ABSTRACT
Targeted violence is direct action by physical force or power against an individual, state, organization, or institution by another individual(s), state, organization, or institution outside of a battlefield. This definition of targeted violence is similar to the definition of targeted killings. Targeted killings were employed extensively by death squads in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Haiti within the context of civil unrest and war during the 1980s and 1990s. Targeted killings have been used in Somalia and Rwanda and in the Balkans during the Yugoslav Wars. They have also been used by narcotics traffickers.
