ABSTRACT
Quite a few terrorism scholars have read in these and other statements of Usama bin Ladin the emergence of a new form of terrorism that is assumed to deviate from traditional terrorism in a number of ways.1 A moniker originally coined in a Newsweek article that appeared just after Ramzi Youssef led the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993,2 the “new terrorists” are described as being (1) focused on killing as a goal rather than as a means to achieve or advance a specific political agenda; (2) inspired by very general, often transcendental or millenarian ideologies; (3) in pursuit of a global agenda rather than a local agenda; and (4) characterized by an interest in and access to technologically advanced weaponry.
