Introduction
Terrorism attacks have become very common in today’s world especially with the increasing conflicts of power and the increase in financial difficulties in the globe. Many terrorist groups have been formed whose main agenda is cause violence in order to achieve certain political or religious goals. Loss of lives and destruction of property have been the major effects of the attacks especially with the increasing technology where advanced ways of attacking have been developed especially the use of biological and chemical weapons.
Domestic and international terrorism
Domestic terrorism, as the name suggests, involves terrorist activities either by an individual or a group directing the acts of violence to own people especially the government. On the other hand, international terrorism, involves terrorism activities where an individual or a group of people are directed by other countries to carry out violence attacks to other countries beyond their boundaries.
Domestic terrorism often occurs in African nations opposed to international terrorism whose focus lies mostly with the Americans. Due to this fact, the U.S maintains a different understanding and definition of terrorism that is different from that of African nations. International terrorism can be said to cause deaths for many people or result to serious injuries as well as damage of property.
On the other hand, domestic terrorism is less violent and results to lower rates of killings and loss of property as terrorist groups, who are mostly civilians, only coerce the government to take a certain action. Although both types of terrorism are aimed at a certain goals, they both differ in that international terrorists targets the worlds powerful countries as they seek public opinion from the globe. Domestic terrorism is, however, targeted to the local settings within a county’s boundary.
While domestic terrorism, mostly in Africa, is motivated by poverty among state members and the desire to develop their countries economically, international terrorism is not directly linked to these factors evidenced by many terrorist groups coming from well off backgrounds.
Another major difference comes in with the technology used in both types of terrorism where international terrorism involves the use of sophisticated technology to carry out the attacks such as missiles while most domestic terrorism involves use of human efforts to create havoc in a state. Terrorism activities are carried out by terrorist groups which are defined as any movement that uses violence as a weapon to achieve its goals political, ideological or religious (Shinn, 2005, p. 1).
Efforts to identify and intercept terrorist groups
Terrorist attacks involve complicated activities and the terrorist groups; therefore require the means through which they can be able to carry out the activities. For instance, they require not just finances, but the ability to move them between different countries. Weapons and communications means are equally essential for them.
Therefore, the primary ways of combating terrorism should begin by denying the groups access to theses necessities. Since many terrorist groups obtain funds from such activities such as drug trafficking and other informal private businesses, strict banning and illegalization of such activities could help prevent terrorist attacks because they cannot be carried out without funds eve the low budget terrorism attacks require money as well.
Careful follow up of the flow of money is equally important in ensuring that attacks are prevented as well as assisting in identifying the groups through investigations. International Corporation is also important in ensuring that these groups are unable to move money in any way.
The other effective method is denying access to weapons of mass destruction. This is because terrorist groups use weapons that are mass destructive such as biological and nuclear weapons. The international effort of this strategy will definitely reduce cases of terrorist attacks because after all they cannot attack without them except for domestic terrorism which does not necessarily require such mass destructive weapons.
With the most destructive weapons being biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, complete elimination of such weapons should be ensured whenever possible or effective control of exports and domestic use of such materials. Denying access to communication is as well an effective way of combating the vice.
This way the terrorist groups will not be able to get hold of recruits who they are always in constant need of. Since most of them use the internet to communicate, countering the use of this mode of communication could really help in preventing some of these attacks. Another way of preventing terrorist attacks is by restricting terrorist groups’ movements by banning their travel activities since most of them are still using physical movement to move from a county to another or even within continents especially where international terrorism is involved.
Identification of the groups is equally important to help facilitate the interception efforts. Most of these groups are now using social networks to find recruits. Following them in these sites is a very good way of identifying them.
Unforeseen consequences of terrorism
Despite the obvious destructive and effects of terrorism attacks, there are very serious consequences that have been related to the same. These are the long term effects most of which are related to health either psychologically or physiologically. There are reports that many people might present themselves to physicians with some strange health problems that cannot be explained. For instance, some strange births have already been reported in areas where terrorist attacks are common such as Iraq. What is more shocking is that these effects go way into several generations of the terror survivors (Anderson, 2002, p. 1).
Reference List
Anderson, W. (2002). Terrorism and the Drug War: More Unforeseen Consequences. Web.
Shinn, D.H. (2005). Panel on Terrorism and Transnational Threats – Causes and Enablers. Web.