Global terrorism thread

Good one. Makes you wonder if they are soiling themselves on the prospect of getting caught in the ensuing firestorm & outrage.

You know you've screwed up when the former Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is trying to distance itself from you in order to save face.

Two blasts near a women's college in Peshawar the day after the school attack. No casualties, thankfully, nor any group claiming responsibility.

More cynically, guess who's the boogeyman again? Any guesses? Yes, of course, it's India, the country that has otherwise been targeted the most by the TTP! Then again, these are the guys behind Kargil and 26/11, so I'm not surprised that's it's always India who's the villain.

Yes, it's HuffPo, sue me. The point made is good - what the hell exactly is good Taliban and bad Taliban? Do good Taliban only attack your enemies? Do they kill only your adults, or your uncovered women, or your infidels, or anyone else in your country who progressed past the 20th century?

Most are talking of the attacks as a parallel to the Beslan school shooting by Chechnyans, but I'm not familiar with it, and Wikipedia is surprisingly arcane about its impact. Anyone more knowledgeable here?

Sorry to jump in, but this question came up in another thread:

How would you define terrorism? What criteria must be met for an organisation to be considered a terrorist organisation? Can a state surveillance or police agency be a terrorist organisation? What about a political party with seats in Parliament (or equivalent)? Or even a state? Is there such a thing as a terrorist party, or a terrorist state?

The common definition is "the use of violence against non-military (non-espionage orgs, etc) targets, especially in a terror-inducing way, in order to influence another entity's policies."

A Texas City, Texas plumber is getting threats after a truck formerly owned by his company wound up in the hands of Syrian terrorists and a picture of it posted to their Twitter account.

My definition of terrorism is "an act or policy designed to cause fear in the target population in order to change their political and social positions and behaviours". The problem with that definition is that is includes punishment-as-a-deterrent - the basis of most justice systems.

The easiest way out of that would be to add to the definition that it has to be illegal to qualify as terrorism, but then any country that legalises torture by state security agencies would still get to torture people without it qualifying as terrorism.

The notion that the targets have to be civilians is a good addition. Then it would be: "an act or policy targeting civilians, designed to cause fear in the target population in order to change their political and social positions and behaviours".

If this is the definition, though, we'd have to agree that the CIA, for one, is a terrorist organisation. I don't personally have a problem with calling it that but I'm wondering if a general conversation about terrorism would work if people were asked to accept that by definition the CIA counts as a terrorist organisation. I suspect that people will want to say that democratic states can't have agencies that are terrorist organisations - or some other defence along those lines.

After Peshawar School Attack, China Pledges Deeper Anti-Terror Co-op With Pakistan.

@Best Of: Terrorism is the use of small-scale, hit-and-run style violence (otherwise known as guerilla or irregular warfare) on civilian populations in order to influence political policy or public behavior.

Technically, a government, however evil or oppressive, cant conduct terrorism, because terrorism by definition is action by a non-state actor against a state and it's civilian population. Governments practically never use "terrorist tactics" on their own civilian populations, because they dont have to, and they would only be weakening their own social infrastructure. They have the police to impose their will with- a government that, say, randomly bombed it's own public spaces would be strange to say the least. The whole point of terrorism is that the terrorists do not have the political power to impose their will on a target population. If they do the political power to do that, another term is more appropriate.

Governments can be tyrannical, authoritarian, oppressive, even genocidal, but calling one "terrorist" is really just a metaphore.

There are some cases where a government has carried out terrorist attacks against its own population, though - usually together with a foreign power. For instance, during the Cold War there were political assassinations and kidnappings in Italy and bombings in Spain carried out by the local intelligence agencies together with NASA and/or the CIA.

Would that count as terrorism? Note that these were false flag operations (local Communist movements were initially blamed for the attacks).

What about HAMAS? It's the leading party in part of Palestine, yet it's generally considered a terrorist organisation.

No, not terrorism. The point was not to terrorize, but to discredit in that case. That falls generally under authoritarianism.

And Hamas is only considered to be such by those who are close with Israel, diplomatically speaking.

Some things about the Peshawar case - as usual it's pretty hard to find something about the rationale or purpose behind the attack. Why they targeted a school (one run by the military, not sure if this was mentioned). The reason given is the following: "Stop killing our children, or we are killing yours." Which has unfortunately the implication that some people are rather angry because their families were killed (during that offensive). Before that military operation, people in Pakistan warned about such retaliation strikes and opposed the operation. Not sure if they are happy that they were right...

