ABSTRACT
Present-day terrorist activities around the world have been described as religious terrorism where terrorists have used religious teaching as their justification or source of actions (Rapoport 2004). The practitioners of terrorism motivated either in whole or in part by a religious imperative consider violence as a divine duty or a sacramental act. It embraces different means of legitimization and justification compared to other terrorist groups. In fact, religious motive has become an essential part of defining terrorism in the UK and other jurisdictions including Australia and New Zealand. 1 Terrorism has been distinguished from an ordinary crime not only by reference to the nature of the harm caused, but by terrorists’ ideology. This partly explains why some criminal activities such as a school shooting were not labelled as terrorist attacks in the media, while others like the 2013 Boston marathon bombing were quickly reported as an act of terrorism.
