fundamentalist organizations and sympathizing governments. Certain groups may be suspect of supporting terrorist objectives, when they are not doing the terror themselves. Distinction must be made between groups that are really the threat, from others that are explored or used as decoy by other groups.
The American Department of State describes terrorism as a phenomenon in constant change, and the nature of the terrorist threat changed dramatically. It attributed these changes to five factors (COUNTERTERRORISM, 2002, p. 26):
1. The collapse of the Soviet Union (and the end of the Warsaw Pact);
2. Change in the terrorist’s motivation;
3. Proliferation of mass destruction technologies;
4. Increase in the access to information and information technology;
5. Accelerated centralization of essential components in national infrastructure, which increased the vulnerability to a terrorist attack.
4.2. INTENTION OF TERRORISM
Terrorism is usually a dramatization for political reasons (the specific intent of the terrorist attack, or dolus specialis, is explained in the next Chapter), and there are some universal elements in modern terrorist activities (COUNTERTERRORISM, 2002, p. 31 et all):
1. THE USE OF VIOLENCE TO PERSUADE, in which explosives and other attacks are used to gain positions with the victims-targets. The term Victims-targets is used because the objective is not the people who are hurt or killed. On the contrary, the attack may be executed to influence a government, a coalition or group of governments, in order to take a decision or a certain action, or also to prevent or repress a decision or action;
2. TARGETS AND VICTIMS CHOSEN FOR THE MAXIMUM OF PROPAGANDA ACHIEVABLE, so they choose targets that will provide the largest attention of the media. This fact is particularly outstanding by terrorist attacks like the explosion in World Trade Center in New York City in 1993 and 2001 and the taking of hostages with Israeli athletes during the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972. Other examples are the terrorist attacks in Madri (March 11, 2004) and in London (July 7 2005);
3. ATTACKS ARE NOT PROVOKED, i. e., the victims or targets did nothing against the terrorists, which is true for any terrorist attack, since their alleged reasons are often a complex story that terrorists give to themselves to find support for their acts among their group;
4. MAXIMUM PUBLICITY WITH MINIMAL RISK is the leading principle of many terrorist actions, particularly those with explosives. Attacks with explosives usually create a good amount of publicity, depending on the location and the period, thus targets are selected for what they represent, like embassies, touristic attractions known worldwide, and similar facilities. High-technology timers to allow the detonation to be planned to have a long delay, reducing the risk for the terrorist or terrorists, that may be far away when the devices explode or are found. Other favorite terrorist activities are kidnapping, robberies and assassinations, which may generate great and prolonged publicity, but also a higher risk for the agent. There is a tendency of a cyclical change in terrorist attacks. After a lot of kidnappings, the population may become insensible to the acts, and further hostage taking may not have the same attention of the media, from television news to the Internet. Attacks with explosives, being less frequent during the same period, may also gain more publicity than another kidnapping. Thus, a change of tactics may achieve more propaganda than other forms of attacks. Terrorists always want to have media coverage, so they will change tactics in order to have as much publicity as possible.
5. USE OF SURPRISE TO AVOID COUNTERTERRORIST MEASURES in order to attack high-protected targets. Even when there are guards, detection devices, and a high security in the surroundings, the surprise factor may be used to sidetrack the equipment and the human element in the security system. Time is the best friend of the terrorist. After a long time without any terrorist events, well-protected targets may have a decrease in the security measures. When there is no planning for a suicide attack, the terrorist will stay low until the security of the target is more favorable.
6. THREATS, CONSTRAINTS AND VIOLENCE are tools used by terrorist to maintain an environment of fear. Terrorist may plant small explosives or incendiary devices in public places, like department stores and movie theaters. Recently, terrorists who fight against the Egyptian government attacked tourists in the Pyramids and other historical sites. For the population, there is no link or reasonable connection between the motivation and the location of the attacks, so any threat of such activity may create fear among the population.
