History of terrorism

Definition

See also: Definition of terrorism

Though many have been proposed, there is no consensus definition of the term "terrorism."^[2][3] This in part derives from the fact that the term is politically and emotionally charged, “a word with intrinsically negative connotations that is generally applied to one's enemies and opponents.”^[4]Listed below are some of the historically important understandings of terror and terrorism, and enacted but non-universal definitions of the term:

• 1795. "Government intimidation during the Reign of Terror in France." The general sense of "systematic use of terror as a policy" was first recorded in English in 1798.^[5]
• 1916. Gustave LeBon: “Terrorization has always been employed by revolutionaries no less than by kings, as a means of impressing their enemies, and as an example to those who were doubtful about submitting to them . . ." ^[6]
• 1937. League of Nations convention language: "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."^[7]
• 1987. A definition proposed by Iran at an international Islamic conference on terrorism: “Terrorism is an act carried out to achieve an inhuman and corrupt (mufsid) objective, and involving [a] threat to security of any kind, and violation of rights acknowledged by religion and mankind.” ^[8]
• 1988. A proposed academic consensus definition: "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."^[9]
• 1989. United States: premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents.^[10]
• 1992. A definition proposed by Alex P. Schmid to the United Nations Crime Branch: "Act of Terrorism = Peacetime Equivalent of War Crime."^[11]
• 2002. European Union: ". . . given their nature or context, [acts which] may seriously damage a country or an international organisation where committed with the aim of seriously intimidating a population."^[12]
• 2003. India: Referencing Schmid's 1992 proposal, the Supreme Court of India described terrorist acts as the "peacetime equivalents of war crimes."^[13]
• 2008. Carsten Bockstette, a German military officer serving at the George C. Marshall Center for European Security Studies, proposed the following definition: “political violence in an asymmetrical conflict that is designed to induce terror and psychic fear (sometimes indiscriminate) through the violent victimization and destruction of noncombatant targets (sometimes iconic symbols)."^[14]

[edit]Before the Reign of Terror

Artistic rendering of Hassan-i Sabbah.

Scholars dispute whether the roots of terrorism date back to the 1st century and the Sicarii Zealots, to the 11th century and the Al-Hashshashin, to the 19th century and Narodnaya Volya, or to other eras.^[15][16] The Sicarii and Hashshashin are described below, while the Narodnaya Volya is discussed in the 19th Century sub-section. Other pre-Reign of Terror historical events sometimes associated with terrorism are the Gunpowder Plot, an attempt to destroy the EnglishParliament in 1605,^[17] and the Boston Tea Party, an attack on British property by the Sons of Liberty in 1773, three years prior to the American Revolution.

In the 1st century CE, the Jewish Zealots in Judaea Province rebelled, killing prominent collaborators with Roman rule.^[15][18][19] In 6 CE, according to contemporary historian Josephus,Judas of Galilee formed a small and more extreme offshoot of the Zealots, the Sicarii ("dagger men").^[20] Their efforts also directed against Jewish "collaborators," including temple priests, Sadducees, Herodians, and other wealthy elites.^[21] According to Josephus, the Sicarii would hide short daggers under their cloaks, mingle with crowds at large festivals, murder their victims, and then disappear into the panicked crowds. Their most successful assassination was of the high priest Jonathan.^[20]

In the late 11th century CE, the Hashshashin (a.k.a. the Assassins) arose, an offshoot of theIsmā'īlī sect of Shia Muslims.^[22] Led by Hassan-i Sabbah and opposed to Fatimid rule, the Hashshashin militia seized Alamut and other fortress strongholds across Persia.^[23] Hashshashin forces were too small to challenge enemies militarily, so they assassinated city governors and military commanders in order to create alliances with militarily powerful neighbors. For example, they killed Janah al-Dawla, ruler of Homs, to please Ridwan of Aleppo, and assassinated Mawdud, Seljuk emir of Mosul, as a favor to the regent of Damascus.^[24] The Hashshashin also carried out assassinations as retribution.^[25] Under some definitions of terrorism, suchassassinations do not qualify as terrorism, since killing a political leader does not intimidate political enemies or inspire revolt.^[15][20][26]

[edit]The Reign of Terror (1793-1794)

Main article: The Reign of Terror

"Enemies of the people" headed for theguillotine during the Reign of Terror.

