History of Terrorism

This study analyzes controversies and public attitudes concerning the Bandera faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B), the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA)
and Stepan Bandera in Ukraine. The research question is: Which factors affect attitudes toward the OUN-B, the UPA and Bandera in contemporary Ukraine? This article employs comparative and regression analyses of surveys commissioned by the author and conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) in 2009 and 2013 to determine the effects of regional and other factors on attitudes toward these organizations and the OUN-B leader. The study shows that regional factors and perceptions of these organizations' involvement in mass murder were the strongest predictors of the views concerning the OUN-B, the UPA and Bandera. Their public support is strongest in Galicia and weakest in the East and the South, in particular, in Donbas and Crimea, two major conflict areas since the “Euromaidan.”

Kulisy bliskiej współpracy komunistycznych służb z międzynarodowymi ugrupowaniami terrorystycznymi przez wiele lat należały do najpilniej strzeżonych sekretów PRL. Radykałowie z Bliskiego Wschodu oraz skrajnie lewicowi ekstremiści z Europy Zachodniej traktowali Polskę jako sprawdzonego sojusznika i bezpieczną przystań, gdzie można było skutecznie ukrywać się przed agentami służb zachodnich i w spokoju przygotowywać kolejne zamachy. Dzięki tajnym układom z peerelowskimi służbami cywilnymi i wojskowymi, terroryści czuli się w Polsce bezpiecznie. Omijali procedury wizowe, przysyłali rannych bojowników na odpoczynek, otrzymywali stypendia, otwierali własne firmy, handlowali bronią, a na nielegalnych interesach z państwowymi przedsiębiorstwami zarabiali miliony dolarów. Abu Nidal, Monzer Al-Kassar, Abu Dawud i Abu Abbas to tylko niektórzy z czołówki najgroźniejszych światowych terrorystów ostatniej dekady zimnej wojny, którzy nie tylko korzystali z gościny peerelowskich służb, ale traktowali Polskę jako ważne ogniwo przestępczej działalności. Dzięki drobiazgowym poszukiwaniom archiwalnym Autorowi udało się zrekonstruować najważniejsze siatki terrorystyczne operujące na terenie komunistycznej Polski oraz naświetlić okoliczności ich sekretnych powiązań z funkcjonariuszami aparatu bezpieczeństwa PRL.
https://ksiegarnia.pwn.pl/Zabojcze-uklady,713077485,p.html

During the past decades, the assassination attempt has been treated from different disciplines. Nevertheless, the mediatization of the assassination attempt or its treatment in images and audiovisual media has been widely neglected. Starting from a triptych applicable to 19th century tyrannicides and articulated by the assassination performance, the perpetrator’s arrest and, finally, his punishment, we aim at verifying to what extent this model fits into 20th-century assassination attempts. For this reason, three key assassinations will be considered. First, the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, perpetrated by Serbian nationalists, and which would lead to WWI. Second, the failed attempt on 20 July 1944 against Adolf Hitler in the Wolfsschanze; a plot in which many high rank officers of the Wehrmacht were involved. As third example, we will focus on John F. Kennedy’s assassination in
Dallas, on 22 November 1963, reputed to Lee H. Oswald.

Bu kitap Times tarafından ‘modern zamanların en büyük ve sansasyonel siyasi komplolarından biri’ olarak tarif edilen olayı ele alıyor. 21 Temmuz 1905 tarihinde, İstanbul’da bulunan Yıldız Hamidiye Camisi’ndeki Cuma duasından sonra patlayan bombalı bir araç 26 kişinin ölümüne ve 58 kişinin de yaralanmasına yol açtı. Saldırının hedefi olan Sultan II. Abdülhamid olayı yara almadan atlattı. Osmanlı polisi kısa sürede olaydan Ermeni devrimcilerin sorumlu olduğunu buldular, pek çok insan tutuklandı ve yargılandı ve bunların arasında Belçikalı anarşist Edward Joris de vardı. Onun hapse atılması uluslararası bir tepkiye yol açtı ve sonuç olarak diplomatik bir karışıklık yarattı.