7. INDIFFERENCE FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN AS VICTIMS, because sometimes places are specially chosen to make innocent victims, in order to increase the outrage and fear about the aggressivity of the terrorist act. This is also another way to receive more publicity and media coverage due to suffer and death of non-combatants. This peculiarity differentiates the terrorist and the soldier or the guerrillero. The soldier fights backed by the authority of his government. A guerrillero fights the same combat as the soldier in tactics and code of conduct, so women and children are not desired targets. A terrorist may possibly focus on women and children as targets, to instill a bigger feeling of fear. Therefore, the ethnic cleansing shown in Bosnia and Kosovo in several classes of the population in the former Yugoslavia is not just a military operation, but terrorism practiced by militia (the legal nature of the terrorist act is explained in details in the next Chapter).
8. PROPAGANDA IS USED TO MAXIMIZE THE EFFECT OF VIOLENCE, mainly for economic and political reasons. It would be a waste for the terrorist cause if the terrorist operation has no publication. In this meaning, the Black September, during the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972, and all the groups that mirrored that hostage taking, claiming them responsible for attacks in similar circumstances, wanted worldwide publicity for political and economic purposes. From the political point of view, the terrorist group wants to show they are a long-lasting organization, a power to be respected, and a force to be feared. In economic grounds, the group shows to governments that are friendly to its cause and governments that support terrorist groups that it is good enough to receive financial support. Even when terrorists do not publicly take responsibility for the actions, many acts have a particular mode or format that characterizes it, or they leave hints that lead to them.
9. LOYALTY TO THEMSELVES AND TO SYMPATHISERS is a common characteristic of terrorist groups that may be found among Armenians, Croats, Kurds and Basques, and many others. Within them, loyalty is so intense that they commit unthinkable criminal acts for this loyalty, something that radical elements of a peaceful movement would never do. For the most part, however, the new generations of terrorists have no more a high loyalty on the original cause, the proud to defend it, and a reduced vision of the main objective. Many engage in terrorism to achieve benefits and perpetuation of the criminal activity as the main goal. In conclusion, they become nihilists and interested mainly in the financial return of the activity.
Terrorism during the decades of 1960 and 1970 has been carried on, in its most part, by individuals in college age and political activists with many school years. Today many low intensity conflicts are practiced today by children-soldiers, many of them have not yet in puberty, and become insensible to violence and human emotions.
4.3. PEACEKEEPING AND TERRORISM
Recent peacekeeping has brought an interesting development, bringing a new mission objective to blue helmets: peace operations have gradually incorporated counterterrorism objectives in their mission mandates, and in their operations.
Terrorism is not new, and it has existed during a peacekeeping mission since its beginning. An example is the assassination of Count Folke Bernardotte, UN official for the Arab-Israeli conflict (UNTSO), by the Jewish terrorist group Stern Gang, or Irgun, or Lehi, on September 17th, 1948. Another example happened in the India-Pakistan issue, when groups considered terrorists by one of the sides crossed several times the borders to attack the civilian population, and the Military Observers of UNIPOM had no authority or power
to take coercive acts (RAM, Sunil. The History of United Nations Peacekeeping Operations During the Cold War, pg. 100).
Separatists in Congo (Katangan Forces, which also fought against ONUC Peacekeepers and the Congolese Central government in 1961, even after the ceasefire). Their terrorist attacks were clearly intended to destabilize the government), according to today’s definition of terrorism, have engaged in terrorist acts, deliberately attacking the civilian population for a political purpose. The presence of the UN Mission in the region had the authority to face this threat, even if it is not written in the mandate, because a peacekeeper in the field has the implicit mission to protect the civilian population, within its resources.
However, there is a debate about the definition of terrorism today, despite the similarity of methods, purpose and victims. Hezbollah (The Party of God) is considered a terrorist organization by many federal agencies, like the NSA, due to his political objectives and its armed attacks against the Israeli civilian population; but the Janjaweed in Sudan harm in many different ways the civilian population of Darfur, (they are considered one of the responsibles for the genocide in the period 2005-2007) but
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