History of Terrorism

Slavery and Colonialism: The Worst Terrorism on Africa

by Mohamed Eno

Co-authored with Omar A. Eno, Mohamed H. Ingiriis, and Jamal M. Haji; Published in African Renaissance, Vol. 9, No. 1, 2012.

Humans need not justify terrorism of any kind, regardless of whether one is Muslim, Christian or Jew, because it is... more Humans need not justify terrorism of any kind, regardless of whether one is Muslim, Christian or Jew, because it is the axis of evil and devastation of mankind. However, the deliberate use of the term terrorism in recent decades was carefully selected, mainly, against a certain religion (Islam). The idea was then globally politicized by the Western world. Leaving that scholarly view in its own right, we disagree with the opinion raising terrorism as the devil’s just-born child of evil, when in reality Africans had been terrorized for centuries as slaves and human chattel. Hence the basis for the concept of this thesis: conceptualizing the episode of ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorist’ from the broader perspective of its practice from the Middle Passage or the Atlantic Slave Trade. To portray that argument and broaden the scope of the debate over this critically sensitive subject, we divided the discussion into three sections: an examination of what constitutes terrorism and terrorist; history of terrorism and terrorists from an Africa perspective; and the ideological constraints within the subject of terrorism as practiced by the US and its Western allies.

Affording terrorism: Idealists and materialities in the emergence of modern terrorism

by Mats Fridlund

Submitted manuscript to be published in: Terrorism and Affordance, eds. Max Taylor & P.M. Currie (London: Continuum, fc2012).

http://wwwwww.continuumbooks.com/books/detail.aspx?BookId=162678&SubjectId=1023&Subject2Id=1597

In this groundbreaking work (Terrorism and affordance), leading scholars and experts set out to explore the utility of the concept of affordance in the study and understanding of terrorism and political violence. Essays discuss such topics as affordance in relation to counterterrorism, technology, cyber-jihad, ideology, and political ecologies. By importing the concept of affordance and a new set of research to the study of terrorism, the authors offer an innovative and original work that challenges and adds to various aspects of situational crime prevention and counterterrorism.

The writing of this article has partly been funded through the research project ”Spreading terror: Technology and... more The writing of this article has partly been funded through the research project ”Spreading terror: Technology and materiality in the transnational emergence of terrorism, 1866-1898” (2010-1860) funded by the Swedish Research Council (VR) and the University of Gothenburg.

The philosopher and the terrorist. Why Sartre visited Andreas Baader

by Ruud Welten

English version of chapter from 'Zinvol Geweld' English version of chapter from 'Zinvol Geweld'

Buckets, Bollards and Bombs: Towards Subject Histories of Technologies and Terrors

by Mats Fridlund

Published in: History and Technology 27 (2011):4, 389-414.

In the editors' introduction Martin Collins says the following: "In this issue, Mats Fridlund and Lissa Roberts, in their respective articles, take up a cen- tral problem in recent historiography and discussions of historical explanation: the interplay of materiality, the articulation of social and political space, and the constitution of individual experience. Each article seeks to make strong historical and methodological claims. In Fridlund’s narrative, it is to bring forward ‘subjectivity’ as a problem, using the history of terrorism as his interpretive lens. The sociocultural effects are his focus; he considers historical actors in the everyday world and their encounter with terrorism- related objects and discourse about these objects in particular places and times – early nineteenth century Copenhagen, London in the interwar years, and the United States after World War II, and, respectively, to each case, associated objects such as buckets; warning sirens and gas masks; and, then, bomb shelters and bollards."

Abstract:
This article provides a theoretical and empirical contribution to the political history of technology... more Abstract:
This article provides a theoretical and empirical contribution to the political history of technology by articulating a new conceptual perspective on the power of technological things and through outlining a history of modern urban technological terror and terrorism. It introduces a user-centered perspective on technological politics in the form of ‘subject histories of technology’ which, contrasting with prevalent ‘object histories of technology’ on technological inventions and innovators, emphasize the self-fashioning power of technological artifacts. Through an overview history of technology of ‘terrormindedness’ covering the three subsequent waves of urban terror arising from aerial bombardment, nuclear weapons and substate terrorism it shows how technologies have been used by individual citizens to cope with the experience of man-made fear and insecurity. In conclusion it argues that the political history of technology should to the focus on community politics and system politics of big institutional technologies add an attention to the personal politics of the emotional and material power of small technical things.