Suikast girişimi başarısız oldu, olaylar hafızalardan silindi ve bu olay yirminci yüzyıl tarihinin başlarına dair bir dipnot olarak kaldı. Bu kitap komployu Osmanlı’nın son döneminin tarihine dair ulusal sınırları aşan bir an olarak ele alıyor ve uluslararası hukuk, terörizm, Oryantalizm, diplomasi, anarşizm, emperyalizm, milliyetçilik, kitle iletişim araçları ve hayırseverlik gibi modern tarihe dair konulara bir pencere açıyor. Yirminci yüzyılın başlarındaki Osmanlı İmparatorluğu ile Avrupa ve dünyanın geri kalanı arasındaki uluslararası bağlara dair orijinal bir bakış sunuyor.

All too often, media outlets report on young men who entered Western European prisons as petty criminals and, over time, radicalized, eventually conducting terrorist attacks in the name of ISIS. Today, prisons are viewed as one of the primary areas of terrorist recruitment in Europe, but this has not always been the case. Merely two decades ago, paramilitary activists deradicalized in Northern Irish prisons, as IRA members transformed into active supporters of the Irish peace process. How did it work? And what can this historical case study teach us about confronting radicalization today?

Terrorism is surrounded by myths. This book aims to look beyond these, and provide insight into how and why terrorism conflicts erupt, who are the terrorists and what motivates them, and why are governments often so bad at combatting this threat. The book highlights what is distinctive about modern terrorism, but argues that the lessons of history apply as strongly today as ever. This accessible and concise book will appeal to both students and general readers, giving a fascinating introduction to the historical and present-day incarnations of terrorism - and what matters most about them.

This article traces the rise and decline of the Somali jihadi-insurgent group al-Shabab from 2006 to 2014. Particular attention is paid to the group’s implementation of a philistine and coercive interpretation of Shariah in areas under its control, the political economy of insurgent violence, local governing administrations, and internal schisms and recent deadly infighting. The group’s potential future trajectory is also assessed.

Please see the references (end notes) at: http://www.turkishreview.org/newsDetail_getNewsById.action?sectionId=360&newsId=223635

Terrorist groups exhibit wide variation in their targeting strategies, particularly the extent to which they engage in indiscriminate violence against civilian targets as opposed to more selective violence against military and other government targets. This study explores three academic lenses common in political science to account for which targets terrorists tend to attack.

Abstract
In a move away from overarching explanations of the Terror based on ideology, class or a ‘system of Terror’, historians have been investigating the web of connections between politics, ideology, tactics, emotions and the role of individuals. Consequently, a more complex picture of revolutionary politics has begun to emerge. This chapter uses these new approaches to examine how individual experiences of the Jacobin leaders can cast new light on the Terror. It asks how far we can reconstruct the motives that led individual Jacobin leaders to choose terror. Personal factors, including friendships, influenced political decision-making to a far greater extent than has previously been acknowledged. Emotions, above all fear, played an integral role in the Terror. Ironically, the Jacobin leaders were themselves subject to high levels of fear. They needed to maintain their public identity as ‘men of virtue’ or risk being destroyed in the politicians’ terror. The chapter examines the genesis of the politicians’ terror that culminated in the mutual destruction of political factions during the Year II.

