In the Super U supermarket, Radouane Lakdim entered just after 11am wielding grenades, knives and a gun. Before he began shooting, Lakdim yelled “Vengeance for Syria” and proceeded to open-fire. Lakdim proceeded to shoot and kill 4 victims, and further injure at least sixteen victims. After the killings, he continued to take several customers within the supermarket hostage who later escaped or were saved by police.

 

Lakdim had been under surveillance for his “radicalism and proximity to Salafist movements” but was not prosecuted as there were no signs that he would carry out an attack. Despite Lakdim being monitored by the French government, their initial thought that “there was no radicalisation” proved to be entirely false. It is this that epitomises the need for further investigations to be undertaken to ensure global terrorism minimises, rather than increases. This act of terrorism exemplifies the unrest within corrupted minds, and the lack of aid in stopping terrorist attacks before they occur not just within France, but globally. 

Afghanistan Attacks on Journalists, April 30th 2018:
 

On April 30th 2018, 10 journalists were killed in two separate attacks in Afghanistan. Nine died in a suicide bombing in the capital city of Kabul, while another was shot in the head and killed in the eastern city of Khost, in what was named “the deadliest day for Afghan journalists” in the country’s history. 

The bombing in the capital happened while the nine journalists were at the site of a blast (claimed by ISIS) that had left 26 civilians dead. The suicide bomber posed as a journalist himself and presented a forged press card in order to get access to the site, before detonating his bomb. The shooting of the journalist in Khost occurred while journalist Ahmad Shah was on his way home from work, but the two incidents were not found to be related.

It was a devastating day for the media in Afghanistan. Media personnel are under constant threat from militant groups such as the Taliban and ISIS and the attacks on April 30th only reinforce that Afghanistan is one of the most dangerous places in the world to work as a journalist. 

Attack on Kabul, April 2018: 
On April 22 2018, 57 people were killed in a suicide bomb in Kabul, Afghanistan. A suicide bomber walked in a voter registration centre and set off his explosive vest. 119 people were wounded and the the dead included 5 small children and 21 women. The civilians targeted were lining up to get their identification cards, to register to vote in the upcoming October election. After the attack, ISIS announced that they were responsible whilst the stronger and more popular Taliban denied any responsibility for the attack. It is understood that this attack was an attempt to stop or challenge the Afghanistan government from helping citizens to carry out their constitutional right to take part in elections. It has been reported that public interest in the upcoming elections have been extremely low, due to excessive voter fatigue after the elections in 2014 were exposed to be fraudulent as well as the considerable threat to citizen's lives. 

Picture below shows the aftermath of the suicide bomb in Kabul 

There are few terms which have “so insidiously worked their way into our everyday vocabulary”  such as that of global terrorism. The way it is portrayed in the media makes it seem as a sort of phenomena; more pervasive than ever before, but this is a misrepresentation as terrorism was, in fact, more frequent in the Cold War era than it was post 9/11. Terrorism is difficult to define due to the wide nature of the concept and the extent to which it is open to individual interpretation – as demonstrated in the saying “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”

Essentially terrorism is the use of violence in order to achieve particular objectives. Terrorism “is not an ideology…it is a strategy used to achieve a specific end,” and although it is commonly associated with sub-governmental groups, it can be utilised by both non-state and state actors in order to achieve their particular ambitions.

Due to prolific terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) global terrorism is today often associated with religious objectives. ISIS has particularly utilised social media to spread their radical Islamic ideology and have been able to recruit over 850 foreign fighters from the UK alone. The group were responsible for large-scale attacks in Western countries, such as the 2015 Paris attacks, but have also claimed attacks which have been of ‘lone-wolf’ nature. These range from a stabbing in Paris which left 1 dead and four injured, to a stabbing in Mill Park in February 2018 which was said to be ISIS inspired. ISIS’s ability to claim responsibility for attacks committed by essentially, home grown terrorists, increases their ability to instil fear in the general population as it makes them seem more prolific than they are.

Radical Islamic beliefs, although perhaps the most reported, is not the only driving force for terrorist groups. The Irish Republican Army, for example, was a revolutionary group that sought to end the British control of Ireland, and the Ku Klux Klan was an American terror group who aimed to restore white supremacy in the US. More recently in the America, the Army of God has been an active radical group seeking to criminalise abortion.

