ABSTRACT
When a bomb explodes and hundreds die, people start asking why some groups turn to terrorism and how it has become so widespread that it affects everyone’s lives. Behind most terrorist groups there is a political influence and often a figure of inspiration, whether a thinker such as Karl Marx or a man of action like Che Guevara. Some terrorists want sweeping change on the scale of the French Revolution, while others such as the colonists in the American Revolution wage wars against a colonial power. Sometimes the government terrorizes its own people, as in many South American countries.
