Introduction
Terrorism attacks have become very common in today’s world especially with the increasing conflicts of power and the increase in financial difficulties in the globe. Many terrorist groups have been formed whose main agenda is cause violence in order to achieve certain political or religious goals. Loss of lives and destruction of property have been the major effects of the attacks especially with the increasing technology where advanced ways of attacking have been developed especially the use of biological and chemical weapons.
Most of the terrorist attacks happening nowadays are even being supported by the military forces of the countries involved which make the attacks even more coercive since the military that should protect the people is itself involved in the same attacks. The terrorists have the believe that their actions can always be justified by law. This makes them as confident as they plan the attacks very well so that they know exactly where and how to attack (Anderson, 2002, p. 1).
Categories of terrorist organizations
Terrorist organizations are the groups that work together in planning and executing terrorist attacks. There are two basic categories of terrorist organizations namely domestic and international also referred to as foreign terrorist organizations.
Domestic terrorism, as the name suggests, involves terrorist activities either by an individual or a group directing the acts of violence to own people especially the government. On the other hand, international terrorism which consists of international terrorist organizations, involves terrorism activities where an individual or a group of people are directed by other countries to carry out violence attacks to other countries beyond their boundaries.
Domestic terrorist organizations are, therefore, based on their local areas. For instance, a terrorist organization that attacks only its own government or local society, but not other countries, is a domestic terrorist organization. Domestic terrorism often occurs in African nations opposed to international terrorism whose focus lies mostly with the Americans.
Due to this fact, the U.S maintains a different understanding and definition of terrorism that is different from that of African nations. International terrorism can be said to cause deaths for many people or result to serious injuries as well as damage of property. On the other hand, domestic terrorism is less violent and results to lower rates of killings and loss of property as terrorist groups, who are mostly civilians, only coerce the government to take a certain action.
Although both types of terrorism are aimed at a certain goals, they both differ in that international terrorists targets the worlds powerful countries as they seek public opinion from the globe. Domestic terrorism is, however, targeted to the local settings within a county’s boundary.
While domestic terrorism, mostly in Africa, is motivated by poverty among state members and the desire to develop their countries economically, international terrorism is not directly linked to these factors evidenced by many terrorist groups coming from well off backgrounds.
Another major difference comes in with the technology used in both types of terrorism where international terrorism involves the use of sophisticated technology to carry out the attacks such as missiles while most domestic terrorism involves use of human efforts to create havoc in a state. Terrorism activities are carried out by terrorist groups which are defined as any movement that uses violence as a weapon to achieve its goals political, ideological or religious (Shinn, 2005, p. 1).
Differences in the two categories of terrorist organizations
Despite the fact that all terrorist organizations always have almost similar motives they differ in certain perspectives although they all have the universal objectives of antisocial motives.
Since their activities involve hostility, they have to plan and organize on how to handle security in the areas they are planning to attack. Domestic terrorist groups are not, usually, supported by the government since in most cases; they attack the government in order to attain certain goals. They therefore have strategies that they use to get people or certain social groups to support and sympathize with them.
This support team include both active and inactive members who do not participate directly in the attacking activities but rather offer support in other ways such as financial, security, just to mention a few. The active members, on the other hand, include the active energetic people who participate in the real activities of attacking including fighting and riots. Such support teams may be volunteers if at all they support the pursuit of the goal in question or in other cases, they may be forced into participating by the terrorist members.
International terrorist organizations, on the other hand, are more likely to e supported by their governments since most of them attack, not their home country, but other nations due to disputes on control over land, power or even religious conflicts. These groups are therefore supported financially, in terms of recruitments, weapons as well as means of communication.
When it comes to recruitment and training, the two terrorist groups also differ in that the domestic terrorist organizations usually recruit college and high school leavers but only who are up for the task. In addition, the process has to be sensitive to security since its home based and the groups’ intentions should not be identified because most of the terrorist attacks happen when they are least expected.
Therefore, recruitment and training activities should e done so confidentially without involving the public. International terrorist groups, on the other hand, recruit members who are known to be linked to terrorist groups or even people whose family members have been earlier involved in the terrorist attacks. Basically, recruits in international terrorist groups involve people whose backgrounds are known with those who have family ties to the organization getting priority over others (Mfields 2004, p. 1).
The training process basically involves giving instruction on the use of weapons used in the attacks. Domestic terrorist organizations are basic involved in less violent actions such as seizure of occupation in a certain building, hijacking and traditional bombings and assassinations. On the other hand, international terrorist organizations use more violent actions. Most of them include the deadly nuclear weapons, the use of biological and other chemical materials.
These advanced technological weapons are far more destructive than the traditional methods because they are targeted to cause mass destruction. Many of the international terrorists are now using chemicals that are meant to cause deadly diseases such as anthrax. Others use the technology to spread certain spores which cause skin infection which is not treated as soon as possible, results to death.
Due to the differences in availability of support especially from the government, other facilities such as training, advanced weapons and financial factors, the two groups of terrorist organizations have differed greatly in their success of their terrorist attacks.
The domestic groups have not been successful over the years due to lack of advanced technological knowhow of weapons as well as training services. In addition, domestic terrorists are not large enough to counter the security of a country where they are planning to attack because the governments are always stronger than such groups are.
International terrorists have, however, been successful many of their attacks with the use of advanced weapons, the support they get from the government and the use of experienced individuals as members of the group. The government support offers them the opportunity to plan and organize every step of the activities such as communication in case more recruits are required or additional weapons as well giving them financial support which is very crucial in the success of such international attacks (Samuraitom 2007, p. 1).
Conclusion
Terrorism has become very common in today’s political and religious arena. There has been both domestic and international terrorism where domestic terrorism involves local attacks that are less violent while the international attacks are more brutal and targets countries beyond borders. Despite the fact terrorists believe that they have the right to attain certain goals, attacking other people causing destruction is not the only way they can do so.
For instance, peaceful demonstrations could be held by a group of people to air their views which does not involve property destruction or loss of lives. Terrorist organizations should therefore be restricted to prevent the harm they cause during attacks. Especially governments that support these groups in attacking other nations should stop this vice and find better ways of solving problems such as negotiating between conflicting nations. All efforts should therefore be done to restrict the movement of such terrorist organizations.
Reference List
Anderson, W. (2002). Terrorism and the Drug War: More Unforeseen Consequences. Web.
Mfields. (2004). Terrorism. Web.
Samuraitom. (2007). Domestic terrorism essay. Web.
Shinn, D.H. (2005). Panel on Terrorism and Transnational Threats – Causes and Enablers. Web.