimsrather than military targets since this creates greater terror inthe target audience. Viewers are supposed to be forced to think,“but for God’s grace there go I!” (H. H. A. Cooper, 1974).2. It is a form of communication. Besides communicating terror,such acts are forms of armed propaganda that force a captiveaudience to listen to political demands and threats. The objectis to get people to think, “Let us hear them out to see what theywant,” and then to get them to the point of agreeing to capitulateto certain demands (Brian Jenkins, International Terrorism: ANew Mode of Conflict [Research paper, California Seminar onArms Control and Foreign Policy 48, 1974]). For instance, theprolonged holding of Terry Anderson and other hostages by theLebanese Hezbollah group brought some of the hostages’ relativesto try to bring pressure on the U.S. government to makeconcessions to gain their release.3. It is also a form of criminality but not mere criminality. It wouldbe a mistake to equate the robberies and murders committed byterrorists with those committed by common hoodlums, for theformer are instrumental in serving political ends beyond thecrimes themselves. On the other hand, when the political natureof the act is made clear, there is the danger of the captive audiencementally capitulating to the act of armed propaganda and