Few words are as politically or emotionally charged as terrorism. One 1988 study by the US Army (PDF) found that over 100 definitions of the word "terrorism" have been used. For this reason, many news sources avoid using this term, opting instead for less accusatory words like "bombers", "militants", etc.

Terrorism is a crime in many countries and is defined by statute (see below for particular definitions). Common principles amongst legal definitions of terrorism provide an emerging consensus as to meaning and cooperation amongst law enforcement personnel in different countries.

Among these definitions, several do not recognize the possibility of the legitimate use of violence by civilians against an invader in an occupied country, and would thus label all resistance movements as terrorist groups. Others make a distinction between lawful and unlawful use of violence. Ultimately, the distinction is a political judgment.See

Reasons for controversy

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The definition of terrorism is inherently controversial. The use of violence for the achievement of political ends is common to state and non-state groups. The difficulty is in agreeing on a basis for determining when the use of violence (directed at whom, by whom, for what ends) is legitimate. The majority of definitions in use have been written by agencies directly associated to a government, and are systematically biased to exclude governments from the definition. Some such definitions are so broad, like the Terrorism Act 2000, as to include disruption of a computer system where no violence is intended or results.

The contemporary label of "terrorist" is highly pejorative; it is a badge which denotes a lack of legitimacy and morality. For terrorist groups, it is important to be accepted as something other than a terrorist group. Groups that have described themselves as terrorist are therefore almost unknown. It is equally important for a group's opponents that the label "terrorist" be applied. The appellation "terrorist" is therefore always disputed, and attempts at defining the concept invariably arouse debate because rival definitions may be employed with a view to including the actions of certain parties, and excluding others, each of which will subjectively claim a legitimate basis for employing violence in pursuit of their own political cause or aim.

In addition, there is an increase in the common opinion that most terrorists (a common label today) are somehow connected to Muslims in general, or of some specific sect of Islam, or of some specific interpretation of the Koran. This common opinion is logically unfounded because most labelled "terrorists" often have more to do with political groups, or even gang activity, than any specific sect of a major religion. There may be fewer terrorists connected in some way to the other major religions, such as Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism, and so on, but terrorists from any group, or even as an individual, are no less dangerous.

The legitimate governments of nations, and their police and military forces, need to investigate any potential planning of major criminal activity, no matter what religion, creed, belief, background, self-labels, and political connections they have. Terrorism might be best defined as the greatest possible degrees of criminal actions, other than war between internationally recognized nations, where the largest amounts of population are affected, and the greatest degree of economic activity is disrupted. A clear and distinct definition does continue to be a logical problem that requires debate without fear mongering, racial profiling, and unjust law enforcement procedures. Legitimate policing organizations do need the powers and procedures to investigate certain groups based on reasonable suspicions and evidence. Large degrees of criminal acts do need to be prevented by some reasonable means within any national boundary. This does require some notion of "terrorist" organizations and activities. Lawyers, judges, police, politicians, law makers, NGO's, and the general public all need some basic definition of "terrorism" to proceed with fair prosecutions and court trials under the rule of law.

Definitions

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Dictionaries

• The Oxford English Dictionary defines terrorism as "a policy intended to strike with terror those against whom it is adopted; the employment of methods of intimidation; the fact of terrorising or condition of being terrorised."
• Webster's New International Dictionary defines terrorism as the "act of terrorizing, or state of being terrorized; specif.: a The system of the Reign of Terror. b A mode of governing, or of opposing government, by intimidation. c Any policy of intimidation.
• The definition of the term in the Oxford Concise Dictionary of Politics (2nd edition) begins:

Term with no agreement amongst government or academic analysts, but almost invariably used in a pejorative sense, most frequently to describe life-threatening actions perpetrated by politically motivated self-appointed sub-state groups.

• The American Heritage Dictionary defines terrorism as "The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons."

United Nations

• While the United Nations has not yet accepted a definition of terrorism ^*, the UN's "academic consensus definition," written by terrorism expert A.P. Schmid and widely used by social scientists, runs:

Terrorism is an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by (semi-) clandestine individual, group or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal or political reasons, whereby — in contrast to assassination — the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets) from a target population, and serve as message generators. Threat- and violence-based communication processes between terrorist (organization), (imperilled) victims, and main targets are used to manipulate the main target (audience(s)), turning it into a target of terror, a target of demands, or a target of attention, depending on whether intimidation, coercion, or propaganda is primarily sought," (Schmid, 1988). ^*

• UN short legal definition, also proposed by A.P. Schmid: an act of terrorism is the "peacetime equivalent of a war crime." ^*

In November 2004, a UN panel described terrorism as any act: "intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act." ^*

European Union

The European Union employs a definition of terrorism for legal/official purposes which is set out in Art. 1 of the Framework Decision on Combating Terrorism (2002) ^*. This provides that terrorist offences are certain criminal offences set out in a list comprised largely of serious offences against persons and property which, "given their nature or context, may seriously damage a country or an international organisation where committed with the aim of: seriously intimidating a population; or unduly compelling a Government or international organisation to perform or abstain from performing any act; or seriously destabilising or destroying the fundamental political, constitutional, economic or social structures of a country or an international organisation."

