By:

Dr. Ali S. Awadh Asseri

(Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon)

We can safely conclude from the preceding discussed that boundaries between terrorism and warfare are really blurred. One way of understanding terrorism is to distinguished it from all other forms of politically motivated acts of violence, which terrorism is. War, guerrilla warfare, and insurgency are all politically motivated acts of violence. However, they differ from terrorism in the sense that, theoretically speaking, the perpetrators involved in each make a clear distinction between armed and unarmed civilians. Unarmed civilians are not to be attacked in a war, guerrilla war, or insurgency. Yet the ground reality is that, in each of these cases, unarmed civilians do often become victims of warfare. When this happens during a war, as it has frequently during the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is termed as ‘collateral damage’ by the state entities or international coalitions involved. The argument that is offered in defence of this strategy is that, since the terrorist entity is hiding its military assets in a civilian area and using civilians as ‘human shields’, a military strike, particularly an air assault, would naturally result in some civilian casualties. This implies that while fighting terrorism militarily, it is difficult to avoid collateral damage.[1]

     Just as in the case of war, during a guerrilla war, quite often the perpetrators, the weapons used, and the victims show enormous similarity with the same in terrorism. Gone are the days when guerrilla warfare was confined only to rural areas. Since the late 1960s, we have seen an interesting wave of urban guerrilla war, during which even if an attack is meant against a military target in a city, unarmed civilians turn out to be its principal casualty. The psychological effect that results from an urban guerrilla campaign is also a reality. Even during the time of the classical guerrilla warfare, when it was a phenomenon confined to the countryside, acts of terrorism did accompany the traditional guerrilla violence specifically targeting the standing army of the state the guerrilla were at war with. This occurred most often during the initial stages of the guerrilla campaign, as the guerrilla organization intended, through acts of terrorism, to trigger an over-reaction from the state concerned so that a greater number of people sympathetic to their cause from among the general populations could be recruited for guerrilla operations.

     Thus, terrorism may be termed as violence in peacetime – and perhaps that is why its impact is so spectacular and it gets so much attention – but it is difficult to distinguish it from all other acts of politically motivated violence. On the other hand, mob violence is also a politically motivated act of violence, but it can be distinguished from terrorism because it does not take place deliberately and is not organized and employed systematically as is the case with terrorism.[2]

     Like guerilla warfare, insurgency as a form of modern conflict may or may not involve terrorism. Thomas Mockaitis argues:

Because of the stigma attached to the term, threatened states often refer to insurgents as terrorists, even though insurgent goals and methods differ markedly from those of terrorist organization. Calling insurgents ‘terrorists’ for propaganda purposes adds to the confusion surrounding the nature of both forms of conflict. Insurgency is an organized movement to take over a state from within through a combination of propaganda, guerrilla warfare, and terrorism. Although insurgents have embraced a variety of broad ideologies, they have decidedly focused political goals. They seek political power within a nation state by overthrowing an established government. Insurgents feed on grievances within a population, persuading those who fed their government does not meet their needs that it must be replaced with one that does. Insurgents make use of terror, but they do so selectively. Since their success depends, in large measure, on winning he support or at least the acceptance of the general population, they seek to avoid actions that alienate people. They target government facilities, assassinate officials, and murder ordinary people who aid the authorities, but they generally avoid inflicting mass casualties. Insurgents terror can also provoke the government into using force so indiscriminately as to further alienate disaffected people and drive them into the arms of the insurgents.[3]  

Given that, according to Mockaities,

a clear distinction between terror and guerrilla warfare, both of which insurgents employ, must be made. Guerrilla warfare involves irregular forces operating out of uniform and in loose formations. Historically, guerrillas have attacked small regular military units, isolated outposts, police, and government paramilitary forces. Guerrillas used hit-and-run tactics, striking when opportunity arose and then melting back into the general population. Unlike guerrilla operations, terrorist attacks target the general population. Terror can be used by a variety of actors: nation states, insurgent movements, criminal organizations and terrorist groups. An effective operational definition must clearly distinguish between these actors. The greatest confusion in the current struggle lies in distinguishing between terror employed by insurgents and terror employed by organizations whose goals are so idealistic as to be virtually unattainable. It is for this second group that the term ‘terrorist’ should be reserved.[4]

[1] Ishtiaq Ahmad, ‘Simplifying a Complex Issuse: The Problem in Understanding Terrorism,’ paper presented at conference on ‘Terrorism and Extremism: Social-Psychological Perspective,’ National Institute of psychology, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, 15-17 October 2008.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Mockaitis, op.cit., p.6.

[4] Ibid., p.9