The Reign of Terror (September 5, 1793 – July 28, 1794) or simply The Terror (French: la Terreur) was a period of eleven months during the French Revolution when the ruling Jacobins employed violence, including mass executions by guillotine, in order to intimidate the regime's enemies and compel obedience to the state.^[27] The number killed totaled approximately 40,000, and among the guillotined were Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.^[28] Putting an end to the Terror, on July 28, 1794, its most well known leader, Maximilien Robespierre, was guillotined by other members of France's ruling National Convention.^[29]

The Jacobins, most famously Robespierre, sometimes referred to themselves as "terrorists," and the word originated at that time.^[30] Some modern scholars, however, do not consider the Reign of Terror a form of terrorism, in part because it was carried out by the French state.^[31][32]

[edit]19th century

McKinley shortly before his assassination.

Terrorism was associated with the Reign of Terror in France until the mid-19th century,^[30] when the term began to be associated with non-governmental groups.^[33] Anarchism, often in league with risingnationalism, was the most prominent ideology linked with terrorism.^[34] Attacks by various anarchist groups led to the assassination of a Russian Tsar and a U.S. President.^[35]

The 19th century saw the development of powerful, stable, and affordable explosives, and the gap closed between the firepower of the state and dissidents.^[36][37] Dynamite, in particular, inspired American and French anarchists and was central to their strategic thinking.^[38]

In mid-19th century Russia, many grew impatient with the slow pace of Tsarist reforms, and anarchistssuch as Mikhail Bakunin maintained that progress was impossible without violence.^[39] Founded in 1878 and inspired by Bakunin and others, Narodnaya Volya used dynamite-packed bombs to kill Russian state officials, in an effort to incite state retribution and mobilize the populace against the government.^[40]Inspired by Narodnaya Volya, several nationalist groups in the ailing Ottoman Empire began using violence against public figures in the 1890s. These included the Hunchakian Revolutionary Party, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, and the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO).^[41]

[edit]The United States

A cartoon threatening that the KKK willlynch carpetbaggers, in the Independent Monitor, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, 1868.

In the 1850s, John Brown (1800–1859) was an abolitionist who advocated and practiced armed opposition to slavery. Brown led several attacks between 1856 and 1859, the most famous in 1859 against the armory at Harpers Ferry. Local forces soon recaptured the fort and Brown was tried and executed for treason.^[42] A biographer of Brown has written that his purpose was "to force the nation into a new political pattern by creating terror."^[43]

After the Civil War, on December 24, 1865, six Confederate veterans created the Ku Klux Klan(KKK).^[44] The KKK used violence, lynching, murder and acts of intimidation such as cross burning to oppress in particular African Americans, and created a sensation with its masked forays' dramatic nature.^[45][46] The group's politics are generally perceived as white supremacy,anti-Semitism, racism, anti-Catholicism, and nativism.^[45] A KKK founder boasted that it was a nationwide organization of 550,000 men and that it could muster 40,000 Klansmen within five days' notice, but as a secret or "invisible" group with no membership rosters, it was difficult to judge the Klan's actual size. The KKK has at times been politically powerful, and at various times controlled the governments of Tennessee, Oklahoma, and South Carolina, in addition to several legislatures in the South.^{[citation needed]}

[edit]Europe

In 1867 the Irish Republican Brotherhood, a revolutionary Irish nationalist group,^[47] carried out attacks in England.^[48] Writer Richard English has referred to such attacks as the first acts of "republican terrorism," which would became a recurrent feature of British and Irish history. The group is considered a precursor to the Irish Republican Army.^[49]

Ignaty Gryniewietsky.

Europeans invented "Propaganda of the deed" (or "propaganda by the deed," from the Frenchpropagande par le fait) theory, a concept that advocates physical violence or other provocative public acts against political enemies in order to inspire mass rebellion or revolution. An early proponent was the Italian revolutionary Carlo Pisacane (1818–1857), who wrote in his "Political Testament" (1857) that "ideas spring from deeds and not the other way around." Anarchist Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876), in his "Letters to a Frenchman on the Present Crisis" (1870) stated that "we must spread our principles, not with words but with deeds, for this is the most popular, the most potent, and the most irresistible form of propaganda."^[50]The phrase itself was popularized by the French anarchist Paul Brousse (1844–1912), who in 1877 cited as examples the 1871 Paris Commune and a workers' demonstration in Berne provocatively using the socialist red flag.^[51] By the 1880s, the slogan had begun to be used to refer to bombings, regicides andtyrannicides. Reflecting this new understanding of the term, Italian anarchist Errico Malatesta in 1895 described "propaganda by the deed" (which he opposed the use of) as violent communal insurrections meant to ignite an imminent revolution.^[52]