On 18 May 1966, Paul Joseph Chartier blew himself up outside of the Canadian House of Commons in Ottawa. His target had been members of parliament, but he succeeded in killing only himself. The bombing received widespread attention at the time and prompted an investigation involving both the rcmp and fbi. Using the more than 1,300-page file compiled by the police, I stress the importance of a historical approach to the study of terrorism as the article examines Chartier's deed in the context of lone-actor terrorism, both within Canada and internationally. Ultimately, I conclude that the reason Chartier carried out the attack is unknowable. However, I argue that a strong correlation existed between the motivation for Chartier's act of extreme violence and masculinity, a connection often ignored in scholarship about terrorism, especially lone-actor terrorism. Chartier fell considerably short of the hegemonic masculine ideals of postwar Canada, which he blamed, in pop-ulist fashion, on a corrupt Canadian political system. In the end, he turned to a traditional response by some men, both in Canada and internationally, an act of extreme violence, to salvage something from his life by striking back against those he blamed for his failures. Résumé : Le 18 mai 1966, Paul Joseph Chartier s'est fait exploser à l'extérieur de la Chambre des communes à Ottawa. Sa cible était les membres du parlement, mais il a seulement réussi à se tuer. L'attentat a reçu beaucoup d'attention à l'époque et a mené à une enquête conjointe de la grc et du fbi. Sur la base de dossiers de plus de 1300 pages compilées par la police, j'insiste sur l'importance d'une approche historique de l'étude du terrorisme dans mon article qui examine l'acte de Chartier dans le contexte de « terrorisme du loup solitaire » au Canada et à l'inter-national. En fin du compte, même si la raison pour laquelle Chartier a commis l'attentant ne sera jamais connue, j'estime qu'il existe une forte corrélation entre la motivation pour cet acte de violence extrême et la masculinité, un lien plutôt ignoré dans la recherche sur le terrorisme, en particulier sur le « terrorisme de loup solitaire ». Chartier n'a jamais atteint l'idéal masculin dominant de l'époque de l'après-guerre au Canada, dont il a blâmé, à la manière populiste, le système politique canadien corrompu. Au final, il s'est tourné vers une réponse typique de certains hommes, au Canada et ailleurs, soit un acte de violence extrême, pour sauver quelque chose de sa vie, en riposte contre ceux qu'il a tenu responsables de ses propres échecs.

Resumen: En septiembre de 2014 se cumplirán 30 años de la concesión de las primeras extradi-ciones de miembros de ETA por parte de Fran-cia hacia España. Para llegar a ellas se tuvieron que vencer los prejuicios franceses sobre el pasado dictatorial español en el que las liberta-des brillaban por su ausencia. El empujón final se lo dio Bélgica ya que este país fue el primero en conceder extradiciones de integrantes de la organización armada vasca. Abstract: In September of 2014 will become 30 years of the granting of the first extraditions of members of ETA by France towards Spain. To reach them, they had to overcome French prejudices about the Spanish dictatorial past in which freedoms was conspicuous by its absence. Belgium gave the last push to the Frenchmen because this country was the first to grant extraditions of members of the armed Basque organization.

‘Leaderless resistance’ and ‘lone wolf terrorism’ are concepts that have steadily gained importance in in the study of oppositional subcultures and terrorist groups, being use to describe the operational realities of a variety of terrorisms, from groups like al-Qaeda to Anders Breivik.  In this article, I seek to describe leaderless resistance as a rhetorical construct, a meaning-conferring ‘ideology of effervescence’ that lifts the spirits of both movement progenitors who advocate the strategy as well as incipient lone wolves who consider responding to their exhortations.  Through an examination of the case of Wiebo Ludwig and the EnCana pipeline bombings of 2008-2009, I show how these rhetorics emerge in the interactions between activists and their political enemies.  With this conception, we can, a) understand more fully the discursive/rhetorical dynamics involved in asymmetrical struggle, b) problematize the acceptance of the organizational reality of leaderless resistance in the terrorism literature, and, c) question the assertion of some terrorism scholarship that refers to leaderless resistance and other ideologies of effervescence as hallmarks of the ‘new terrorism.’

United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism report extensively quotes ISIS Defectors Interview Project which I conducted together with my colleague Anne Speckhard.

I am happy to share once again our project report and UN_CTED's analysis on the phenomenon of foreign fighters.

The title of the report is: Enhancing the Understanding of the Foreign Terrorist Fighters Phenomenon in Syria (please see page 20) They also cited our article several times.