A Movement from Right to Left in Argentine Nationalism? The Alianza Libertadora Nacionalista and Tacuara as Stages of Militancy, Bulletin of Latin American Research, vol. 26, no. 3 (2007), pp. 356-377.

by Michael Goebel

'Remembering and Forgetting Sites of Terrorism in New York, 1900–2001'

by Ross Wilson

Journal of Conflict Archaeology, Vol. 6 No. 3, September, 2011, 200–21

This article assesses the manner in which terrorist attacks have been remembered and forgotten within New York during... more This article assesses the manner in which terrorist attacks have been remembered and forgotten within New York during the twentieth century. As a ‘global city’, New York has frequently been the focus of individuals and groups seeking to promote their cause by attacking targets in the city, its businesses, its infrastructure, its organizations, and its citizens. By examining how these events were reported and subsequently incorporated or dismissed within both the urban fabric and the city’s ‘collective memory’, this article addresses how violent terrorism is engaged with by society. Building upon the advances made within the study of modern conflict archaeology, this article examines the possibility of an archaeology of terrorism.

Helvetesmaskinerna: Terrorismens teknologi från giljotinen till videokameran

by Mats Fridlund

[The infernal machines: The technology of terrorism from the guillotine to the camcorder], in: Terror ismer, Per Vingaard Klüver, Helle Møller, Espen Kirkegaard Espensen, & Anne Sørensen, eds., Den jyske Historiker (2007):115, 127-151.

The history of modern terrorism has been strongly influenced by technological change. In the sparse historical reserach on terrorism, the role of technoogy has been played down in favour of changing doctrines. The article is an attempt to describe the history of terrorism from the view of its dominant technologies rather than its dominant doctrines. The four waves of modern terrorism from the 1880s until the present is described from the perspective of the changing tools of terrorists in the form of innovations of new and appropriations of existing weapon and media technologies from the dynamite bomb to the camcorder. Contrary to the doctrinary history this gives a history that more emphasize longevity and continuity than shifts and revolutions.

Terrorismens moderna historia har varit starkt påverkad av teknologisk förändring men i den sparsamma historiska... more Terrorismens moderna historia har varit starkt påverkad av teknologisk förändring men i den sparsamma historiska forskningen har denna roll spelats ned till förmån för doktrinära förändringar. Artikeln utgör en ansats till att skildra terrorismens historia utifrån från dess dominanta teknologier snarare än dess dominanta doktriner. Den moderna terrorismens fyra doktrinära vågor från 1880-talet till idag skildras mot bakgrund av de förändringar i terroristernas verktyg i form av innovationer av nya och appropriationer av existerande vapen- och mediateknologier från dynamitbomben till camcordern. Detta ger till skillnad från den doktrinära historien en historia som mer betonar långvarighet och kontinuitet snarare än skiften och omvälvningar.

Terrorens ingeniørkunst: Teknik og videnskab efter 11. september

by Mats Fridlund

Published in Malene Fenger-Grøndahl, ed., 11. september: Verdens tilstand ti år efter (Århus & Köpenhamn: Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 2011), 263-279.

Nyheden om terroranslaget i Oslo indløb via Facehook under skrivningen af denne tekst. Selv om detaljerne af det... more Nyheden om terroranslaget i Oslo indløb via Facehook under skrivningen af denne tekst. Selv om detaljerne af det dødeligste terroranslag i Norden siden Anden Verdenskrig endnu ikke er helt klarlagt; viser de tydeligt, at teknikkens betydning for terrorvolden på en måde har og på en måde ikke har gennemgået en radikal for­andring siden terrorangrebet den 11. september 2001.

Science and the ‘The 9/11 Effect’ The Mutual Shaping of Terrorism, National Security, and Scientific Research During the Last Ten Years

by Gustaf Nelhans

Deterring terrorists and deterring states: fundamentally different tasks?

by Sebastiano Sali

e-IR

Do Targeted Assassinations Work? A Multivariate Analysis of Israel's Controversial Tactic during Al-Aqsa Uprising

by Joe Hatfield

Co-authored with Mohammed M. Hafez, published in "Studies in Conflict and Terrorism", Routledge 2006.

