Introduction
The diverse religious ethnicities and the prehistoric societies have primeval ancestry evidence in a terror campaign. In fact, the French Revolution of fiscal 1789 brought about the recent expansion of terrorism notion. The discrete epoch of aggression accruing due to terrorism washed over the global arena each with its own techniques, intentions, and distinctive compositions. Manifestation of the four consecutive overlapping terrorist waves has passed since the year 1880. The fourth wave continues so far though, the first three waves proceeded for a time span of thirty-five to forty years.
The fourth or the current wave of terrorism derived its incentives from religious activities. In fact, it has its origin in the Islamic Revolution in Iran that happened in the fiscal 1979 and the 1989 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan after they were defeated (Cook & Allison, 2007). If the forebear of this wave were to judge violent behaviors, then terrorism still has more than twenty to twenty-six years to carry on. The endeavor of the earlier religious factions was to establish sovereign states. Nevertheless, the new-fangled wave is producing a fresh and sanctified form of terrorism in which the shapes of religious validation strategies and aims consist of self-martyrdom and suicide bombing.
Traditional diplomacy, therefore, cannot use these groups because they fall short of the limitation of the same constraints and lack the objective inspiration as national states. Thus, terror assaults by both the Jewish and Islamic groups give a clear sign that the fourth wave of terrorism justifies their use of aggression in the course of fulfilling the ethical and theological teachings (Lester, Yang, & Lindsay, 2004).
The current fourth wave of terrorism
The struggle undertaken in the three earlier waves of terrorism saw religious identities play an important role in the process of terrorist attacks. In reality, ethnicity and religion overlapped as seen in the struggle of Palestine, Israel, Ireland, Macedonia, and Armenia. The main aim of these factions was to hunt for the secular and autonomous states. Moreover, spiritual conviction has a divergent connotation in the religious wave with new-fangled aspirations and as an innovative form of sanctified terrorism. Where the populaces normally regard religion as the foundation of virtue, existence, and hope, it can pilot terrorism as well as violent actions that are stirred by the groups’ profound passion (Rapoport, 2004). In effect, this brought the justification and organizational ethics for the establishment of the new wave of terrorism.
A few proceedings spearheaded by the fourth wave of terrorism in the earlier decades foreshadowed religious terrorism as was examined in fiscal 1980. No wave of terrorism created more lethal and brutal assault as was alleged to be. The world got horrifying strikes and fascination in the late 1970s when the Palestinian terrorists captured and detonated big aircraft on the ground after freeing the passengers who were on a journey. Disgustingly, the Palestinian attack on Israel’s athletes saw eleven Israelis murdered at the Olympic Games in Munich two years later. The episode was more horrific as it demonstrated the blatant determination of the terrorist to kill innocent people. Hence, the subsequent justifying violent actions came when the perpetrators tried to counteract the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank in 1967 (Rapoport & Yonah, 1982). This led to the emergence of the fresh religious extremism aspects in the Palestinian terrorism that was previously not there.
Suicide bombing became rampant in the 1980’s struggle when Sikhs inquired about Khalistan religious state in Punjab. The Jewish terrorists attempted to blow the Dome of Rock, the Islamist most sacred shrine in Jerusalem and killed Rabin Yitzhak who was the Israeli premier in fiscal 1995. In the year 1994, they murdered twenty-nine worshipers in Hebron, Abraham’s mausoleum, and further prearranged an assassination operation that hardly favored the Palestinian mayors. A different incident caused nervousness across the world in the same year forcing an alternative threshold cross in terrorism. For instance, the Japanese religious groups consisting of the Hindus, Christians, and Buddhists released a Nerve Gas in the Tokyo subway channel injuring approximately five thousand people and killing almost twelve citizens (Hoffman, 2006).
Due to the creation of this religious wave, three dealings in the Islamic world presented a dramatic political turning point although these religious factions were the crucial participants. The first was the Shiite Muslims revolution in Iran. It closely worked with the lobby groups in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iran. In Lebanon, there were the Shiites who were subjected to the martyrdom ideas in the initial terrorism signals and the self-martyrdom strategies of the Shia derivative who were the original killers to set up the suicide terror campaign. The new strategies worked well following the driving out of the other overseas troops and Americans who came into the country after the Israeli invasion in the year 1982 (Rapoport, 2004). The Tigers Liberation in Sri Lanka’s Tamil Eelam used the new terror campaigns to regenerate their separatists’ movement after they got encouragement from the victory of Lebanon.
