1. State Terror

2. Content of lecture: State terrorism external internal
terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy
state-sponsored
state-supported

3. Sluka’s definition of state terror:
“the use or threat of violence by the state or its agents or supporters, particularly against civilian individuals and populations, as a means of political intimidation and control”
(Sluka, 2000: 2)

4. State Terrorism Régime de la terreur, France 1793-1794
e.g. Robespierre and the Law of Suspects (1793)
Internal terrorism
e.g. used against own population to subdue groups or create a climate of fear
External terrorism
e.g. used as an instrument of foreign policy

5. Internal state terrorism:
Intimidation
arbitrary detention
unfair trial
kidnapping

6. Internal state terrorism:
Torture
physical
psychological punishment

7. Internal state terrorism:
Coerced conversion
concentration camps
Nazi Germany
Bosnia

8. Internal state terrorism:
Political murder
extra-judicial killings
disappearances
death squads

9. External state terror:
Coercive diplomacy
Nixon’s bombing of Hanoi, 1972

10. External state terror:
Covert operations
Bay of Pigs (Cuba) 1961
Kim Hyon Hui’s plane bombing (North Korea)
overthrow of Allende in Chile

11. Surrogate terrorism
Taliban – Al Qaeda
Libya

12. Case study: Libya 1969 coup – Gaddafi comes to power
Ambition = spearhead Arab Islamic revolution
Sales of oil = $$$$$ = sponsorship & support of terrorist groups
Abu Nidal
Red Army Faction
Carlos the Jackal
IRA

13. Libya continued Support – training camps, arms, safe haven
e.g. 1980s 8,000 foreign terrorists trained per yr
Sponsorship – attacks on Libyan émigrés & terror attacks
e.g. attacks in Vienna, Rome & Berlin
American action – bombing 1986
Pan Am Flight 103 (Lockerbie)

14. References and Further Reading
Combs, C.C. (2003) Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
George, A. (ed) (1991) Western State Terrorism. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hagan, J. and Rymond-Richmond, W. (2007) ‘The Mean Streets of the Global Village: Crimes of Exclusion in the United States and Darfur’, Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention, Vol. 8(1): 1-54.
Korn, A. (2004) ‘Israeli press and the war against terrorism: The construction of the “liquidation” policy’, Crime, Law & Social Change, Vol. 41:
Martin, G. (2006) Understanding Terrorism. London: Sage.

15. References and Further Reading
Rolston, B. (2005) “‘An Effective Mask for Terror’: Democracy, Death Squads and Northern Ireland’, Crime, Law and Social Change, Vol. 44:
Sluka, J.A. (2000) Death Squad. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Tanter, R. (1999) Rogue Regimes. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Wardlaw, G. (1990) Political Terrorism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Woodworth, P. (2001) Dirty War, clean hands: ETA, the GAL and Spanish democracy. Cork: Cork University Press.

16. Websites:
MIPT Terrorism Information Center:
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
U.S. Department of State, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism: