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List of designated terrorist groups

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The list is of organizations that have been proscribed as terrorist organizations by approporiate authorities, including the United Nations and national governments.[1][2][3][4][5][6]

Religious Terrorists

It has often been argued that the oldest form of terrorism is religious terrorism. The targets of religious terrorism have been the heretic and sinners -- those who deviate from or fail to abide by orthodoxy. Adulterers have been stoned to death, while heretics have been burned at the stake.

Reference is often made to the Assassins (more properly, the Hashshashin), an unusual group of Islamic origin that flourished in the thirteenth century.

Religious terrorism is a form of religious violence. As with other forms of terrorism, there is no real consensus as to its definition. Groups are frequently classified as practitioners of religious terrorism for any one of the following reasons:

  • The group itself is defined by religion rather than by other factors (such as ideology or ethnicity).
  • Religion plays some part in defining or determining the objectives or methods of the group.
  • The ultimate objective of the group is religiously defined.

Controversy concerning classification is often found because:

  • Religion and ethnicity frequently coincide. Ethnic conflict may thus appear as religious, or religious conflict may appear as ethnic.
  • Religious groups, like other groups, frequently pursue political goals. In such cases it is often not clear which is uppermost, the political goal or the religious motivation.

Groups which have used principal religious motives for their terrorist acts and were deemed as such by supranational organizations and governments are listed here.

Hindu

Christian

  • Army of God
  • Freedomites (1902-present) Active in Canada, notable for their longevity
  • Nagaland Rebels (1947-present) Active in predominantly Christian state in Hindu majority India. Involved in several bombings in 2004. Goal: Independence from India after annexing parts of neighboring Indian states and Burma if it has Christian majority.
  • National Liberation Front of Tripura (1989-present) A group that seeks the independence of Tripura from India to create a Christian Tripura.
  • Lord's Resistance Army Christian/Pagan/Muslim terrorist group that operates in northern Uganda, it seeks to overthrow the Ugandan government and create a country based on the ten commandments.[5]
  • God's Army A terrorist group in Myanmar.

Jewish

Muslim

Islamist Fronts

Sikh

All of these groups demand a Khalistan (Land of the Pure) in the Indian state of Punjab and adjoining areas for Sikhs. Most have a variable amount of support from Sikhs abroad and have been in existence since the 1980s. Many have been weakened and have cut down on activities, yet they continue. The militancy in Punjab has claimed approximately 100,000 lives, according to estimates put forward by Amnesty International: this figure involves killings by both Sikh militants and the Indian forces. With the exception of the first two, the other groups have only been proscribed in India.

Other religious terrorists

Nationalistic Terrorist Organizations

Irish Nationalists (Northern Ireland)

Kashmir

Northern Irish Loyalists (Northern Ireland)

Palestine

Main article: Palestinian political violence

Pre-Independence Irish Nationalists

Sri Lanka

  • Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE, aka Tamil Tigers)- Sri Lanka. One of the largest terrorist groups with 24,000 Tamil terrorists who fight for separation from Sri Lanka. The group has carried out 240+ suicide bombings since the early 80s in the process of what they describe as their freedom struggle. Members of the group were convicted for the suicide bomber assassinations of Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa (1988-1993) and former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.[10]

Other nationalist terrorists

Anarchist

Communist, Socialist, Maoist and Marxist

Ethnic terrorists (including neo-Nazis and white-supremacists)

Anti-Communists

Ecologist

These groups are active on environmental issues, using sabotage (monkeywrenching) as their means of struggle. They have a commitment for property damage only, and not harming life (human or animal).

Others

See also

References

  1. ^ European Union. "Common Position 2005/847/CFSP" (PDF). Retrieved 2006-07-03.
  2. ^ United States Department of State. "Terrorist Exclusion List". Retrieved 2006-07-03.
  3. ^ United States Department of State. "Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs)". Retrieved 2006-07-03.
  4. ^ United Kingdom Home Office. "Proscribed terrorist groups". Retrieved 2006-07-03.
  5. ^ Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada. "Entities list". Retrieved 2006-07-03.
  6. ^ Australian Government. "Listing of Terrorist Organisations". Retrieved 2006-07-03.
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