The Face of Terrorism

By defining terrorism and the terrorist exploitation of religious extremists in nations abroad and within the United States, an accurate understanding of a terrorist cell in the making will emerge and reveal the terrorist profile.  This profile is the Face of Terrorism that the United States and all civilized nations of the world face.

On September 1, 2001, the impact of Islamic radicalism, which is the most notorious form of the new culture of terrorism, experienced first hand by the people of the United States.  It is far from the only variety of cultural trends motivating terrorist activity.  None of the identifiable international terrorist groups that have been active since the beginning of tracking international terrorism in 1968 classified as religious or having aims and motivations of a predominantly religious nature, they are secular terrorist.  At the height of the cold war, the majority of terrorist groups were left wing, revolutionary Marxist-Leninist ideological organizations and the remainder was ethno nationalist/separatist groups typical of the postcolonial liberation movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s.  

Not until 1980--because of the repercussions of the 1979 revolution in Iran-- do the first "modern" religious terrorist groups appear.  For these groups, the religious motive is paramount. By 1992, the number of religious terrorist groups had increased exponentially (from 2 to 11) and expanded to embrace major world religions other than Islam as well as obscure sects and cults.  During the 1990s, the proportion of religious terrorist groups among all active international terrorist organizations grew appreciably.  In 1994, 16--nearly a third--of the 49 identifiable foreign terrorist organizations could be classified as religious; in 1995, their number grew yet again, to 26-- nearly half--of the 56 organizations identified.  In 1996, the most recent year for which complete statistics are available, only 13 of 46 identifiable groups had a dominant religious component (see figure).  Nevertheless, religion remained a major force behind terrorism's rising lethality.  Groups driven in part or in whole by a salient religious or theological motive committed 10 of the 13 most lethal terrorist acts of 1996.

On the domestic front numerous religious Extremist cults, whose emergences in many cases coincided with the turn of the new millennium, also pose an increasing threat as they are sympathetic terrorist and inmost cases grant them sanctuary within their organizations.  Finally, prior to the events on September 11, 2001 the American religious right has been active with escalating and destructive objectives.

It is important to distinguish religious terrorists from those secular terrorist with religious components, but whose primary goals are political.  Religiously motivated activist groups grew six fold from 1980 to 1992 and continued to increase in the 1990s.  Hoffman (1995) asserted, “The religious imperative for religious activism is the most important characteristic of eliminating terrorist activity today.”

 Religious and secular terrorists also differ in their constituencies.  Whereas secular terrorists attempt to appeal to actual and potential sympathizers, religious terrorists seek to appeal to no other constituency than themselves.  Thus, the restraints imposed on secular terrorist violence--by the desire to appeal to a tacitly supportive or uncommitted constituency--are not relevant to the religious terrorist.  This absence of a broader constituency leads to the sanctioning of almost limitless violence against a virtually open-ended category of targets: anyone who is not a member of the terrorists' religion or religious sect.

Religious and secular terrorists also have starkly different perceptions of themselves and their violent acts. Whereas secular terrorists regard violence as a way to instigate the correction of a flaw in a system that is basically good, religious terrorists see themselves not as components of a system worth preserving at all but as "outsiders" seeking fundamental changes in the existing order. This sense of alienation further enables the religious terrorist to contemplate far more destructive and deadly types of terrorist operations than secular terrorists--and reinforces the tendency to embrace a far more open-ended category of "enemies" for attack.

 Previous to 1989  the time when modern secular domestic and international terrorism first appeared as religious activist that held true to non violent civil disobedience.  Recently law enforcement presence and the passing of the patriot act have restrained these secular terror groups causing their metamorphosis into religious activist groups in the United States.

In addition, the goals of religious activist are much more receptive or responsive to public opinion, so senseless violence would be counterproductive to their cause, and hence not palatable to them.  As Hoffman (“‘Holy Terror,’1998)  observed, the group of people thought to have common aims or views itself differs between terrorist and religious activist that seek to defend or promote some disenfranchised population and to appeal to them as sympathizers or prospective sympathizers for political change.  The pragmatic reservations of religious activists do not hold true for religious terrorists.  While secular terrorists may view indiscriminate violence as immoral, today’s terrorists increasingly look at their acts of death and destruction as sacramental or transcendental on a spiritual or eschatological level.  For religious terrorists, however, indiscriminate violence may not be only morally justified, but constitute a righteous and necessary advancement of their religious cause.  Religion--conveyed by sacred text and imparted via clerical authorities claiming to speak for the divine--therefore serves as a legitimizing force.  This explains why clerical sanction is so important to religious terrorists and why religious figures are often required to "bless" terrorist operations before they are executed. (

 However, religious based terrorist groups often target some disenfranchised population, persons and to appeal to them as sympathizers or prospective sympathizers for their own closed group of people to interpret the religious doctrines, crafting them around their own extremist religious ideals.  The followers of are indoctrinated by the leaders to believe they alone are the gambit of the deity the group serves and so are children of the group members are from a very young age normally from birth.  This allows the organizers of theses extremist domestic terror cells to control generations of families within the protection of freedom of religion and to utilize them as operational assists.