We assess the impact of Israel's targeted assassinations policy on rates of Palestinian violence from September 2000,... more We assess the impact of Israel's targeted assassinations policy on rates of Palestinian violence from September 2000, the beginning of Al-Aqsa uprising, through June 2004. Literature concerning the relationship between repression and rebellion suggests four plausible effects of targeted assassinations on insurgents: deterrence, backlash, disruption, and incapacitation. Using differenced and lagged time-series analysis, this article utilizes multiple and logistic regression to evaluate the effect of targeted assassinations on Palestinian violence. It is concluded that targeted assassinations have no significant impact on rates of Palestinian attacks. Targeted assassinations do not decrease rates of Palestinian violence, nor do they increase them, whether in the short or long run. Targeted assassinations may be useful as a political tool to signal a state's determination to punish terrorists and placate an angry public, but there is little evidence that they actually impact the course of an insurgency.

Soccer binds jihadists in Russian terror plot

by James M. Dorsey

Friday, August 19, 2011

By James M. Dorsey

Islam Khamushev played soccer as a kid with Muradom... more Friday, August 19, 2011

By James M. Dorsey

Islam Khamushev played soccer as a kid with Muradom Edilbiyev and Muradom Umayev. As adults, the three childhood friends with roots in the northern Caucasus, a hotbed of Islamist militancy, planned to blow up the high speed Sapsan railway linking Moscow and St Petersburg.

Messrs Khamushev, Edibilyev and Umayev together with Fyarit Nevlyutov, the fourth member of their group, were arrested last month in Moscow but the charges and details of their plot were only released this week.

Russia’s Federal Security (FSB) detained them after following their preparations for the attack that could have resulted in a high number of casualties by tapping their telephones. Russian press reports quoted FSB director Alexander Bortnikov as saying that explosives, weapons and maps of targets were seized when the four were arrested.

Russian media reports said that 22 year-old Mr. Khamushev moved last year to a forest training camp in Dagestan to prepare for the attack where he linked up with Messrs. Edilbiyev and Umayev, with whom he played soccer in Moscow’s amateur Daimokkh and Darul Arkam teams. The team met Mr. Nevlyutov at a local Moscow mosque.

Darul-Arqam’s players are members of a Muslim society with the same name to which Mr. Edilbiyev belongs. Mr. Umayev’s club, Diamokhk, is predominantly Chechen.

Mr. Khamushev first broached the idea of the attack in June and the others quickly agreed, according to Russian daily Kommersant. The paper quoted Mr. Edilbiyev as agreeing because he recalled seeing as a 10-year old in 1999 in his native Chechnya federal forces “kill his mate” and how soldiers “grossly violated the rights of citizens of the republic.”

The arrest of the four men highlights jihadists’ love hate relationship with the beautiful game. Soccer has served jihadists as an important recruitment and bonding tool. It brings recruits into the fold, encourages camaraderie and reinforces militancy among those who have joined.

Jihadists like Messrs Khamushev, Edibilyev and Umayev often start their journey as members of groups organized around soccer. The perpetrators of the 2003 Madrid subway bombings played soccer together. Saudi players made their way to Iraq to become suicide bombers. Similarly, several Palestinian Hamas suicide bombers traced their routes to a mosque-sponsored soccer team.

Men like Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, who was killed by US Navy Seals in May, and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh learnt the significance of soccer early on. They hail from a part of the world populated by authoritarian, repressive regimes in which soccer offered for much of their lives a rare opportunity for the expression of pent-up anger and frustration.

As a child, Mr. Bin Laden organized soccer games in poor parts of Jeddah, his hometown. In the 1990s, when he based Al Qaeda in Sudan, the group reportedly had two competing teams that maintained regularly scheduled practices and played weekly matches after Friday prayers.  Back in Afghanistan during the US-backed Islamist war against the Russians, the Afghan guerrillas and their foreign fellow travellers fought boredom in between battles with their own soccer tournament in which fighters competed in teams representing their countries of origin. Once the Soviets withdrew and foreign jihadists returned home, soccer matches offered an opportunity to stay in touch.