State terrorism is when a government uses violence to intimidate and harm their own civilians. It is highly relevant when discussing terrorism in a global context today as it has been consistently brought up in relation to the ongoing conflict in Syria.

The Assad regime in Syria have been accused of using chemical weapons against their citizens in several instances dating from August 2013 to as recently as May 2018. Although they have maintained their innocence in regard to the use of biological warfare, the regime has used the umbrella argument of combating terrorism as justification in instances where significant civilian deaths have occurred as a result of airstrikes. 

Perception of Terrorism:
Freedom Fighting or Terrorism?

The difference between terrorism and freedom fighting has been a controversial topic in recent years. Often, horrific events committed by Islamist terrorists are quick to be labelled as terrorism, however this same labelling does not occur for terrorist events from other groups. Additionally, the line between freedom fighting and terrorism has become increasingly narrower, and the distinction is hard to make. How can we determine which acts are merely to terrorise, and which acts are to fight for freedom when both have such violent and destructive outcomes? Conor Friedersdorf echoes this confusion and misunderstanding when he argues that it is simple to determine who is a terrorist "if you go by the definition, but in practice the term is almost never applied in accordance with a strict definition" (Friedersdorf, C. 2012). This argument highlights the reality of the word “’terrorism’ and demonstrates that violent events carried out by Islamist extremist groups are labelled as terrorism, yet this does not occur for events carried out by Westerners.

 Mustafa Qadri argues that “the Taliban don’t fight for political gain or money but want freedom from American slavery” (Qadri, M. 2010). Whilst the horrendous methods of terrorism used by the Taliban are clear, some do see them as freedom fighters. For instance, for rural and tribal groups such as the Pashtun group Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Taliban are popular (Qadri, M. 2010) . They are seen as the freedom fighters and believe the way out of American occupation is to join the Taliban to fight them (Qadri, M. 2010). The key word Qadri uses in his analysis is the word “from.” He argues that “almost everybody can be seen as a freedom fighter by somebody, particularly when freedom is defined negatively as “freedom from" (Qadri, M. 2010).  Thus, our perception on the difference between freedom fighting and terrorism is perhaps largely guided by our consideration as to whether the said group is fighting ‘from’ something else in order to gain freedom.

Moreover, John Bolt’s analysis on our perception of terrorism dictates that the distinction is more complex than perception. He argues that there is a metaphysical difference, not just a perceptual one (Bolt, J. 2001). In other words, the inherent desires and desired outcomes of the acts are different, and this is what distinguishes them. In order to put forward this idea coherently, Bolt makes an analogy between greed (freedom fighting) and envy (terrorism). He argues that greed is like freedom fighting as the behaviour is characterised by “desperately wanting what the other person has” (Bolt, J. 2001). However, envy is like terrorism as it “is not directed at some item we want” but is “to destroy the happiness of others” (Bolt, J. 2001). In this sense, the distinction between freedom fighting and terrorism seems clearer. It seems that the methods used are irrelevant, however it is the desire behind it. If the desire is to acquire something such as freedom, release from oppression then perhaps the behaviour is freedom fighting. If the behaviour is merely to destroy, then it is terrorism.


Media Coverage of Terrorism: What is Left Uncovered and the Twisting of the Truth

Within modernised media platforms, terrorism is often glorified or spun to characterise certain minorities or groups as corrupt. Terrorism’s prevalence has spiked in recent years, making it a headlining story for most if not all media outlets. It is through these outlets that journalists paint a portraiture of who terrorists are. Despite the facts, within western media sources, terrorism is mostly formulated in articles, news outlets and even social media to be of origin from Islamic State extremists that creates a “negative experience of media coverage.” (White 2018) Whilst terrorism, particularly within westernised countries, is perpetrated by extremists who swear allegiance to Islamic State, the negative imagery that is created to affiliate with not just extremists, but with all Muslims is twisted far from the truth. It is this coverage of terrorism through media sources whereby “terrorist attacks almost always, explicitly or implicitly, notes a connection to Islam” (Lehr 2017) and its purposely created affiliation with all Muslims evokes unnecessary fear within individuals as facts are twisted to dramatise and glorify acts of extremism.