Link: http://www.un.org/en/counterterrorism/assets/img/Report_Final_20170727.pdf

Our article and report about the project at the perspectives on terrorism: Eyewitness Accounts from Recent Defectors from Islamic State: Why They Joined, What They Saw, Why They Quit

https://www.academia.edu/19788498/Eyewitness_Accounts_from_Recent_Defectors_from_Islamic_State_Why_They_Joined_What_They_Saw_Why_They_Quit

The Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan (PKK) translated as the ‘Kurdistan Workers Party’ is a terrorist organization
situated in the South East region of Turkey and its bordering neighbors. The PKK is recognized by the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union (EU) , the United States of America and
many other European countries as a terrorist. The PKK which was established by the currently
imprisoned leader Abdullah Öcalan in 1974 possesses a Marxist-Leninist ideology, but the communist
ideology of the organization has always been secondary compared to its nationalist aims (Chalk, 2013).
With its leader captured in 1999, the group has gone through various name changes include Kongra-Gel
between 2003-2005. This case study will be examining the PKK terrorist organization within four main
headings, these being a brief history of the group and its political goals, its organizational structure and
tactics, its finances coming from drug trafficking and extortion, and finally how effective the Turkish
government strategy has been against the PKK. The PKK in this case study is accepted to being a terrorist
organization due to it threatening the territorial integrity of Turkey both in terms of the civilian
population in the South-East region of Turkey and also governmental structures as well. We contend
that an intervention towards the PKK entities threatening the reconciliation process should have been
made earlier by the Turkish government as this would have cleared terrorist entities and the
reconciliation process would have been prolonged greatly. We also content that greater psychological
support needs to be given for teenage PKK sympathizers as this would put a stop to the idea of terrorism
within their minds and also would break the recruiting of militias for the organization

Chaos reigns—at least in the historiography of the Raj. It was once the consensus among historians that British imperial authority in the Indian subcontinent was secure for at least the century-and-a-half before the Second World War. Recently, however, this narrative has drawn a range of challenges. Prominently, Mark Condos and Jon Wilson have held that British imperial authority was chronically insecure. In their view the irrational anxiety of generations of British officials produced a chaotic administration with minimal social purchase or ideological coherence. Instead of a confident state capable of acting as it chose, these historians have limned a psychologically embattled one incapable of acting except in the abstract, small-scale, or short-term. Their bold revision succeeds in dispelling the aura of indomitability that has often surrounded the Raj, and in directing attention to its overlooked discontents and weaknesses. Yet their characterization of the British regime as constantly and pervasively anxious is more an article of faith than a conclusion warranted by evidence. Nor do they explain how, if the regime suffered from permanent ‘chaos’ or ‘insecurity’, it managed to survive for some two hundred years. At the heart of Condos and Wilson’s approach is an effort to bypass texts that results, instead, in misreading them. It is largely by reemphasizing rigorous textual methods, therefore, that Durba Ghosh offers a compelling alternative approach to the history of state vulnerability and disorder.

Terrorists attack civilians to coerce their governments into making political concessions. Does this strategy work? To empirically assess the effectiveness of terrorism, the author exploits variation in the target selection of 125 violent substate campaigns. The results show that terrorist campaigns against civilian targets are significantly less effective than guerrilla campaigns against military targets at inducing government concessions. The negative political effect of terrorism is evident across logit model specifications after carefully controlling for tactical confounds. Drawing on political psychology, the author concludes with a theory to account for why governments resist compliance when their civilians are targeted.

A book review for the RAND Corporation publication Terrorism, Violence and Insurgency Report that examines history's biggest pre-9/11 terrorist attack and offers recommendations that, if implemented, would have made 9/11 almost impossible to execute as reported.

Tradução para português do livro The History of Terrorism from Antiquity to Al Qaeda, por Gerard Chaliand e Arnaud Blin.
.
Evolução histórica do terrorismo de indivíduos, entidades e incidentes bem conhecidos e historicamente significativos associados, com ou sem razão, ao terrorismo. Os estudiosos concordam que o terrorismo é termo polémico, como a régua de lesbos, adapta-se a qualquer situação seja estatal, política, religiosa, etc.  mas mesmo assim são poucos aqueles (terroristas) se descrevem como tais. É comum que os oponentes num conflito violento descrevam o outro lado como terroristas ou como praticantes de terrorismo.
De qualquer forma este livro apresenta dados que podem ajudar a entender este meandro evolutivo com quadrantes e épocas distintas.
.
Este documento actual substitui o anterior por conter alguns erros e imprecisões.