Ironically, Islamist leaders like Messrs Bin Laden and Haniyeh occupied a middle ground in the militant theological debate about soccer that runs the gamut from passionate advocacy to murderous rejection. Their enthusiasm for and endorsement of the game put them at odds with radical clerics who condemn the sport as un-Islamic and more in line with mainstream scholars who argue that the Prophet Muhammed advocated physical exercise to maintain a healthy body.

Soccer doesn’t fit into, for example the vision of an Islamist society advocated by Somalia’s Al Shabab or Afghan Taliban. In their view, it distracts the faithful from worshipping Allah, competes with the militants for recruits and lends credence to national borders at the expense of pan-Islamist aspirations. It also celebrates peaceful competition and undermines the narrative of an inevitable clash of civilizations between Islam and the West.

Despite their passion for soccer, men like Mr. Haniyeh or for that matter Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, as well as more mainstream, non-violent, ultra-conservative Muslims recognize a kernel of truth in the militant cleric’s religious rulings. Only soccer was until the eruption of the Arab revolt in December 2010 able to spark the same deep-seated emotion, passion and commitment that Islam evokes among a significant segment of the population of the Middle East and North Africa.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

Al Qaeda Global Revolution

by Robert Silva

This is about comparing Mao and Leninist Spark to Al Qaeda phenomenon, also looking at social and cognitive psychological approaches to identity creation, and causes to impulse to destroy in the name of ideology.

This paper is about the narratives of Al Qaeda and perception of threat causes violent reactions. Economic and... more This paper is about the narratives of Al Qaeda and perception of threat causes violent reactions. Economic and cultural changes are forms of conquering of a cultural thus meet with violence.

Psychology of Terrorism

by Robert Silva

This paper was written for Dr. Hanami, at San Francisco State University

It is the scope of Terrorism a early version could have typos, deals with psychology syndromes and complexes looking... more It is the scope of Terrorism a early version could have typos, deals with psychology syndromes and complexes looking at social psychology as tool to understand the terrorist mind set.

Understanding Terrorism Goals

by Cameron Cowan

By Cameron Cowan for Norwich University MDY Program

This paper analyzes the motivating factors behind terrorism This paper analyzes the motivating factors behind terrorism

On Terrorism

by Cameron Cowan

By Cameron Cowan for Norwich University MDY Program

It is as it sounds, a paper on terrorism. It is as it sounds, a paper on terrorism.

Chechnya: Russia's War on Terror

by Jake Eyre

Final paper written for seminar 6 of Norwich University's MDY program. Written by Jake Eyre

This paper brings to light the history between the Chechen and the Russian people discussing the Chechen rebels... more This paper brings to light the history between the Chechen and the Russian people discussing the Chechen rebels perspective, the Russian peoples perspective, and the Chechen peoples perspective in the most recent conflict in Chechnya. It, with the help of Anna Politkovskaya's excellent book "a small corner of hell" sheds light on the concentration camps, and civil rights abuses that the Russian government has perpetrated against the Chechen people.

Additionally, it also brings to light the perspective of the Chechen people who are caught between appeasing the Russian government and facing the brunt of of a group that denigrates everything they hold dear, the Chechen rebels (who they call "Wahabbi's"), or the alternate reality, pleasing the rebels and facing the full brunt of the Russian military. It finally discusses the transformation of those that would eventually become these rebels. It documents their transformation from freedom fighters in the early 1990's, to the criminals they are today.

This paper discusses the history of the Chechen's search for independence by attempting to highlight the struggle on all sides and coming to the conclusion that the only people hurt in this struggle are the Chechen people themselves.

Soldiers and Terror: Re-evaluating the Complicity of the Wehrmacht in Nazi Germany

by Robert Loeffel

Collective memory and crisis: the 2002 Bali bombing, national heroic archetypes and the counter-narrative of cosmopolitan nationalism

by brad west

Decoding the Propaganda of Terrorism and Hate Websites

by Kevin LaGrandeur

Pulished in "Criticism.com" 2005; available at: http://www.criticism.com/md/terrorism-on-web.php