The Menace of Terrorism

“Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary.”

                  -Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948), \'Satyagraha Leaflet No. 13,\' May 3, 1919



Even though the world community has so far failed to come to a conformity to give a specific meaning to the term\" terrorism,\" yet it is assumed to be a planned system of brutality and terrorization particularly for political means or religious ideologies. In laymen’s term, it is understood to indicate premeditated and organized acts of slaughter, disfigurement and menacing of innocent men, women and children in order to instigate fear and instable the society to accomplish their pseudo-secular motives.



In a derogatory context, terrorism is branded as random, targeting of civilians, executed with disregard for human life, wicked, gratuitous or unjustified. Some definitions of terrorism, often used by government agencies, add the definitional requirement that a terrorist not belong to any recognized armed forces (with few exceptions like the Hezbollah and Taliban which is a political party of Lebanon and an Ex- Government of Afghanistan). Those accused of being \"terrorists\" rarely identify them as such, and instead typically use terms that refer to their ideological or ethnic struggle, such as: separatist, freedom fighter, liberator, revolutionary, vigilante, militant, paramilitary, guerrilla, rebel, jihadi or mujaheddin, or fedayeen.



Terrorism is not a new phenomenon it existed in each and every civilized society since civilizations evolved. The only difference is it never caught so much attention of the subjects of the state and was never a global occurrence. There were many instances in the past which qualified enough to be badge as terrorist acts.

In the 1st century, Zealots conducted a fierce and unrelenting terror campaign against the Roman Empire in the eastern Mediterranean. The Zealots enlisted sicarii to strike down rich...