Introduction
The word terrorism does not have a universally accepted definition. The term has however been defined by a number of international instruments over time to denote the use of force, violence and intimidation to achieve political goals. Applied in the context, therefore, this definition will denote the use of armed violence by a terrorist group with the aim of intimidating a government and also to destabilize it. Terrorists use violence all over the world for their religious or political gains and in most of the times, such violence leaves scores of people dead and others injured.
The U.S Code advances a number of definitions for the word terrorism. According to the wording of the Code, terrorism includes all acts of violence that are conducted against the federal government and its people and which are meant to harm human life and also to destabilize the federal government. In this context, therefore, the terrorist acts are meant to be violent and also to violate federal law. This is why the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) lists various terrorist groups that are a threat to US citizens and also the federal government. The code also classifies terrorism as either international or domestic. International terrorism is terrorist activities that are meant to coerce or intimidate civilians, intimidate or coerce the federal government to act in a certain way that suits the terrorist interests. Moreover, the code describes the terrorist activities in this sense to transcend national boundaries or even if the terrorist group is domiciled in the United States, it has networks from all over the world.
International terrorism is, therefore, an international network of terrorist activities that are meant to intimidate and coerce the government and their main agenda is to achieve political gains.
Regarding domestic terrorism, the US Code provides that terrorists in this sense have done the same acts international terrorist groups though they occupy areas within the jurisdiction of the country where they are domiciled. Such terrorist groups, therefore, aim at destabilizing the political regime of the country within which they are based and by destabilizing the government, they also harm the civilians in that country.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 also defines both forms of terrorism in albeit the same way save for a replacement of the word “primarily” for “totally”. The goal is however the same, and that is to define terrorism and terrorism activities within the boundaries of the United States and also outside the boundaries.
Terrorist groups and gangs
Though the manner in which the two groups carry out their activities is more/or less the same, there is a slight difference between the two. Terrorist groups are meant to achieve a political goal, and their agenda is, therefore, political. However, gangs are only mean to make money from the civilians by unorthodox means. By demanding to force civilians into getting their property by force, the commotion that ensues leaves the victims either injured or dead. The aim is, therefore, not political at all. The deaths that arise due to of gang activity are unintentional and may result from crossfire between the gangsters and security personnel or between the gangsters and individual civilians. Deaths arising from terrorist activities are however intentional and are meant to achieve exactly what they achieve-death of innocent civilians so the political regime feels threatened and destabilised.
This paper will interrogate the two categories of terrorist groups and particular attention will be given to the origin of the terrorist group, the goals that the group aims at achieving, the mythologies that the group uses to achieve the goals and the tactics that the group employs in its activities.
1. Domestic Terrorist groups
The federal Bureau of Investigations has recently listed the top ten domestic terrorist groups in the United States. These groups carry out their operations within the boundaries of the US, and their aim is to destabilize the government. This section will give some examples. The first one is the Phineas Priesthood which is a Christian-based terrorist group (Cunningham, 2013). The group uses violence and other unlawful acts to propagate hate speech and distaste against other religious groups. The group’s mission and statement are to have a country composed solely of Christians and whites only. This is why the FBI has listed the group as among the domestic terrorist groups.
The second group is the Jewish defence League, a group established in 1968 to fight against anti-Semitism, poverty and segregation. The group, as the name suggests, is religious, and its mission is to end terrorism and anti-Semitism. The activities carried out by the group, however, show that the group is indeed terrorist, and it is ironic that it claims to fight the same terrorism that it practices.
The other terrorist group is the “Army of God”. This group carries its activities, in the same way, that Phineas Priesthood carries its activities. They usually send harmful texts to individual, and their attacks are mostly on gay clubs and abortion attempts. In 1996, one of its members planted a bomb during the 1996 Olympic Games which were held in Atlanta, Georgia. During the attack, two people were killed while scores of others amounting to over 150 were injured (Cunningham, 2013). Question on the motive behind the attack, Eric Rudolph unapologetically stated that the act was called for and was meant to fight the offence of abortion. He stated that such attacks would continue in the fight against abortion in the US. This is why the FBI has listed the group as among the domestic terrorist groups in the United States of America.
This section will interrogate origin, methodologies, tactics and goals of the number one ranked terrorist group in the United States of America, the Ku Klux Klan. This group was formed in the early 1865 immediately after the end of the United States Civil war. It was formed by confederate veterans whose main agenda was to restore white domination and supremacy in the United States. They however did this in a way to show that in fact they were a terrorist group. This is because they started persecuting African Americans by assassinating them in order to be left with only whites. They also assaulted all freed slaves and their agenda were seen as making all attempts to do away with all other races in the United States of America and then be left with only whites. Those persecuted and killed included notable political leaders, religious leaders and also community leaders.
The group is on record as having laid the foundation for all the extremist and supremacist groups that are in existence today in the United States of America. This is because of their persecution agenda and killings that they have, thus far, conducted in the country. They are also engaged in immigrant activities, fighting all African Americans and also pretending to fight such vices as homosexuality and urban criminology.
The evolutionary trajectory of the group can be traced during the reconstruction process that occurred during the aftermath of the American Civil War (Bryant, 2002). This congress republicans in congress during that time are the ones that initiated the reconstruction agenda and even passed the Reconstruction Act. Under the act, the South was subdivided into 5 districts that had a political connotation. Each of these states under the division were required to affirm the 14th Amendment which imposed equal protection measures to all former slaves of the war and besides imposing a male universal suffrage (Baker, 2011.).