Revisto  em 26OUT17

Pour le philosophe Jean-Pierre Faye la formule : « Robespierre régna par la terreur » représente la « version standard de la terreur » opposée aux Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen de façon mécanique . Pour savoir comment et quand cette « version standard » a pu naître, nous proposons ici une brève excursion dans les traditions historiographiques en privilégiant celle qui se développa à la Sorbonne. L’approche est limitée à la définition et à la chronologie retenues pour parler de « la Terreur ». L'enjeu est de modifier les points de vue sur la période.

When considering J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter saga, it is common to discuss Voldemort’s “reign of terror”. Some have even argued that the Ministry of Magic’s response to Voldemort’s return is a parody of attempts by the governments of the United Kingdom and the United States to counter terrorism. In this chapter we explore the links between Voldemort and terrorism by expanding this analysis to consider Voldemort’s morphological adaptation. Specifically, out of his own fear of dying and his resultant efforts to cheat death, Voldemort divides his soul into six Horcruxes (and an additional unintentional one). This, we argue, is a reflection of a much wider pattern of decentralization in Violent Extremist Organizations (VEOs). Many modern VEOs (such as Al-Qa’ida or the Islamic State) have sought to develop new affiliate organizations in diverse locations across the world. In doing so, such organizations often increase their spread (and perhaps their ideological impact) but they weaken their strategic control. In comparing the morphological adaptation of Voldemort with modern VEOs this chapter explores the conditions within which they decide to decentralize, as well as the ideological drivers that push them to act in certain ways.

This essay centers on the debate that surrounded the anarchist-terrorists of France in the 1890s. As a wave of bombings washed over Paris, commentators argued over the source of terrorism. With an eye toward a handful of notorious French anarchists—Ravachol, Auguste Vaillant, Emile Henry—they asked: How do you make an anarchist-terrorist? The debate that followed offers a window on the political imaginary of the French Third Republic in the years before the Dreyfus Affair. At times, the response to the anarchist bombings took the shape of a proxy war over the issues that moved French politics in the 1890s. But it was more than just this. For all of its variety, the debate centered on the problem of intellectual responsibility and gave form to the specter of the dangerous, rootless intellectual. There is a larger lesson in this tale, for the debate over the anarchist-terrorists of fin-de-siècle France makes for a revealing case study in the ways in which democratic societies respond to the threat of homegrown terrorism. It demonstrates the difficult challenge that terrorism poses to democratic societies and shows just how easily political-cultural interests can hijack discussions of terrorism.

Before Bin Laden and 9/11 Tehran’s master terrorist had killed more Americans than any terrorist in history, Imad Mughniyah was America’s most wanted with a 5 million dollar bounty. With the Islamic Republic of Iran’s help he built a global nexus of militant warfare and terrorist operations.  The road to 9/11, it was Imad who introduced Osama Bin laden to Khomeini’s cult of the Islamic Suicide Bomber.

The Syrian war has caused about a million refugees to seek protection in Europe. This mass migration determines the life or death of each Syrian undertaking the risky pilgrimage and impacts the cultural, political, and security conditions of host and transit countries. Unfortunately, a lack of direct evidence from the field has spawned speculation, misinformation, and ultimately myth-based policymaking toward the Syrian refugee issue. In response to this informational deficit in public rhetoric and policymaking, a seven-person research team was deployed from Jordan to Germany, especially across the Balkans Route, from May to December 2016 to conduct: in-depth structured interviews with Syrian refugees ; quantifiable surveys; and interviews with security, policy, and humanitarian experts. The results debunk five myths about the refugee crisis. Specifically, we find substantial evidence that (1) most refugees are fleeing not only the Assad regime, but also the armed opposition; (2) refugees are not thoroughly vetted crossing into EU countries despite recent countermeasures; (3) refugees generally view smugglers as allies and security officials as adversaries; (4) efforts to halt terrorists from crossing into Europe mainly punish the most vulnerable refugees; and (5) refugees struggle to integrate into Europe, but seldom for cultural reasons.