1989 conquer of the Soviets in Afghanistan marked the second episode. The Muslim resistance force partly got support to drive the Soviets out when the United States aided in bringing the Sunni volunteer to the war front. This resulted in the collapse of communism, which was an important step in the fall of the Soviet Union. By now, religion demonstrated the capability of injuring the secular superpower. Paradoxically, the opening and successive actions came all of a sudden but the third incident gave religious conviction its unusual value as Muslims had projected. In the wake of fiscal 1979, just after the opening hours of the New Year, Muslims dubbed as the Sunni intonated Mecca’s luxurious worship center leaving ten thousand people dead. Sunni terrorism rapidly emerged in some Muslim nations including Indonesia, the Philippines, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Syria, and Egypt (Rapoport & Yonah, 1982). Thereafter, the combatants in Afghanistan terror returned to their domicile states and initiated confident training to initiate terrorist operations against their frail governments. The movement garnered support from Afghanistan, Sudan, and Iran with the Muslim community producing the most charming and active religious groups.
The power through which the fourth-wave terrorism group attacked the government installations and armed forces was not parallel. The United States being the target, the suicide bombers attacked the military posts of America in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. In addition, the terrorists in 1998 bombed the American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya leaving hundreds dead and many people injured. The first successful attack by foreign terrorists nicknamed the first World Trade Centre emerged in the United States. On the eve of the new millennium, unproductive assaults in the United States occurred, many people were killed, and dozens injured (Gregg, 2009). Thus, following the 11 Sept. 2001 massive attacks in America, the United States launched a war against terrorism.
Hardly any constraints remain present all through these waves, though terrorism may perhaps be dynamic. For instance, terror claims accrue due to an upsurge of public thoughts that constitute the informal characters. Terrorism is a foundation for those who have naïve convictions. It stipulates that hardly any violent acts against the symbolic target representing the spiritual authority will transform the political scenery in a beneficial way. With time, terrorists will incorporate innocent nationals as their target and this demonstrates the incapability of the state to safeguard its populace (Juergensmyer, 2003). Terrorists frequently underestimate the strong repulsion from people thus acting based on opinionated violence.
The other commonality is the inclination of terrorism to harm and change the perpetual feature of a particular state. For instance, terrorism started from the Left and continued to the Right. However, terrorists acted for the benefit of those who supported the independence cause but employed suicidal attacks on those resisting emergence of a new state. Terrorism continues due to support given by money-spinning criminals and other drug traders. Nonetheless, the intent of terrorists is to cleanse society of corruption and external power. In fact, terrorist and their violent behaviors have become consistent in the contemporary world. Despite the changing history of terrorist mutations and movements, there are a number of commonalities among terrorist groupings (Lester, Yang, & Lindsay, 2004).
Conclusion
In general, there are five types of terrorist or radical factions emerging from the four waves. These are the right-wing group, non-traditional religious extremists, religious fundamentalists, social revolutionaries, and national separatists. The emerging terrorist groups of today are dissimilar to their counterparts in the Cold War. There are novel grounds, impetus, and foes budding to challenge much of the usual insight on both terror campaigns and self-martyrdom. Moreover, along with the new waves, there are disturbing and different forms of terrorism developments that currently emerge. These include the increased courage to target terrorism victims and artillery selection, the growing partnership amid terrorism and organized crimes, cyber terrorism, chemical and nuclear terrorism, as well as narcotic terrorism. However, the current wave of terrorism is believed to derive from spiritual convictions.
References
Cook, D & Allison, O 2007, Understanding, and addressing suicide attacks: the faith and politics of martyrdom operations, Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport, Connecticut.
Gregg, HS 2009, “Fighting cosmic warriors: lessons from the first seven years of the global war on terror”, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, vol.32 no.3, pp.188-208.
Hoffman, B 2006, Inside Terrorism, Columbia University Press, New York, NY.
Juergensmyer, M 2003, Terror in the mind of God: the global rise of religious violence, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.
Lester, D, Yang, B, & Lindsay, M 2004 “Suicide bombers: are psychological profiles possible? Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, vol.27 no.4, pp.283–295.
Rapoport, DC & Yonah, 1982, The morality of terrorism: religious and secular justifications, Pergamum policy studies on international politics, Pergamum Press, New York, London.
Rapoport, DC 2004, The four waves of modern terrorism, Georgetown University Press, Washington, DC.