The first generation of global terrorism covers the period commencing in 1996 and reaching its peak with 9/11 attacks. The second generation covers the series of attacks targeting the West and the states allied with it. The period of attacks as the third generation denotes the wave of terrorism positioned itself in relation to the mistakes of the previous two stages, and 2006 can be considered as its date of inception. These distinctions can also be made in other ways. The main objectives of making this distinction is to indicate the periods wherein the contents of the realm of propaganda, which have nurtured, flourished and established the activeness of terrorism, are constituted. This article will examine those terrorists, who were recently involved in unsuccessful attacks in London and Glasgow, those who were captured in three separate operations in Turkey, and those who aroused great anxieties in the US,.

 Let’s start with the more recent terrorist activities in England and Scotland. Guardian, one of the important newspapers in England, summarizes the developments in this way:

The plot to mount car bomb attacks in Britain was hatched outside the UK, with the doctors allegedly involved linked to a ringleader or mastermind abroad, counter-terrorism officials believe. It emerged last night that investigators suspect that the two men caught at Glasgow airport trying to ram a Jeep into the terminal building were also behind the failed attempt to detonate two car bombs in central London last Friday.

All eight people arrested have links with the NHS - seven are doctors or medical students and one worked as a laboratory technician. All entered the UK legally. Security and intelligence sources said yesterday that no link had yet been made between the failed bomb attacks and Al-Qaeda. However, they say Al-Qaeda’s tactics are more flexible than they were at the time of the 9/11 attacks and that their sympathizers are increasingly left to decide for themselves the means of attack.[i]

Since the issue of terrorism is not just a security issue, it is very important to understand on where the terrorists with ‘elite’ professions depend, and to patiently, persistently and profoundly reexamine the processes that have induced them to take this infernal decision. So long as we refrain from doing that, we will not be able to solve the problem by inviting the terrorists, who will confront us with unanticipated surprises to kill us, to the wholesale ‘cleansing’ of social, political, economic, religious and ethnic groups that they belong to. With such an approach, we will temporarily ‘surf our sentiments’ and permit our angers to enslave our thoughts. With such an approach, we will not only be unable to inhibit new terrorists but also cause most of them to become the fuels of terrorism’s blaze in the next period, just like the fact that terrorists, who have degenerated into machines of obliteration with immense ire, are the ‘artifacts’ of our previous blunders and angers. We are obliged to exit this vicious circle since terrorists draw on hatred and tension, and their rationale in savagely murdering innocent people is to foster and perpetuate this environment.   

Success index of combating terrorism is closely related to avoiding the extremisms that would create new terrorists, as well as neutralizing terrorists and taking them to the court for their deeds. When the enigma of combating terrorism is scrutinized, it is discerned that terrorists capitalize on the mistakes of their adversaries instead of their own capabilities. From this perspective, imitating terrorists means giving them the initiative, and believing that this process can be reined in with extreme authority indicates the inability to grasp the nature of the issue and an advancement in the direction that terrorists wish.

The foreign policy of the US, which after the September 11 attacks has implemented the policy of ‘the war against terror’ in combating global terrorism and located its army and foreign intelligence agencies in the center of its struggle against terrorism, today also constitute propaganda material for new terrorists. The strategy of ‘the war against terror’ introduced by the US has not only constricted the US itself but also the states acting with it into this narrow militarist area. The deleterious heritage of the strategy of ‘the war against terror’ has engendered the widest noxious environment wherein terrorists now wandering around have thrived. It is conspicuous that the new terrorists, appearing as the defects of the policies executed in combating terrorism in the post 9/11 period, has targeted not only the US but also its allies and the states cooperating with the US in combating terrorism, and that they will also do so henceforth.

Unsuccessful attacks in London and Glasgow, extensive anti-terrorist operations in Turkey (71 seized in total), some attacks precluded in the US, terrorists detained, and the gradual rise in the expectations about prospective attacks presage that the new wave of terrorism is in the offing. It is also possible to state several additional examples of global terrorism in addition to the aforementioned events.

It is understood that this new wave of terrorism has constructed its ‘living space’ by exploiting the errors in the methods of combating terrorism employed after 9/11, and capitalized on the mistakes made in this period. An important stage in becoming a terrorist is certainly the elevation of grievances about the situation to the level of anger and hatred, and the transformation of the ‘psychology of defeat’ into a psychic condition. The transformation of this ire into revenge signifies ‘the formation of activeness’. Because, being a terrorist requires not being brave but being angry, and being angry requires having enemies to hate. As long as there are visual materials that lead an individual to hate the world, the society and the system he lives in, then there are new terrorists. We now must recognize that terrorist mentality has made a documentary from states’ excesses, and has unremittingly used them as propaganda.

