Letnik 9/2, september 2007 - Slovenska vojska

OBOROŽENE SILE KOT POMEMBEN DEJAVNIK V BOJU PROTI TERORIZMU
world. For these reasons they are in some way even more radical than the previously
mentioned group. 4 John Tenet, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency,
CIA, warned already in 1997 that religious terrorist fanatics presented a threat to
the USA which had not existed until then and that an increasing number of terrorist
groups inquired about possible use of weapons of mass destruction. 5
Some experts define “new terrorism” with specific characteristics which
distinguishes it essentially from terrorism we were used to in the past. The most
important differences are its global character, deadliness, destructiveness, a new
paradigm, improved organization, use of new technology and boundless fanaticism.
The main guidance is hate, which exceeds all moral and legal norms. 6
In continuation of this article, I will present some trends of terrorist acts in the
last 15 years. A detailed overview will give us a clear picture that terrorist attacks
9/11 2001 in the USA have not been the only attacks which demanded such a high
number of victims. Several international organizations have been systematically
and analytically covering all terrorist attacks in the world. In the text below I
will provide a detailed overview of committed terrorist attacks by different world
regions, the number of killed and wounded persons, categories of injured persons
who had been the most frequent targets of terrorist attacks, and an overview of
methods and forms of terrorist acts.
Graph 1: Number of terrorist attacks from 1982 to 2005
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
82 84 86 88 90 92 94 96 98 0 2 4
number of
terroristic
acts
Source: (Department of State, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, http://www.
state.gov/s/ct//rls/pgtrp/2005).
4
In the Rand St. Andrews Chronology it was registered that religious groups executed only 25% of all international
terrorist attacks in 1995 but these attacks caused 58% of all victims.
5
In 2001, this estimation proved to be completely right, since the tragic events even exceeded the most negative
scenarios.
6
This definition was given by Tom Maley, lecturer on The Royal Military College of Science, on the NATO Defense
Against Terrorism Course in NATO School dated 13 February 2005.
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