ABSTRACT
Terrorism is a political campaign backed by threats and acts of violence. It must be systematic, deliberate and must seek to influence a wide audience by generating fear. It primarily targets civilians with the intention of competing for and controlling political power over the public. Other forms of political violence include attacks against infrastructure (sabotage), political leaders (assassination),military (guerrilla warfare), and ethnic groups (genocide).While attacks against civilians, or ‘soft targets’, are the most common in the initial wave of terrorist operations, terrorist groups subsequently develop the capability to attack security forces (‘hard targets’).The tactical repertoire of contemporary terrorist groups includes forms of political violence other than terrorism.For instance, the National LiberationArmy (ELN) has sabotaged gas and oil pipelines in Colombia; Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA) have assassinated moderate politicians in Spain; theTareek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) conducts guerrilla warfare against Pakistani security forces, and the Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) have ‘cleansed’ Sri Lanka‘s northern province of Muslims.