We cannot overlook the fact that Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, civilian causalities in Iraq witnessed everyday, soldiers that even feel no shame at manifesting in their memoirs the illegal practices and tortures they had perpetrated in these places, and bombings claiming the lives of many civilians in addition to the targets constitute the most important sources of reference for the students of ‘terrorism school’. Thereafter, making bombs, destroying the targets, and devising predatory and fatal activities become only details. It is gratuitous to be surprised about the fact that terrorists in the new period are cultivated, have professions, and have emerged within the societies they live in. Because the terrorist, within his own definitions, is a person who challenges the injustices experienced, the oppression practiced, and the atrocity witnessed, who is filled with hatred against his foes, and who has been transformed into a machine of death by ire. The intellectual basis of terrorism formed in the last two hundred years abounds with these arguments. Karl Heinzen (1808-1880), Sergei Nechaev (1847-1882), Che Guevara (1928-1967), and Usama bin Laden (1957- ) invariably say the same or similar things.

Some of the people following the developments in a society more closely are more likely to reach such a conclusion through bringing together the mistakes than ignorant people in the same society. For this reason, terrorism as a new and effective strategy of struggle is a product of the last two hundred years that have witnessed the development of humanity. Events similar to terrorism observed throughout the history can be enumerated but that terrorism as calculation, reflection, propaganda, and a comprehensive strategy of struggle was constructed in the post industrial West is no coincidence.

The fallacy of some terrorism analysts in the last period lies in their interest in the terrorist profiles that are expected to emerge among the undereducated, the ignorant and the apathetic. However, in order for the terrorists to distinguish issues that they object to and that stimulate their anger, they need to be interested in the developments around them, at least till they believe in terrorism in their minds. Moreover, so as to manifest their interest, they also need to have a certain level of education. The educational profiles of the terrorists, who executed the 9/11 attacks and in the subsequent period succeeded in attacking several targets in the West, are far above the average, and most of these terrorists graduated from western educational institutions in countries like Germany, England and the US. The contradiction here emerges from the failure to accurately establish the links between the terrorists captured or killed in attacks and the factors led them to these attacks. In short, this contradiction is a consequence of the attempt to gauge ignorance or wisdom with a scale limited to the number of years passed at a school desk.  

Therefore, that the terrorists procure an adequate amount of fuel to be filled with hatred necessary for orienting themselves toward their targets, that they focus their areas of interest via selective perception on the dreadful experiences witnessed in the war against terror, that they, through general assessments, hold all of Western society responsible for these experiences, and that they promote their approaches through binary oppositions have rapidly estranged them from the general point of view.     

Being ‘the other’, having an inferiority complex, experiencing the solitude within the majority, and the conviction that despite some personal achievements the home society and ‘the basis of belonging’ are doomed to fail before the host society have all boosted the feelings of vengeance, tension and alienation in the people who are liable to radicalize to the point of blindness.

Terrorists attain their successes by capitalizing on the mistakes of their adversaries. It is observed that the terrorists of the new third period, who have appeared following 9/11 and become an enduring issue on the world agenda, have capitalized on the blunders of the US and its allies in ‘the war against terror’ to a great extent. News about the tortures made by the US soldiers in Iraq or their bombings of civilians in Afghanistan are disseminated each day. While for regular citizens this news is among the ones they routinely get used to, for the people displaying selective perception and being attentive to it this news carries ‘additional lavas to the hell of hatred’.

We have to concede that global terrorists of the new generation are more qualified, have professions requiring more education, and affiliated with ‘cells of poison’ independently established with the help of the global communication. In fact, according to the intelligence services of Britain recently witnessed new terrorist attempts, “these people, not leaded by any professional leader, have entirely acted on their own”. This situation confounds efforts to detect them. An important way of overcoming such a setback is to debilitate the processes conducive to the development of terrorists, to dwindle ‘the oxygen terrorists breathe’, to narrow the realms of intellectual propaganda, and to broaden the front opposing these terrorists through ensuring the support of the people that live within the same social, economic, political, ethnic and other groups with these terrorists. The strategy of ‘narrowing the realm’ ought to be implemented rigorously and with great calmness, prudence and wisdom.

İhsan Bal / ISRO

Translated by Eyüp Ersoy & Nicholas Danforth