The use of violence to achieve a political goal is called terrorism. The people performing the action are known as terrorists. Terrorists seek to create a sense of fear among a large number of people to bring attention to their cause or to control the people. By doing something like bombing a building, terrorists not only hurt the people who are in the building, they also make the public worry about what building might be the next target.

Types of terrorism

Terrorism has been used by many different groups of people to achieve a variety of goals. The most common form is called revolutionary terrorism because it seeks to overthrow an existing political system. In some cases such terrorists want to completely change the government and install their own form of government. Examples include the Red Brigades in Italy and the Shining Path group in Peru, both of which sought to establish Communist governments.

In other cases, terrorists claim to represent a certain group within the country that seeks to gain independence from the rest of the country. In northern Spain, a group of terrorists fought for many years to establish an independent homeland for the Basque people. In Sri Lanka a group of Tamil people sought their own homeland. The goal of many Palestinian terrorist groups was to establish an independent Palestinian state and to weaken or destroy the State of Israel. None of these groups was successful, but their efforts continued into the 21st century.

While some terrorists target people associated with the government, others hurt innocent fellow citizens. Since the end of the American Civil War (1861–65), a U.S. group known as the Ku Klux Klan has at different times aimed to strike fear in African Americans by doing such things as burning their houses. In 1995 a former U.S. soldier who was unhappy with the government set off a bomb at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. A total of 168 people were killed, and more than 500 were injured.

Some governments use terrorist methods such as kidnapping and murder of its own citizens in order to make the rest of the citizens too afraid to oppose the government. This was the case in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin and Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

People who study terrorism fear that the 21st century may see a rise in acts of biological and chemical terrorism. This type of terrorism is when a harmful substance or an organism that causes disease is released into the environment. In 1995 a Japanese cult released a dangerous gas into the Tokyo subway system. More than 5,000 people were hurt and 12 were killed. In 2001 several journalists and high-ranking U.S. officials were exposed to the disease anthrax through mail that had been contaminated with the disease. Several people, including postal workers who handled the mail, died, and many people became afraid to open their mail.

Another worry is cyberterrorism. Cyberterrorism is when someone unlawfully gets into a computer system to cause trouble. Great amounts of information could be destroyed or changed, creating problems for businesses and other groups that depend upon computers.

History

Terrorism has been used in its various forms for hundreds of years. Some emperors in ancient Rome tried to prevent opposition to their rule by having people executed. Many years later some of the leaders of the French Revolution punished those who opposed their actions. This period became known as the Reign of Terror.

In the late 19th century terrorism became a weapon of anarchists, or people who believe all government should be abolished, in western Europe, Russia, and the United States. They believed that the best way to bring about political and social change was to assassinate persons in positions of power. U.S. President William McKinley was killed by an anarchist in 1901.

In the 20th century more and more groups turned to terrorism. One reason for this is that weapons capable of doing great damage became easier to obtain. As colonies of European powers struggled to gain independence, one or both sides often resorted to terror. In Northern Ireland, for example, the Irish Republican Army carried out bombings, assassinations, and ambushes in an effort to force the British to give up control and to reunite Northern Ireland with the Irish republic.

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries some of the most destructive terrorist organizations were guided by an extreme form of the Muslim religion. Some of these groups adopted the tactic of suicide bombing. In this form of attack, the terrorist would attempt to destroy an important economic, military, political, or symbolic target by setting off a bomb that he or she was carrying. Sometimes these attacks took place on ordinary city buses or in market places filled with innocent civilians.

One of the worst acts of terrorism to date took place on September 11, 2001. Suicide hijackers took control of four U.S. airplanes. They crashed two into the twin towers of New York City's World Trade Center. Another hit the Pentagon near Washington, D.C. The other crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. More than 3,000 people were killed and the World Trade Center buildings were destroyed.