   Theses groups use other religious organizations and sympathetic countries to hide within.  They utilize the media and internet to spread their extremist religious message, gather funding, and new recruits.

 They utilize small splinter cells to conduct massively destructive military style strikes to spread mass anxiety and destabilize local, state, national and the international community in order to instill their own form of religious government.  Theses groups are also target children whom they see as saving them from the enemy and taking them into the group where the organizers ritualistically strip the child of their identity then give them one from the group.  This also allows the group’s leader to disavow any connection to the attacks and to follow public emotional reaction in order to draw in more recruits.

At present, the following groups listed as possible Future Terrorist Groups and are on the FBI watch list because of the violent past and present activities involving their leaders and members being involved with domestic terrorism as well as having ties to international terrorist as well.

1.     American Coalition for Life Activists – Abortion clinic bombings and the targeting of providers.

2.     Animal Liberation Front – firebombing of government and private research faclities.

3.     Army of God

4.     Aryan Nation (a.k.a. Aryan Republican Army)

5.     Christian Identity Movement – Members directly involved the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995

6.     Colorado First Light Infantry

7.     Colorado Militia

8.     Citizens of the Republic of Idaho

9.     Covenant (a.k.a. Sword and Arm of the Lord)

10.  Earth Liberation Front (ELF) –  Multiple arson and firebombing attacks.  

11.  Ku Klux Klan

12.  Michigan Militia

13.  Militia of Montana  - ties to the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995

14.  Mountaineer Militia

15.  National Alliance

16.  North American Militia of Southwestern Michigan

17.  Patriot's Council

18.  Phineas Priesthood

19.  Posse Comitus

20.  Reclaim the Seeds

21.  Republic of Texas

22.  Southern California Minuteman

23.  Sword and Arm of the Lord

24.  The Order (a.k.a. The New Order)

25.  Texas Militia

26.  Viper Militia

27.  World Church of Creator

While theses twenty-seven groups remain protected under the United States Constitution as religious organizations, they have direct ties to advocating militant domestic terrorism that oversteps the lines of non-violent civil disobedience and each act treated as individual or militant cell acting on their own. 

In terms of the countermeasures that the government, military, police, and security services can employ against these new types of adversaries, the first and immediate challenge is simply identifying them.  These ethereal, amorphous entities will often lack the "footprint" or modus operandi of an actual, existing terrorist organization, making it more difficult for intelligence, law enforcement, and other security specialists to get a firm idea of their intentions and capabilities, much less their capacity for violence, before they strike.  A second challenge is unraveling the reasons why many "fringe" movements or hitherto peaceful religious cults suddenly embark on lethal campaigns of indiscriminate terrorism. 

On a local community, level recognizing and counteracting the profound sense of alienation and isolation of these cults or religious movements is paramount.  Learning the group dynamics and recruitment trends aids local authorities and educators in developing preemptive educational programs to mitigate grassroots alienation and polarization and to stop the spread of seditious and intolerant beliefs before they take hold becoming areas of exploitation by demagogues, hate mongers, and external terrorist groups.

  By the community at large by establishing of bridge of trust and respect established between the mainstream society and the extremists.  This that they do not feel threatened and forced to withdraw into heavily armed, seething compounds or to engage in preemptive acts of violence directed against what they regard as a menacing, predatory society.  In doing so the community can change a very hostile mistrusting group into a group that adopts a live and let live attitude that may be advantageous as the group realizes the community accepts them as they are, not as they want them to be.

On the national level to answer the domestic terrorism threat the United States created The Department of Homeland Security and has been key in the integration of Local, State, regional and national law enforcement database enabling information sharing across federal, state, and local law enforcement.  This database also incorporates terrorist threat assessments as well as national, regional, state and local terrorist threats and level of threat.

This allows for the development of Joint Anti-terrorism taskforces that target  specific locals where the terror threat is a threat to national security that involve Federal, state and local law enforcement in jointly coordinated enforcement of anti-terrorism laws.

On a global scale, International conventions on terrorism set out obligations of states in respect to defining international counter terrorist offences, prosecuting individuals suspected of such offences, extraditing such persons upon request, and providing mutual legal assistance upon request.  This allows for Joint operations between the United States and its allies in the fight against terrorist through the Unified Command structure and The Department of Homeland Security.  It allows the ceasing of terrorist assets on a national and on the international level in order to aid in the destabilization and disruption of known terrorist front organizations that fund terrorism.