Founded in Russia in 1878, Narodnaya Volya (Народная Воля in Russian; People's Will in English) was a revolutionary anarchist group inspired by Sergei Nechayev and "propaganda by the deed" theorist Pisacane.^[15][40] The group developed ideas—such as targeted killing of the 'leaders of oppression'—that were to become the hallmark of subsequent violence by small non-state groups, and they were convinced that the developing technologies of the age—such as the invention of dynamite, which they were the first anarchist group to make widespread use of^[53]—enabled them to strike directly and with discrimination.^[37] Attempting to spark a popular revolt against Russia's Tsars, the group killed prominent political figures by gun and bomb, and on March 13, 1881, assassinated Russia's Tsar Alexander II.^[15] The assassination, by a bomb that also killed the Tsar's attacker,Ignacy Hryniewiecki, failed to spark the expected revolution, and an ensuing crackdown brought the group to an end.^[54]

Individual Europeans also engaged in politically motivated violence. For example, in 1893, Auguste Vaillant, a French anarchist, threw a bomb in the French Chamber of Deputies in which one person was injured.^[55] In reaction to Vaillant's bombing and other bombings and assassination attempts, the French government passed a set of laws restricting freedom of the press that were pejoratively known as the lois scélérates ("villainous laws"). From 1894 to 1896, President of France Marie Francois Carnot, Prime Minister of Spain Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, and Austria-Hungary Empress Elisabeth of Bavaria were killed by anarchists.

[edit]The Ottoman Empire

Several nationalist groups used violence against an Ottoman Empire in apparent decline. One was the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (in Armenian Dashnaktsuthium, or "The Federation"), a revolutionary movement founded in Tiflis (Russian Transcaucasia) in 1890 by Christopher Mikaelian. Many members had been part of Narodnaya Volya or the Hunchakian Revolutionary Party.^[56] The group published newsletters, smuggled arms, and hijacked buildings as it sought to bring in European intervention that would force the Ottoman Empire to surrender control of its Armenian territories.^[57] On August 24, 1896, 17-year-old Babken Suni led twenty-six members in capturing the Imperial Ottoman Bank in Constantinople. The group unsuccessfully demanded the creation of an Armenian state, but backed down on a threat to blow up the bank. An ensuing security crackdown destroyed the group.^[58]

Also inspired by Narodnaya Volya, the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) was a revolutionary movement founded in 1893 by Hristo Tatarchev in the Ottoman-controlled Macedonian territories.^[59][60] Through assassinations and by provoking uprisings, the group sought to coerce the Ottoman government into creating a Macedonian nation.^[61] On July 20, 1903, the group incited the Ilinden uprising in the Ottoman villayet of Monastir. The IMRO declared the town's independence and sent demands to the European Powers that all of Macedonia be freed.^[62] The demands were ignored and Turkish troops crushed the 27,000 rebels in the town two months later.^[63]

[edit]Early 20th century

Michael Collins, IRA leader

Revolutionary nationalism continued to motivate political violence in the 20th century, much of it directed against the British Empire. The Irish Republican Army campaigned against the British in the 1910s and inspired the Zionist groups Hagannah, Irgun and Lehi to fight the British throughout the 1930s in the Palestine mandate.^[64][65] Like the IRA and the Zionist groups, the Muslim Brotherhood used bombings and assassinations to try to free Egypt from British control.^[66]

[edit]Europe

Political assassinations continued into the 20th century, its first victim Umberto I of Italy, killed in July 1900. Political violence became especially widespread in Imperial Russia, and several ministers were killed in the opening years of the century. The highest ranking was prime minister Pyotr Stolypin, killed in 1911 by a leftist radical.

On June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife,Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were shot and killed in Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, byGavrilo Princip, one of a group of six assassins. The assassinations produced widespread shock across Europe, setting in motion a series of events which led to World War I.

