State-sponsored terrorism

State-sponsored terrorism (SST) is a political term used to refer to finance and bounties given across international boundaries to terrorist organizations and the families of deceased militants for the purpose of conducting or rewarding attacks on civilians. As with any form of terrorism, SST is used because it is believed to produce strategic results where the use of conventional armed forces is not practical or effective. See

As well as the terms themselves, the distinctions between state-sponsored terrorism and state terrorism are controversial. Generally speaking, sponsored terrorism is simply a more specific form of state terrorism; the controversy largely arises in the definition of "state terrorism" as regards sponsorship, asymmetric warfare (clandestine warfare) and international character. In Western politics, however, the term state-sponsored terrorism is largely used in reference to certain politics and finance in the Arab world, i.e. politics and finance used to promote terrorism rooted in ideological Islamic nationalism amongst various radical Islamist militant groups.

The intentions of such terrorism are believed to be any or all of the following:

Destabilisation of a target state
Creation of international visibility for a persistent problem
Acts of retaliation against a target state
Attempts to promote a state's interests

States accused of sponsoring terrorism

The following countries have been accused of harbouring terrorist organizations or have been known to support such terrorist attacks on other nations.

Current

Cuba

Cuba has been accused by the United States of providing a safe haven to several terrorists and US fugitives. A number of Basque ETA terrorists who gained sanctuary in Cuba some years ago continued to live on the island, as did several US terrorist fugitives.

Havana also allegedly maintained ties to other state sponsors of terrorism and Latin American insurgents. Colombia's two largest terrorist organizations, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the National Liberation Army, both maintained a permanent presence on the island.

Iran

Iran is alleged by the United States and other countries to be a state sponsor of terrorism. It has openly funded recognized terrorist groups by the UN such as Hamas and Palestine's Islamic Jihad. Its Revolutionary Guard Corps and Ministry of Intelligence and National Security are alleged to still be involved in the planning and the execution of terrorist acts and continued to support a variety of groups that use terrorism to pursue their goals.

Pakistan

Pakistan has been accused by India and other nations (including the United States and the United Kingdom ^*) of its involvement in the Terrorism in Kashmir. Data produced by India's Research and Analysis Wing suggests the existence of many terrorist camps in Pakistan with at least one militant admitting the help given by Pakistan in training them. While Pakistan has denied any involvement in the terrorist activities in Kashmir it has maintained its political and moral support to the secessionist groups. Many Kashmir terrorist groups also maintain their headquarters in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, which is cited as further proof by the Indian Government.

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom (UK) is suspected of supporting terrorist groups, both within the UK and also groups that operate in the Republic of Ireland. These include the UVF, LVF and UDA. These groups are one that support the territory of Northern Ireland remaining part of the UK, with some advocating the reconquest of the Irish Republic. The UK is suspected of providing intelligence material, training, firearms, explosives and lists of people that the government would like to have killed. These were predominantly Catholics, especially those involved in the Civil Rights movement (for example Pat Finucane a lawyer who was murdered in front of his children). The UK is also suspected of providing the explosives used in the Dublin and Monaghan Bombings by the UVF on 17 May,1974. The UK has also been accused by Iran of supporting Arab separatist terrorism in the southern city of Ahwaz in 2006. (BBC News)

United States of America

The United States of America has been accused of being a state sponsor of terrorism by various groups and nations that oppose it, such as Venezuela and Cuba, who accused it of protecting Luis Posada Carriles, and North Korea. The U.S. Government has been accused of involvement in the destabilisation of various régimes via intervention, subterfuge and the more or less covert support of insurgency, such as its training, arming and other support of the anti-Soviet Afghan mujahideen during the 1980s, the intervention in various Central American and Caribbean conflicts and the support of anti-government groups in Iraq following the 1991 Gulf War. The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly known as the School of the Americas, is operated by the United States Army at Fort Benning, Georgia, and provides specialized training for foreign militias, militaries, and paramilitary organizations aligned with U.S. strategic interests in regard to various overt and covert international conflicts.

The Cuban government accuses the United States of harbouring and supporting anti-Castro terrorist groups The United States continues to refuses to put on trial or extradite for example Luis Posada Carriles, Guillermo Novo Sampol, Pedro Remon and Gaspar Jimenezand whom the Cuban government accuse of terrorism. The CIA had trained some of these individuals (Washington Post, Sept. 3, 2004, [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57838-2004Sep2.html). In this connection Operation Mongoose (also known as The Cuban Project), was a six-phase terrorist operation ordered by U.S. President John F. Kennedy in 1961, some of which, including the blowing up of a civilian industrial plant in Cuba, were implemented (National Security Archive, Bay of Pigs Chronology; Operation Mongoose; The Cuban Project).

