What is terrorism?

Terrorists use violence in an attempt to achieve political goals. Their intent is to bring about political change by creating a climate of fear within the society they oppose. The targeting of innocent victims and symbolic locations for a high-profile attack has long been the preferred method of terrorist organizations.

For centuries, terrorism was an instrument of repression by governments as well as a tool of revolutionaries trying to overthrow governments. During the last half of the 20th century, the occurrence of terrorism increased dramatically throughout the world.

Just like progress in economic and technological fields aid globalisation, the same factors also aid terrorism. In the 21st century, terrorism has become an organized system of violence and is no longer only a regional problem. It has assumed global proportions.

A timeline of some global terrorist activities in the last 20 years:

July 25, 1995, France: A bombing at the Saint-Michel subway station in Paris kills eight and injures more than 150 people. The attack is masterminded by Rachid Ramda, an Algerian with links to the Armed Islamic Group, a fundamentalist revolutionary group committed to overthrowing the Algerian government.

Sept. 11, 2001, U.S.: The September 11 terrorist attacks kill nearly 3,000 people. Terrorists crash passenger jets into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre in Manhattan and the Pentagon in Virginia, and a fourth airplane crashes in a western Pennsylvania field.

Dec. 13, 2001, India: The Indian Parliament was attacked on 13th December 2011 by Lashker e-Taiba and Jaish e-Mohammad (JeM) terrorists. The attack led to the deaths of five terrorists, six Delhi Police personnel, two Parliament Security Service personnel and a gardener, in total 14and led to increased tensions between India and Pakistan, resulting in the 2001-2002 India-Pakistan standoff.

September 24, 2002, India: The Akshardham Temple in Gandhinagar, Gujarat was attacked by Murtuza Hafiz Yasin and Ashraf Ali Mohammed Farooq. They killed 33 people and wounded 80 others by using automatic weapons and hand grenades. National Security Guards intervened and ended the siege by killing both attackers the same night.

March 11, 2004, Spain: A series of bomb blasts tears through four Spanish commuter trains in Madrid, killing more than 190 people, in the deadliest terror attack in Europe since Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. An Islamist group said to have been inspired by al Qaeda is blamed for the attack.

Nov. 2, 2004, The Netherlands: Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh is shot, stabbed and slashed across the throat by Dutch-Moroccan Muslim Mohammed Bouyeri, who is outraged by his victim’s criticism of Islam. (Mr. van Gogh’s short film “Submission: Part I” contained images of women’s bodies that had been imprinted with passages from the Quran.) A violent backlash ensues days after the killing, leading to a 15-hour standoff between police and members of a suspected terror cell in The Hague.

July 7, 2005, U.K.: Four coordinated attacks by suicide bombers rip through London subway trains and a bus, killing 52 rush-hour commuters. The killers are later identified as British al Qaeda sympathizers Shehzad Tanweer, Hasib Hussain, Mohammed Sidique Khan and Jermaine Lindsay.

July 11, 2006, India: A series of seven bomb blasts took place over a period of 11 minutes on the Suburban Railway in Mumbai. The bombs were set off in pressure cookers on trains plying the Western line of the Suburban Railway network. 209 people were killed and over 700 were injured. On 14 July, Lashkar-e-Qahhar, a terrorist organization possibly linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), claimed responsibility for the bombings.

2005-2010, Denmark: The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten printed cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in the autumn of 2005, sparking a jihadist campaign against Denmark. Jyllands-Posten, along with other Danish newspapers, reprinted the cartoons in 2008 as a message in support of freedom of speech. The drawings, including one by cartoonist Kurt Westergaard that featured Muhammad with a turban in the shape of a bomb, provoked outrage and protests across the Muslim world. After their publication, a plot to murder Mr. Westergaard emerged, and a suicide bombing rocked the Danish Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan. In late 2010, Danish and Swedish authorities said they foiled a terrorist attack modelled on the Mumbai raid that had targeted the Copenhagen offices of Jyllands-Posten.

Nov. 26, 2008, India:In November 2008, 10 Pakistani members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamic militant organization, carried out a series of twelve coordinated shooting and bombing attacks lasting four days across Mumbai. Ajmal Kasab, the only attacker who was captured alive, later confessed upon interrogation. The attacks, which drew widespread global condemnation, began on Wednesday, 26 November and lasted until Saturday, 29 November 2008, killing 164 people and wounding at least 308.

Nov. 2, 2011, France: A fire started by a Molotov cocktail guts the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, hours before a special issue of the weekly that featured a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad appears on newsstands. No one is injured in the blaze.

Dec. 15, 2014, Australia: A 16-hour siege of a Sydney cafe ends with three people dead, including lone gunman Man Haron Monis, an Iranian immigrant who claims to be a recent adherent to the cause of Islamic State. After fruitless negotiations, police storm the scene. In the ensuing raid, Mr. Monis and two hostages—a 34-year-old man and a 38-year-old woman—are killed.

Jan. 7, 2015, France:two brothers, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, forced their way into the offices of the French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris. Armed with assault rifles and other weapons, they killed 11 people and injured 11 others in the building. After leaving, they killed a French National Police officer outside the building. The gunmen identified themselves as belonging to the Islamist terrorist group Al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen, who took responsibility for the attack. Several related attacks followed in theÎle-de-France region, where a further 5 were killed and 11 wounded.

Death from terrorist attacks:

The number of people who die in terrorist attacks have increased fivefold since the year 2000. We are living in dark times.