In an action called the Easter Rising or Easter Rebellion, on April 24, 1916, members of the Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army seized the Dublin General Post Office and several other buildings, proclaiming an independent Irish Republic.^[67] The rebellion failed militarily but was a success for physical force Irish republicanism, leaders of the uprising becoming Irish heroes after their eventual execution by the British government.^[68] Shortly after the rebellion, Michael Collins and others founded the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which from 1916 to 1923 carried out numerous attacks against symbols of British power. For example, it attacked over 300 police stations simultaneously just before Easter 1920,^[69] and, in November 1920, publicly killed a dozen police officers and burned down the Liverpool docks and warehouses, an action that came to be known as Bloody Sunday.^[70] After years of warfare, London agreed to the 1921 Anglo-Irish treaty creating an independent Irish nation encompassing 26 of the island's 32 counties.^[71] IRA tactics were an inspiration to other groups, including thePalestine Mandate's Zionists,^[72] and to British special operations during World War II.^[73][74]

[edit]Middle East

Following the 1929 Hebron massacre of sixty-seven Jewish settlers in the British Mandate of Palestine, the Zionist settlers militia Haganahtransformed itself into a paramilitary force. In 1931, however, a more militant Irgun broke away from Haganah, objecting to Haganah's policy of restraint toward Arabs fighting Jewish settlers.^[75] Founded by Avraham Tehomi,^[76][77] Irgun sought to end British rule by assassinating police, capturing British government buildings and arms, and sabotaging British railways.^[78] Its tactic of attacking Arab communities, including the bombing a crowded Arab market, is considered among the first examples of terrorism directed against civilians.^[79] Irgun's best known attack was the 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, parts of which housed the headquarters of the British civil and military administrations. Ninety-one people were killed and forty-six injured in what was the most deadly attack during the Mandate era.^[80]After the creation of Israel in 1948, Menachem Begin (Irgun leader from 1943 to 1948) transformed the group into the political party which later became part of Likud.^[81]

The King David Hotel after the 1946 bombing

Operating in the British Mandate of Palestine in the 1930s, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam organized and established the Black Hand, an anti-Zionist militia. He recruited and arranged military training for peasants, and by 1935 had enlisted between 200 and 800 men. Al-Qassam obtained a fatwa from ShaykhBadr al-Din al-Taji al-Hasani, the Mufti of Damascus, authorizing armed resistance against the British and Jews of Palestine. Black Hand cells were equipped with bombs and firearms, which they used to kill Zionist settlers.^[82][83] Although al-Qassam's revolt was unsuccessful in his lifetime, many organizations gained inspiration from his revolutionary example.^[82] He became a popular hero and an inspiration to subsequent Arab militants, who in the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt, called themselves Qassamiyun, followers of al-Qassam.

Lehi (Lohameni Herut Yisrael, a.k.a. "Freedom Fighters for Israel," a.k.a. Stern Gang) was a revisionist Zionist group that splintered off from Irgun in 1940.^[79] Abraham Stern formed Lehi from disaffected Irgun members after Irgun agreed to a truce with Britain in 1940.^[78] Lehi assassinated prominent politicians as a strategy. For example, on November 6, 1944, Lord Moyne, the British Minister of State for the Middle East, was assassinated.^[84] The act was controversial among Zionist militant groups, Hagannah sympathizing with the British and launching a massive man-hunt against members of Lehi and Irgun. After Israel's 1948 founding, Lehi was formally dissolved and its members integrated into the Israeli Defense Forces.^[85]

[edit]Germany and the Soviet Union of the 1930s

The 1930s saw the rise of totalitarian regimes in Stalin's Soviet Union and Hitler's Germany. Both regimes employed terror on an enormous scale.^[86] However, and unlike some of the Jacobins who ruled France during its Reign of Terror, the regimes never applied the words ‘terror’ or 'terrorist' to the ruthless actions of their police, nor to the NKVD in the Soviet Union or the Gestapo in Nazi Germany, but only to those who opposed the two dictatorships. Historian R. J. Overy writes, "What is now defined as ruthless state terror was viewed by Hitler and Stalin as state protection against the enemies of the people."^[87] Effectively establishing and reinforcing obedience to regime and national ideology, both regimes used surveillance, imprisonment (often in Soviet gulags or German labor or concentration camps), torture, and executions against enemies of the state real and imagined.^[88]

[edit]World War II

[edit]The resistance movement in Europe

Some of the tactics of the guerrilla, partisan, and resistance movements organised and supplied by the Allies during World War II, according to historian M.R.D. Foot, can be considered terrorist.^[89][90] Colin Gubbins, a key leader within the British Special Operations Executive(SOE), made sure the organization drew much of its inspiration from the IRA.^[73][74] On the eve of D-Day, the SOE organised with the French resistance the complete destruction of the rail^[91] and communication infrastructure of western France^[92] perhaps the largest coordinated attack of its kind in history^{[citation needed]}. Allied supreme commander Dwight Eisenhower later wrote that "the disruption of enemy rail communications, the harassing of German road moves and the continual and increasing strain placed on German security services