Introduction

The attacks on September 11th 2001 have focused our minds on the dangers of transnational terrorism. Conflicts in far-flung places can now impact on ordinary citizens of countries that are seemingly unconnected with the quarrels that motivate such violence. The intention of such indirect attacks is to affect people who have influence over the powers directly involved in the dispute. It also serves to attract attention to a conflict neglected by the media and government in influential nations. Consequently, while bombings, hijackings, and kidnapping cause death and injury, they are usually intended to have a psychological impact that goes beyond the numbers killed, and therefore measuring their intensity in terms of the number of fatalities, as is done with other types of conflict, is problematic.

A transnational terrorist act is one that impacts on the citizenry or interests of a country not directly part of the conflict in question. It can occur anywhere, both in the country where the conflict is occurring or elsewhere. Thus, for example, if the USA or the West is a target, then its citizens may be attacked in countries where the attackers are fighting the state, such as by Jihad in Egypt or Moro separatists (Abu Sayyaf) in the Philippines. Mainland France may be subject to attacks by the Algerian FIS. Attacks, kidnappings and bombings can also occur in third countries, such as Malaysia, Bali (Indonesia) and Saudi Arabia; attacks on US interests can take place in the USA (such as against the Twin Towers), or elsewhere as with the US embassy bombings in East Africa.

In an influential paper, Doran (2002) points out that transnational terrorism really reflects a civil war taking place elsewhere. The ultimate objective of the terrorists is to induce a backlash that will cause the masses in the country with the domestic dispute to rise against their oppressive state. A further implication of that paper, and one that has considerable intuitive appeal, is that the nationals or interests of the country subjected to terrorism also represent something that is in some way a patron or ally of the real enemy of the terrorists. Thus, when Westerners are kidnapped by the FARC in Colombia, or the Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines, the political aim of the kidnappers is to target the policy of support by the West for the government that the terrorists wish to overthrow.