Final version was published under the title: ‘Commentary on Maximilien Robespierre, On the Principles of Political Morality’ (1794), in Rachel Hammersley (ed.), Textual Moments in the History of Revolutionary Thought (London: Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2015).
This is an analysis of one of the key documents of the French Revolutionary Terror. In February 1794, at the height of the Terror, the Jacobin leader, Maximilien Robespierre made a speech on behalf of the Committee of Public Safety in which he sought to justify the recourse to terror by linking it to the ideological concept of virtue. By virtue he meant political integrity and selfless devotion to the public good. By terror he meant severe justice, wielded in the service of the new Republic. The analysis situates Robespierre’s speech within the context of revolutionary politics. It shows that much of this speech was targeted against Jacobin factions which the Committee of Public Safety feared were undermining the Revolution. The Committee subsequently orchestrated the arrest and destruction of these factions.

Stressing that the pronoun "I" picks out one and only one person in the world (i.e., me), I argue against Hunt (and other like-minded Rand commentators) that the supposed "hard case" of destructive people who do not care for their own lives poses no special difficulty for rational egoism. I conclude that the proper response to a terse objection like "What about suicide bombers?" is the equally terse assertion "But I don't want to get blown up."

This book examines John Calvin’s sense of vocation.

1) It begins with an analysis of thinking on prophecy in early, medieval, and Reformation theology.

2) It finds Calvin within a non-mystical, non-apocalyptic prophetic tradition that focused on scriptural interpretation.

3) It argues Calvin believed his prophetic authority was the same as Isaiah and Jeremiah, and suggests that he may have held himself to be infallible in matters related to Christian doctrine.

4) It argues that starting from about 1555, Calvin began to conceive the idea of encouraging one of the French 'lesser magistrates' (the princes of the blood royal) to rise up in armed conflict against the sitting French king with the aim of taking the throne.

5) Thus, it argues that when that did happen in 1562 when Louis of Condé gathered troops in Orléans and declared their intentions to liberate King Charles IX from the evil councillors surrounding him, this had Calvin's fingerprints on it -- Calvin was to a significant degree responsible for this turn of events.

6) Calvin pursued this plan, I argue, as one of a number of approaches to winning France for the gospel. In this way, the volume explores Calvin's sense of vocation and the impact this had on his political thought.

After conquering large swaths of Syria and Iraq, the IS undertook an aggressive sectarian campaign in which they not only enacted horrific violence against the Shia people, but also damaged or destroyed several key Shia mosques and shrines. Drawing on Social Movement Theory (SMT), this article analyzes the response by various Shia nonstate actors—militia leaders, religious clergymen, populist preachers, and seminal poets. It argues that they used the IS threat to Shia holy sites to develop and deploy a mobilization frame that has come to be referred to as the “shrine protection narrative.” The article also documents the manifold consequences of the shrine protection narrative: it underpinned a mass recruitment drive that saw tens of thousands enlist; it legitimized foreign Shia militias to enter the conflicts in both Syria and Iraq; it justified the formation of entirely new militias who declared the centrality of shrine protection to their mandate; and it mobilized them to enact political violence. In doing so, this article extends existing studies of SMT to demonstrate that “sacred spaces”—and particularly the need to protect religious sites from specific threats—can serve as a powerful mobilization frame towards political violence.

This article addresses the problem of international law enforcement within the War on Cyberterrorism. Hybrid conflicts have replaced the traditional ones, and new threats have emerged in cyberspace, which has become a virtual battlefield. Cyber threats-cybercrimes, cyberterrorism, cyberwarfare-are a major concern for Western governments, especially for the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The international community has begun to consider cyberattacks as a form of terrorism, to which the same measures apply. Because the term "terrorism" is ambiguous and legaly undefined, there is no consensus on a definition of the derivative term "cyberterrorism", which is left to the unilateral interpretations of states. Pretending to consider the cyberspace domain as traditional domains, and claiming to apply IHL for the sole purpose of lawfully using armed forces in contrast to cyberterrorism is a stretch. This paper addresses the question of whether or not current laws of war and international humanitarian law apply to cyber domain, and gives some recommendations on how to tackle this issue.