I mean, it would be strange to expect a Taliban coming home and finding his family shredded by a bomb blast to go "Oh, they weren't actually targeted but collateral damage? Well, then that's no problem!"

It saddens me to see where this is going. More influence for hardliners, more bombs and assaults on places where the Taliban live, more of their families and children die, leading to more dead non-Taliban-Pakistani families and children. Everybody wins. Not.

[edit]
Just to make it clear: I have a target audience in mind, i.e. westerners. Talking about what we, or in association the Pakistanis do wrong. If I'd talking with the Taliban I'd have plenty of criticism directed at them.

edited 18th Dec '14 7:29:06 AM by Uchuujinsan

Would it sadden you even more if you knew the Pakistani/Afghan border region^note  aka. The North West Fronter is an area that has been in a near-Forever War?

Blasts in Imphal, Manipur; two killed. No known accused, nor has anyone confessed.

It'll probably be a bloodbath, you know - Pakistan will be thirsty for blood after the attack, so they'll try to go all-out offensive, to try and end this once and for all. Doubt it'll work, to be honest, but pigs have flown before.

@Best Of: Hmm, that's an interesting case. I would go with "Yes"- if an intelligence agency does bomb it's own population in an attempt to blame it on the political opposition, then it's hard for me to see what differentiates that from traditional terrorism. So it is possible, though rare, for a state institution to conduct terrorism. It would have to be something done entirely in secret, however. Openly taking credit for it would be counter-productive because they are a state-actor.

@Others: Dont get too hung up on the term "terrorize". Despite the name, the point of terrorism isn't simply to terrorize people. It always serves some political purpose. They want to impose their will upon a population, and lack the governing power to do so openly, so they rely on fear and intimidation. And perhaps they hope to spark an all out war with the government.

Looks like ISIS is on the defensive in northern Iraq at least, according to the Kurds and the Pentagon anyway. Also, an American general used the term "Daesh" instead of ISIL, which is interesting.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/18/world/meast/syria-isis-civil-war/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

"ISIL" is a misnomer. "A sham", the last part of Daesh's name, does not mean "levant"; rather, it means "greater Syria".

I call them Da'esh, so that() is good.

Part of why I call them Da'esh.

Precisely.

Why Da'esh?

Da'esh or Daesh is the Arabic name for the group. Folks like myself prefer that term because IS (Islamic State), what the group have remaned themselves to, is undeserved. It's like a dude calling himself God without, you know, actually having deitic powers or being responsiblefor the creation of everything. They consider themselves to be the singular Islamic State which all Muslims should belong to (and which should eventually become the only state on Earth, destroying all others).

Also the term annoys Daesh. They apparently have a death sentence lined up for anyone in their territory who still uses it. And it's quicker to say that 'Warlords who rape, kill and drive out minorities then take their stuff'.

edited 18th Dec '14 11:35:47 PM by betaalpha

It pisses them of.

Well actually it's the Arabic name for the group, but it gets used by a lot of people just to spite the group, because they really don't like being called it.

Hey, plenty of guys have the name Jesus without calling themselves the Son of God, or Mohammed without calling themselves the Prophet .

Oh. But it's their name, so why does it piss them off?

Islamic State... Gods alive, if that's not hubris, I dunno what is. I guess, though, that Sharia law in its purest form is not the desire of all Muslims? Because if it is, then these guys are pretty much the apotheosis of that.

edited 18th Dec '14 11:46:18 PM by arcanephoenix

It's not the equivalent of calling yourself Jesus, it's the equivalent of actually claiming to be the 2nd coming of Jesus, and beheading anyone who tells you you're of your rocker.

It pisses them of because it doesn't translate into Islamic State, so it's effectively a denial of their claim to be the new great state of all Islam.

Fair point about your comment on the name, though the Globalist Bunny's reply is dead-on :)

This is probably more for a Religion thread, but many Muslims don't desire Sharia Law and certainly not in its purest form, and those that do have extremely (and often violently) different notions of what the purest form of Sharia actually is.

The Boston bomber showed up in court.

Some of the his supporters have signs that says FBI agents assassinated one of them after getting a confession and Miranda rights for Americans even if they're terrorists.

Some of the victim's relatives are dismayed and wondered why, in their wisdom, would do such as a thing.