A Review of Literature on Terrorism

Terrorism has been active since the turn of the century, but not until recently in the past few years has it become a global phenomenon, one which has driven the people of our modern society to a heightened state of fear and paranoia. Indeed the very term "terrorism" was believed to have originated in the aftermath of the French revolution; it was used to pertain to the restrictive or inhibitory practices of the state (Stohl, 2010).

"Terrorism can be defined as "an act" or threat of violence to create fear/or compliant behaviour in a victim or wider audience for the purpose of achieving political ends" (Stohl, 1988:3). In the present paper, the role of terrorism in our society today is briefly analysed.

Terrorist groups around the world have existed for a really long time now and the majority of these groups are the Islamic fundamentalist groups such as Al-Jihad in Egypt, Al-Gama 'a in the Middle East, Abu-Nidal organisation in Iraq and there is currently one located in United States by the name of Jamaat ul-Fuqra. These groups can remain dormant for as long as a year plotting an attack and are protected by their specific jurisdictions. The most common of these terrorist threats are the suicide bombers who attack places with high density as these are seemingly perfect targets for them; they take their lives in the process of killing others usually with explosives.

The warnings and fears of terrorists have been ubiquitous since the September 11 bombings, since that time there have been more terrorist attacks through the US postal service and expectations about the danger of terrorist attacks on American soil and possible targets around the world have greatly increased. (Glaeser and Shapiro, 2001). Although the majority of terrorist attacks have been carried out by males but recently, women have become more involved in the plots as well as even carrying out some of the attacks, quite a handful of female suicide bombers have been documented by the CIA, this is mainly due to the fact that they draw less suspicion than men and go through little rigorous security check. One of the many effects of terrorist attacks in our world is the destruction of buildings; this physical destruction tends to have a long term effect on affected places as it takes a long period of time usually years to restore it. Ever since the events of 9/11, soaring prices for terrorism coverage led to calls for government intervention in the insurance market (McCool 2001).

The problem of terrorism has a deep root within communities in which they seem to have emerged from and so, it requires an approach that understands and analyses the history and background from which the groups have come from, also rehabilitation and DE radicalization within prison systems would help to greatly reduce the breeding of terrorists.

REFERENCES

Christopher Hellman and Reyko Huang. ().