Terrorism : a thousand year occurrence

Abstract

Terrorism is not a novel phenomenon. Fear and menace of extreme violent actions have put political pressures from ancient times. Through time, authorities labelled these actions as ‘terrorism’. Authorities always aimed to develop different approaches to mitigate the phenomenon of terrorism improving science and technology and design appropriate policies. Terrorism incorporates a myriad of criminal acts, such as: bombings, assassinations, armed assaults, kidnappings, hijackings and embassy seizures others. Fuelled by political objectives, these actions are not committed to serve as an end but to serve the terrorist ‘just cause’. Various socio-political issues fuel the scourge of terrorism and this makes it more difficult to define let alone prevent or counter (Balayogi, 2002). The chapter briefly presents four different discussions on terrorism: the definition of terrorism, the history of terrorism, theories on terrorism and policing of terrorism.