The New York Times reported that according to several former U.S. intelligence officials, Iraqi resistance groups opposed to Saddam Hussein conducted a bombing campaign under the direction of the CIA that included civilian targets, including a school bus with passengers on board and a movie theatre, in Baghdad between 1992 and 1995. According to the report some of the intelligence officials' recollections were sketchy on details and C.I.A. records of the bombing campaign are not in the public domain. (NY Times June 9, 2004, archived http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0609-02.htm)

Others

Historical

These nations have, at some point in the past, been accused of sponsoring or fomenting terrorist activities in a foreign nation. While some have openly supported such terrorist networks others have been less forthcoming in their support.

Afghanistan

The support that al-Qaeda was given by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan was the main reason for the American invasion of Afghanistan.

Argentina

See also "Dirty War".

Under Jorge Rafael Videla, Argentina took the lead of "Operation Condor" and other anticommunists operations, supporting the "Cocaine Coup" of Luis García Meza Tejada in Bolivia or the Contras in Nicaragua.

Belgium

Discovery of a Belgium branch of Gladio & creation of a permanent Parliamentary committee After the retreat of France from NATO, the SHAPE headquarter was displaced to Mons in Belgium. In 1990, following France's denial of any "stay-behind" French army, Giulio Andreotti publicly pointed out that the last Allied Clandestine Committee (ACC) meeting, to which the French branch of Gladio was present, had been on October 23 and 24, 1990, under the presidency of Belgian General Van Calster, director of the Belgian military secret service SGR. In November, Guy Coëme, Minister of the Defense, acknowledged the existence of a Belgium "stay-behind" army, lifting concerns about a similar implication in terrorist acts as in Italy. The same year, the European Parliament sharply condemned NATO and the United States in a resolution for having manipulated European politics with the stay-behind armies ^*.

Therefore, in Belgium, new legislation governing intelligence agencies' missions and methods was passed in 1998, following two government enquiries and the creation of a permanent parliamentary committee in 1991, which was to bring them under the authority of Belgium's federal agencies ^*.

Chile

During "Operation Condor", intelligence services of South-American dictatures in the 1970s-80s, including Argentina, traded information. Phase #3 of "Operation Condor", which allowed assassination in other countries, including United States and Europe, was activated.

Iraq

The US believed that Iraq allowed several expatriate terrorist groups to maintain offices in Baghdad as late as 2002, including the Arab Liberation Front, the inactive "15 May Organization", the Palestine Liberation Front, and the Abu Nidal Organization. These terrorist groups and their existence were among the supposed reason given for the Iraq War led by the United States. Saddam Hussein is believed to have provide financial and logistical support for various Palestinian terrorist groups, including payments of approximately $25,000 (U.S.) to the families of successful suicide bombers. Iraq has also been hosting the Iranian separatist group and terrorist organization the "Mujahidiin-e Khalq" for decades.

Italy

Operation Gladio was a clandestine "stay-behind" operation sponsored by the CIA and NATO to counter communist influence after World War II in Italy, as well as in other European countries, which has been involved in various terrorist acts. While Gladio is usually used to refer to only the Italian "stay-behind", the term has also been applied to all other "stay-behind" operations. NATO stay-behind armies existed in all countries of Western Europe during the Cold War, including Turkey. Suspected at least since the 1984 revelations of Avanguardia Nazionale member Vincenzo Vinciguerra during his trial, Gladio’s existence was acknowledged by head of Italian government Giulio Andreotti on October 24, 1990, who spoke of a "structure of information, response and safeguard", with arms caches and reserve officers. Further investigations revealed links to neofascists, the mafia, Propaganda Due masonic lodge (aka P2), and the "strategia della tensione" followed in Italy during the 1970s-80s to block the electoral success of the Italian Communist Party (PCI).

South Africa

In the 1980s, and in the previous two decades, South Africa was accused of a series of state-sponsored terrorist incidents. According to information revealed in 1998 by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, South African agents were implicated in the 1961 aircrash in Zambia which killed UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld.

De-stabilization of its neighbors – particularly Angola and Mozambique – seemed to be the main plank of the apartheid regime's foreign policy. Accusations have been made that South Africa's Directorate of Military Intelligence caused the death of President Samora Machel of Mozambique in a 1986 aircrash in South Africa.

An agreement signed at the UN in New York on December 22, 1988 brought South Africa's illegal occupation over many decades of Namibia to an end. When it emerged that UN Commissioner for Namibia Bernt Carlsson had been killed on Pan Am Flight 103 the day before, and that foreign minister Pik Botha and a South African delegation of 22 had been booked on that flight but canceled at short notice, the apartheid regime was accused of responsibility for this 1988 aircrash in Scotland, see Alternative theories into the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.

References

Terrorism

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