Introduction
Terrorism is a term that is used to describe the act of using violence against people or property. The sole purpose of this act is usually to intimidate or hold persons at ransom. Terrorists are therefore those who take part in terrorism acts. These are people who violently threaten people to create fear amongst them. By so doing they are usually trying to make the public believe that their government is unable or are not appropriately equipped with the human and technological resources to prevent these terrorists’ acts. These acts can either be just in form of threats or maybe real assassinations, hijacking, computer technology kinds of attacks, chemical/biological attacks, and last but not least nuclear attacks.
Terrorism can be described in two ways i.e. domestic and international terrorism. There are those individuals who have resorted to terrorism acts as a strategy of meeting their personal or even political objectives. This is what we normally refer to as domestic terrorism. An elaborate example is the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murray Federal Building in Oklahoma City by Timothy McVeigh and is allies. Still on domestic terrorism, it must be noted that this act has been used by both the weak and discriminated groups of the society to overthrow political regimes and to try and bring about social change; also it has been used by the high and mighty to ensure that they maintain their advantaged social positions.
International terrorism is all about having terrorists attack another country to induce fear on the public and at the same time create a feeling of vulnerability towards other random attacks. A good example is the recent September eleventh attacks on American soil by the Al Qaeda. This group has been successful in performing a variety of other terrorist acts in places like the military base in Saudi Arabia, US embassies in Africa, United Kingdom and Spain. These international terrorist groups always claim to be protecting the jihad against “Islam enemies” to a point that they have now become extremist groups with hard-line mentality.