Then there are the press photos and film stills of police officers in tracksuits on the roof of the athletes' accommodations in Munich; a Lufthansa-airplane waiting on the landing runway in Mogadishu; the odd honeycomb-like structure of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City stripped of its façade; a huge white cloud hovering over Manhattan Island; a glaucous frontal view of the Moscow musical theatre's stage and a handful of blurred masked figures.

International Relations (IR) scholars uncritically accept the official narrative regarding the events of 9/11 and refuse to examine the massive body of evidence generated by the 9/11 truth movement. Nevertheless, as calls for a new inquiry into the events of 9/11 continue to mount, with theInternational 9/11 Consensus Panel and World Trade Centre Building 7 Evaluation inquiries havingrecently published their findings, and with a U.S. Federal Grand Jury on 9/11 having been announced,now would be an opportune moment for IR scholars to start taking the claims of 9/11 truth seri-ously. A survey of the 9/11 truth literature reveals that the official 9/11 narrative cannot be sup-ported at multiple levels. Two planes did not bring down three towers in New York. There is nohard evidence that Muslims were responsible for 9/11 other than in a patsy capacity. Various U.S.government agencies appear to have had foreknowledge of the events and to have covered upevidence. Important questions regarding the hijacked planes need answering, as do questions aboutthe complicity of the mainstream media in 9/11. IR scholars avoid looking at evidence regarding theevents of 9/11 for several reasons. They may be taken in by the weaponized term, “conspiracytheory.” A taboo on questioning the ruling structures of society means that individuals do not wishto fall outside the spectrum of acceptable opinion. Entertaining the possibility that 9/11 was a falseflag requires Westerners to reject fundamental assumptions that they have been socialized to acceptsince birth. The “War on Terror” has created a neo-McCarthyite environment in which freedom tospeak out has been stifled. Yet, if IR scholars are serious about truth, the first place they need to startis 9/11 truth.

People all over the globe have become very familiar with the term terrorism due to its common and worldwide occurrence. Terrorism has been committed by states, governments, organizations, groups, and individuals throughout its long history. Despite the large number of definitions by governments, global institutions, academics, politicians, security experts, and journalists, there has been no single universally agreed-upon definition of terrorism so far for a variety of reasons. This chapter critically analyzes discussions and definitions of terrorism in an attempt to contribute to a fair and balanced understanding of terrorism. It discusses how subjectivity has been an obstacle in understanding terrorism due to the pejorative nature of the term. Debates around the highly contentious concept of terrorism in terms of its distinctive nature, motivations, goals, and means in comparison to other forms of violence are discussed and several definitions of terrorism are analyzed. It is evident that obtaining public attention is the ultimate aim of terrorism in relation to communicating specific messages and both the use of and by the media. While definitions of terrorism struggle to demonstrate exhaustive lists of descriptions, traits, components, conditions, and elements of terrorism, disagreements on these definitional items and features create ambiguities in understanding terrorism. The chapter, then, concludes with discussions on eliminating controversial and subjective definitional items and features to introduce a definition that can help provide an objective understanding of terrorism.