As a result of the reconstruction process, African Americans were elected into political offices year in year out, and the movement was not happy with this new turn of events. They therefore embarked on a mission to hunt down congressmen and women because they were the ones who voted the African Americans into office. As a result, they killed many people in the process. This was to continue for some time until the Ku Klux Klan Act was enacted. This act described the extremist acts of the group as federal offences and empowered the president to suspend his power of habeas corpus and also to arrest the participants without arrest warrants and also without charge (Bryant, 2002). The president was also to send federal forces to suppress the group because its acts were getting beyond control. In 1876 however, the democratic movement got to power again and the white supremacy was restored in the south.
Today, the group has fragmented to a number of factions whose sizes differ according to the membership but the agenda remains one and that is to fight for white supremacy in the United States (Bryant, 2002). The affiliate group faction tactics and strategies range from holding public rallies to having protests and this is meant to pass their message. They also send texts to people threatening them of dire consequences and also spreading hate speech to non-whites in America. The group is financed by its own members and therefore it is not clear how they acquire their finances (Bryant, 2002). The FBI lists the group as the number one domestic terrorist group in the United States.
2. International Terrorist group
As explained in the introductory sessions, international terrorist groups conduct their activities across the boundaries of many countries. The FBI has listed several international terrorist groups which shall form the crux of this session of the paper (FBI Website). The FBI website available at http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/terrorism has a wealth of terrorism information and the endeavour to protect the American populace against terrorism. This session will however single out on Al Qaeda in an attempt to discuss its origin, its goals, targets, methodologies and the tactics it uses to achieve its terrorist agenda.
The group was formed Osama Bin Laden and other associates sometime between 1988 and 1989 during the Soviet War in Afghanistan. The group has been listed by almost all countries in the world as an international terrorist group and also the NATO (Hoffman, 2002). The group has networks from all over the world and operates under the doctrine of strict interpretation of the sharia law. The founders are all Sunni Muslims and their agenda is to fight all non-Sunni Muslims and also Non-Muslims all over the world. The Islamic jihad has been the guiding principle of the group.
The group carries out attacks in all parts of the world and the most notable ones are the September 11th, 1998 bombings in the US territory and the famous 2002 Bali bombings (Hoffman, 2002). The group is a sophisticated organization of terrorists from all over the world and with a lot of knowledge in technology and science and are capable of the grossest and the gravest terrorist attacks and atrocities in any part of the world. They are able to make use of sophisticated bombs and other scientific attire to terrorise the world without even the bravest armed force in the world noticing beforehand.
As a result of the September 11th attacks, the United States waged a war that was meant to destroy the group. The Afghanistan war was therefore meant to hunt down the leader of the group, Osama Bin Laden but was not successful until the Obama administration hunted down and killed him (Hoffman, 2002). Despite the killing of the leader of the group, the international terror group is not finished and it is on record as having immediately met to conduct recruitments to choose a successor of the group.
The methodologies that the group use to carry out its mission include suicide attacks in places where several people are congregated and, therefore, killing a mass number of people. The suicide bombers are not afraid of dying together with the victims as they usually pledge their loyalty to the founder of the group, Osama Bin laden (Coll, 2005). They also use sophisticated bombs to hit their targeted high-profile places and mostly, the Al Qaeda has successfully bombed the United States embassies all over the world and also inside American soil.
The group believes that an alliance comprising Christians and Jews is determined to completely eradicate Islam and this is what the group cannot allow. They are therefore tirelessly fighting this conspiracy to end their “ordained” religion by Christians and Jews. They also strive to destabilize governments all over the world by creating unnecessary threats and tension so that the political regimes can authorize Islam to be the only true religion (Coll, 2005). The extremist Salafist Jihadists believe that the innocent killing and persecution of civilians has been religiously sanctioned by Allah and are therefore not doing anything wrong by killing them, since they are only carrying out what has been religiously sanctioned.
Being adherents of the strict sharia law, the Al Qaeda followers vehemently oppose all manmade laws and have got no trust in them. They believe in strict adherence to obedience of sharia law as the only law sanctioned by Allah. The philosophy that guides the group is “centralization of decisions and the decentralization of the manner of execution”. This means that whereas the decision to carry out the execution is a centralised responsibility centred on the management of the group, the manner of execution is a decentralised issue altogether. As such, many other affiliate terror groups bearing the Al Qaeda brand have sprung up and they all receive their command from the central management of the Al Qaeda (Hoffman, 2002). An example is the Al Shabaab group which is terrorising the Somalia country and the eastern Africa in general (Coll, 2005). This group works in the same manner as Al Qaeda and immediately after carrying out its executions, it usually claims responsibility just like Al Qaeda does.
The group was at its initial financed by the personal wealth of Osama Bin Laden but as it proceeded on, the chain of finance changed and it is not clear who actually finances the terror group.
Conclusion:
This paper has expensively interrogated the idea of terrorism both in a domestic sense and in an international sense. It is now clear that terrorism is a global issue that should be dealt with by all and sundry and this is reiterated by the FBI which calls upon all and sundry to provide any crucial information that they may be holding and which information can help track the masters of the terrorist groups (FBI Website). The FBI has for example on its website published a list of world’s most wanted terrorists and has called upon all and sundry to assist in bringing them to book.
References
Baker, K. J. (p. 248.). Gospel According to the Klan: The KKK's Appeal to Protestant America, 1915-1930 (2011), .
Bryant, J. M. (2002). Ku Klux Klan in the Reconstruction Era. New Georgia Encyclopedia.
Coll, S. (2005). Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (2nd ed.). . New York: Penguin Books.
Cunningham, D. K. (2013). The Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights-Era Ku Klux Klan. . New York: Oxford University Press.
Hoffman, B. (2002). The Emergence of the New Terrorism". In Tan, Andrew; Ramakrishna, Kumar. The New Terrorism: Anatomy, Trends, and Counter-Strategies. Singapore: Eastern Universities Press. , pp. 30–49. .