 

Media outlets often describe acts of terrorism as mere “attacks” when it they are carried out by individuals who do not fit the created portraiture of a “terrorist”. Often times we are presented with a clear act of terrorism carried out by a white individual who does not swear allegiance with Islamic State as a misguided individual that is presented with the idea “was it terrorism?” (Lehr 2017) Further, the words written or spoken through media outlets is often not as harsh as the words and hatred towards terrorists who are extremists.

 

Within nations such as Syria and Afghanistan, terrorist attacks happen almost daily, yet western media sources rarely, if at all provide coverage of these attacks. Westernised media provides extensive coverage of attacks that happen within Europe, America, Asia and Australia, but fail to provide coverage of attacks that fall out of these regions. Media outlets often have a “vested interest in amplifying the sense of risk” (Freedman & Thussu 2011 p.232) and danger in Westernised countries and therefore leave out countries that they perceive as outliers. Media outlets choose to leave terrorism attacks within countries such as Syria left uncovered as there is a common, yet false belief that Westerners do not want to be burdened by the unrest and global terrorism still ever-prevalent within our World.

Since 9/11, the United State has spent 2.8 trillion dollars in counter-terrorism funding – around 15% of America’s yearly budget. On the other hand, the United States spends on average $22 million a year on gun violence research, which according to NPR a “tiny fraction of what it spends on counter-terrorism”.

However, since 9/11 only 100 people have been killed in the US in terror attacks, whereas 5,400 people have been killed due to gun violence in 2018 alone and a further 9,800 were injured. Evidently, the deaths as a result of terrorism are a fraction of the deaths which occur due to shootings – yet the finances being put into the funding of counter-terrorism are exorbitantly higher than that of anti-gun violence.

This gives insight into the amount of money the US is willing to spend to combat terrorism which is religious or ethnic-based to stop the deaths of American citizens. However, school shootings which occur on a regular basis, but rather than the perpetrators being labelled terrorists, they are often referred to as “mentally ill.”

Data from the Gun Violence Archive shows that only 5 months in to 2018 there has been 28 school shootings, leaving a total of  40 dead and 66 injured - already more deaths as a result of school shootings than than all of 2017 and only 5 months into the year. 

Although, in instances such as school shootings the political or religious objectives may not be present, there is still a desire to intimidate and terrorize and therefore, there should be more of an effort dedicated to putting an end to the amount of shootings which occur in the US.

Where is Terrorism Occuring?

https://www.riskadvisory.com/campaigns/terrorism-political-violence-risk-map-2018/

The link above is a link to a map of where terrorist attacks occur and how severe the levels of terrorism are. The map depicts how terrorism affects countries by ranking them in levels from not related to severe. This is a recent 2018 map, and it shows countries like Australia, Canada, North Korea and South Africa have low terrorism activity compared to countries like Russia, and the USA who have medium levels. However, the countrines in which terrorism is most prevalent are  Middle Eastern countries like Syria, Iraq and most African countries where their levels are severe.

Indonesia's New Counter-Terrorism Legislation 

The Indonesian government has passed counter- terrorism laws in the wake of their recent terror attack. The legislation creates a number of new offences, including engaging in military training with intent to commit terrorism.
Australia has also recently passed new legislation regarding terrorism. The Justice Legislation Amendment (Terrorism) Bill 2018, allows for preventable detention of terror suspects by police for up to four days, creates a presumption against bail and parole for those who pose a terrorism risk, and clarifies police power to use lethal force. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

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Bolt, J. (2001). Terrorists or freedom fighters: What's the difference?. [online] Acton Institute. Available at: https://acton.org/pub/commentary/2001/11/14/terrorists-or-freedom-fighters-whats-difference [Accessed 22 May 2018].

Danner, C. (2018). Suicide Bomber Kills At Least 57 Afghans in Attack on Would-Be Voters. [online] Daily Intelligencer. Available at: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/04/attack-on-would-be-voters-leaves-57-dead-in-afghanistan.html [Accessed 22 May 2018].

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