Il presente contributo prende in esame la Strage di Bologna del 1980 assieme alle altre due stragi che insanguinarono l´Europa nello stesso anno - quella all´Oktoberfest di Monaco e quella alla sinagoga di Parigi -  all´interno del contesto geopolitico e degli accordi di diplomazia parallela dell´epoca. Vengono esaminate e correlate le risultanze emerse da fonti di archivio inedite, da inchieste giornalistiche e da interviste coi protagonisti, palesi e occulti, di quegli eventi. La prima tendenza che emerge è quella di revisione della “semplice” matrice neofascista delle stragi, revisione che per Bologna riguarda mandanti ed esecutori e per Monaco apre inquietanti scenari sui mandanti.  Elemento comune delle nuove ricostruzioni è la presenza di una comune pista internazionale che vede, oltre il coinvolgimento del gruppo Carlos e di gruppi del radicalismo palestinese, ombre dei diversi Servizi operanti nello scenario internazionale della Guerra Fredda. Nuovi dati di archivio dei Servizi di sicurezza Bulgara consentono di ricostruire che, proprio mentre la Bulgaria assume ruolo centrale all´interno del coordinamento dei Servizi del Patto di Varsavia – mai pubblicamente dichiarato – e competenza su Mediterraneo e Medioriente, il Gruppo Carlos, con molti dei suoi membri, si stabilisce a Sofia e tiene lunghe riunioni con una presenza dal settembre 1979 al gennaio 1980. Nello stesso periodo a Sofia si stabiliscono anche molti gruppi del radicalismo palestinese e si creano campi di training ideologico e militare per i gruppi armati palestinesi. Particolare, tra gli attentati del 1980, il caso della strage all´Oktoberfest che vede protagonista il Gruppo Hoffmann, infiltrato da Gladio e STASI, e addestratosi prima dell´attentato in un campo militare palestinese a Beirut per volontà di Abu Ayad -  capo dell´intelligence del PLO. Lo stesso Abu Ayad effettuerà un depistaggio delle indagini sulla Strage di Bologna, fornendo false informazioni proprio sul gruppo Hoffmann che a breve avrebbe compiuto l´attentato di Monaco, con una intervista ad una giornalista, poi identificata dalla magistratura come agente dei Servizi italiani. Agente che collabora con il Colonnello Giovannone, considerato il garante del Lodo Moro – l´accordo segreto tra la diplomazia italiana e il FPLP, e all´epoca considerata, invece, una militante filo-palestinese. L´operato di Abu Ayad rappresenta, dunque, un chiaro collegamento tra la strage di Bologna e quella di Monaco. Nella ormai certa esistenza del Lodo Moro italiano – l´accordo tra italiani e gruppi armati palestinesi (FPLP) per garantire una maggior sicurezza del territorio in cambio della possibilità di trasporto e deposito di esplosivi – e nella sempre più accettata possibilità che Lodi simili siano stati stipulati da Francia, Germania, Svizzera, le tre stragi del 1980 si arricchiscono di aspetti ancor più internazionali e geopolitici. Emersi i ruoli sempre più centrali dei gruppi palestinesi e di Carlos, resta da comprendere se tali attentati furono ritorsioni di questi gruppi in momenti di crisi di tali Lodi o, come suggerisce Carlos, sabotaggi da parte di forze (egli indica Gladio) che ai Lodi europei e al dialogo tra Stati europei e palestinesi si opponevano. Relativamente alla Strage di Bologna resta, ad esempio, inspiegabile come mai i magistrati abbiano deciso di non ascoltare a dovere Carlos grazie alle cui dichiarazioni si scoprì, solo nel 2000, la presenza di un suo uomo, il tedesco Thomas Kram, a Bologna sin dal giorno precedente la strage. Che le “relazioni scomode” che il Lodo Moro determinò – i Servizi italiani collaboravano coi palestinesi che a loro volta collaboravano con le Brigate Rosse e altri gruppi del radicalismo di sinistra – siano fonte di imbarazzo e barriera di ricostruzione storica? “Relazioni scomode” che con i vari Lodi europei (francese, tedesco, svizzero) potrebbero essersi verificate non solo in Italia ma all´interno dello scacchiere occidentale. Una barriera alla esauriente ricostruzione storica è, inoltre, da individuare in quel complesso scenario di relazioni internazionali e diplomazia parallela o segreta, oggi finalmente in via di ricostruzione, che ci indica come diversi Stati europei oltre alle ufficiali posizioni atlantiste abbiano, in nome della sicurezza nazionale e di interessi geopolitici nel Mediterraneo e in Medioriente, stretto rapporti con soggetti politici – i gruppi combattenti palestinesi – invece vicini al blocco dell´Est. Situazione questa che non può non aver generato tensioni sotterranee.

Thomas Beugniet, "La conférence anti-anarchiste de Rome (1898)" : et les débuts d'une coopération internationale contre le terrorisme de la fin du XIXe siècle à la Première Guerre mondiale, mémoire, (dir.) Stanislas Jeannesson, Nantes, Université de Nantes, 2016, 316 p.