United States

The United States has defined terrorism under the Federal Criminal Code. Chapter 113B of Part I of Title 18 of the United States Code defines terrorism and lists the crimes associated with terrorism^*. In Section 2331 of Chapter 113b, terrorism is defined as:

"..activities that involve violent... ... that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State and... appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and ......(C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States......(C) occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States..."

Laws and government agencies

• U.S. Code of Federal Regulations: "...the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives" (28 C.F.R. Section 0.85).
• Current U.S. national security strategy: "premeditated, politically motivated violence against innocents."
• United States Department of Defense: the "calculated use of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or intimidate governments or societies in pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological."
• USA PATRIOT Act: "activities that (A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the U.S. or of any state, that (B) appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping, and (C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S."
• The U.S. National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC) described a terrorist act as one which was: "premeditated; perpetrated by a subnational or clandestine agent; politically motivated, potentially including religious, philosophical, or culturally symbolic motivations; violent; and perpetrated against a noncombatant target." ^*

• The British Terrorism Act 2000 defines terrorism so as to include not only violent offences against persons and physical damage to property, but also acts "designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system".This latter consideration would include shutting down a website whose views one dislikes. However this, and any of the other acts covered by the definition would also need to be (a) designed to influence the government or to intimidate the public or a section of the public, AND (b)be done for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause.^*

Individuals

• Brian Jenkins: "Terrorism is the use or threatened use of force designed to bring about political change."
• Walter Laqueur: "Terrorism constitutes the illegitimate use of force to achieve a political objective when innocent people are targeted."
• James M. Poland: "Terrorism is the premeditated, deliberate, systematic murder, mayhem, and threatening of the innocent to create fear and intimidation in order to gain a political or tactical advantage, usually to influence an audience."
• M. Cherif Bassiouni: "'Terrorism' has never been defined..." 36 Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law 2&3, 2004, p. 305
• L. Ali Khan: "Terrorism sprouts from the existence of aggrieved groups." A Legal Theory of International Terrorism

Other

• League of Nations Convention (1937): all criminal acts directed against a State and intended or calculated to create a state of terror in the minds of particular persons or a group of persons or the general public.

Criticisms of the term

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Jason Burke, an expert in radical Islamic activity, has this to say on the word "terrorism":

"There are multiple ways of defining terrorism, and all are subjective. Most define terrorism as 'the use or threat of serious violence' to advance some kind of 'cause'. Some state clearly the kinds of group ('sub-national', 'non-state') or cause (political, ideological, religious) to which they refer. Others merely rely on the instinct of most people when confronted with an act that involves innocent civilians being killed or maimed by men armed with explosives, firearms or other weapons. None is satisfactory, and grave problems with the use of the term persist. Terrorism is after all, a tactic. the term 'war on terrorism' is thus effectively nonsensical. As there is no space here to explore this involved and difficult debate, my preference is, on the whole, for the less loaded term 'militancy'. This is not an attempt to condone such actions, merely to analyse them in a clearer way." ("Al Qaeda", ch.2, p.22)

Other arguments include that:

• There is no strict worldwide commonly accepted definition.

• Any definition that could be agreed upon in, say, English-speaking countries would be biased towards those countries.
• Almost every serious attempt to define the term have been sponsored by governments who instinctively attempt to draw a definition which excludes bodies like themselves.
• Most groups called "terrorist" deny such accusations. Virtually no organisation openly calls itself terrorist.
• Many groups call all their enemies "terrorist".
• The word is very loosely applied and very difficult to challenge when it is being used inappropriately, for example in war situations or against non-violent persons.
• It allows governments to apply a different standard of law to that of ordinary criminal law on the basis of a unilateral decision.
• There is no hope that people will ever all agree who is "terrorist" and who is not.
• The term as widely used in the West reflects a bias towards the status quo. Violence by established governments is sold as "defence", even when that claim is considered dubious by some; any attempt to oppose the established order through military means, however, is often labelled "terrorism".
• If we labelled groups terrorist on the basis of how their opponents perceive them, such labels would be very controversial, for example:

• State of Israel, but also the states of Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban

• The Contemporary Palestine Liberation Organization, but also the United States and CIA
• Groups conducting revolution, such as the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), are routinely denigrated as "terrorist"
• Almost all guerrilla groups (like Tamil Tigers or Chechen rebels) are accused of being "terrorist", but almost all guerrilla groups accuse countries they fight against of being "terrorist" too.
• Organizations such as the American Revolutionary Sons of Liberty—revered in the Unites States—might have been considered "terrorists" by today's standards, which suggests the standards for applying the label are not consistent.
• Resistance movement during World War II. Some historians even claim that resistance in Poland used biological weapons.
• All forms of colonization (especially by North Americans and Europeans) which exposed indigenous peoples to diseases they had no immunity to, especially if they were vaguely aware they were doing it.

  • The word "Terrorist" is pejorative.

Terrorism | Anti-terrorism policy of the United States