The Characteristics of Terrorist Groups of the 4th wave - a Diachronic Comparison
According to a recent paper by David Rapoport we are now in the midst of the ‘Fourth Wave’ of
modern terrorism. The initial wave began in the 1880s, lasted approximately 40 years and was
dominated by groups and individuals committed to the anarchist cause. The second protracted
terrorist episode was animated by anti-colonialism, lasted approximately the same length of time as
the first and was characterized, in Algeria, Mandate Palestine, Cyprus and elsewhere, by the
perpetrators’ desire to achieve national independence. The third wave, which Rapoport identifies
with the ‘New Left’, was triggered by the Vietnam War. The defeat inflicted by the Viet Cong on
American armed forces led small groups in various parts of the world to the conclusion they could
successfully wage the ‘war of the flea’ against ostensibly superior military power. In many instances
however this proved not to be the case and Third Wave terrorism came to an end, for most intents
and purposes, with the collapse of the communist enterprise, the disintegration of the Soviet Union
and China’s pursuit of wealth through capitalist forms of economic organization.1
The Fourth Wave, Rapoport maintains, was set in motion by the Iranian revolution of 1978-79 and
has been denominated by its religious sensibility, Islamist most notably. In addition to the latter,
Fourth Wave terrorism has been distinguished by three attributes mentioned by virtually all its
observers. First, for the most part terrorists in the past were interested in having a lot of people
watching, not a lot of people dead – to borrow Brian Jenkins’ frequently cited expression. In this
view terrorism was a type of theater intended to catch the attention of various audiences,
‘propaganda by deed’. But beginning with the Aum Shinrikyo’s attack on the Tokyo subway system
and Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City observers
1
detected a dangerous development. The new religiously-inspired terrorists wanted to kill as many
people as they were capable of doing. Second, and obviously related to the first factor, the new
terrorists were widely believed to be interested in developing weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
or, at a minimum, chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) to enhance their capacity to
engage in mass murder.2 Finally, ‘Fourth Wave’ terrorism has taken on a new organizational format.
Earlier forms of terrorist organization, many observers contend, were highly centralized and strongly
hierarchical in shape. The New Left or Third Wave Italian Red Brigades, for example, had a ‘
national directorate’ etc. that made it resemble one of the political parties with which it was engaged
in ‘armed struggle’. From the American radical racist Louis Beam’s web site appeal for ‘leaderless
resistance’ to the Al Qaeda Training Manual, contemporary practitioners of terrorism have promoted
loosely-coordinated or networks of small groups as the most effective way of carrying out their
missions and evading capture by the authorities. “Terrorism seems to be evolving in the direction of
violent netwar. Islamic fundamentalist organizations like Hamas and the bin Laden network consist
of groups organized in loosely interconnected , semi-independent cells that have no single
commanding hierarchy.”3
Our general concern in this paper is with the attributes of terrorist organizations that were formed
between 1910 and 2000, in other words with the pattern of organization of terrorist groups that span
most of the era encompassed by Rapoport’s Four Waves. Our particular interest is in understanding
how the present Fourth Wave organizations differ from their predecessors. But unlike Arquilla and
his associates at Rand, we do not focus on changes in their shape or structural characteristics.
Instead, we intend to investigate the following matters.
First, we would like to know when and where terrorist organizations have been formed over the
2
course of this 90 year period. As a matter of frequency, in which decade(s) were most terrorist groups
established? In this regard, how does the last decade of the 20th century compare with earlier
periods? Geographically, on what continents are terrorist bands most likely to be formed? And how,
if at all, has this distribution changed over time?
Next, we are certainly interested in the ideological outlooks of terrorist groups and how the relative
prevalence of each such orientation may have changed over time. As virtually everyone understands
by now terrorism is a tactic, one that may be employed by groups with various political goals for
varying lengths of time. For our purposes, we have classified groups into ones of left-wing, rightwing, nationalist and religious inspiration. In some cases telling the difference is not all that easy. For
instance, over the course of its career in terrorism, the Croat group Ustacha articulated, successively
fascist and later Marxist ideas about the role of its homeland. But of course its goal, despite the
shifting rhetoric, was nationalist, an independent Croatia. Something similar might be said with
respect to the Greek group November 17. Originally a Marxist-Leninist band committed to attacking
the outposts of American imperialism in the Aegean in more recent years it has sought to defend its
Greek Orthodox brethren in their struggles elsewhere in the Balkans.4 Despite these problems, we
have been guided in classifying groups, based on their central or underlying tendencies, by our
principal data source (see below).
Third, we are curious about the relationship(s) between terrorist groups and other organizations.
What types of links exist between groups which employ terrorist violence and states? How prevalent,
for example, is state-sponsorship now and in the past? Also, on occasion terrorist groups are not
stand-alone organizations. Instead they may have ties to political parties of one kind or another. The
links between the IRA and Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland and Batasuna and ETA in the Spanish
3
Basque country are well-known. We would like to know how frequent these links have been and,
further, are they more common among Fourth Wave groups than their predecessors? Finally, we are
curious about the existence of ties between one terrorist group and another. Do terrorist groups
cooperate with one another and how often does such cooperation occur? And, are the terrorist groups
formed in the 1990s more likely to cooperate with one another than earlier decades? Recent news
reports suggest growing cooperation in Lebanon between Hezbollah and Al Qaeda militants. Is this
an isolated phenomenon or a frequent behavior?
Data and Methodology
In order to answer these exceptionally intriguing questions, we have done the following, information
about the characteristics of terrorist organizations was obtained from Schmid and Jongman’s
compilation of terrorist groups.5 More contemporary information was found in The United States
State Department’s Patterns of Global Terrorism project.6 These combined sources provide valuable
sketches of the different terrorist organizations that emerged throughout the world since the
beginning of the 20th Century. Both our sources, especially Schmid and Jongman list not only
terrorist groups, but also include state agencies involved in the repression of political dissent and
protest. Other entries describe rural guerrilla organizations, revolutionary movement and various
other groups opposed to the prevailing political order none of which include terrorism in their
repertoire of insurrectional techniques.
In the analysis that follows two criteria were applied in identifying terrorist groups. If a group was
labeled as either terrorist or urban guerrilla it was included; if a group’s reported activities
encompassed assassinations, bombings, kidnapping, or skyjacking, either threatened or carried out,
4
which were intended to achieve some political purpose, one wider than simply harming the
immediate target, it, too, was included. Using the latter standard death squads in Latin America and
elsewhere were also included. However, groups that seemed to be subsidiary units of larger
organizations were not included. In those cases where a group(s) changed its name(s) with every
attack or several attacks, only the original or more general label was used as the basis for
identification. Of the 2,197 groups and organizations described by Schmid Jongman et al. and the 45
mentioned at the Patterns of Global Terrorism database, a total of 399 were identified as terrorist
organizations using these criteria.
Two stages took place during the coding of the data. First, a qualitative database was created. This
database included all the information available about each organization. Then, this data was coded
for the following independent variables: the organization’s name; the year the organization was
established; the country and the continent in which the organization originated; the organization’s
ideology;7 the relationship, if any with a sponsoring organization.8 Also coded was the organization’s
relationship, if any, with a sponsoring country9 or with a political party.10
The Establishment of Terrorist Organizations
Figure 1 around here
First, we wanted to trace the organizations’ developmental pattern and especially the number of
organizations established in each decade. The early 20th century was characterized by the
establishment of a small number of organizations. However, this tendency changed in the 1960s,
with an increased growth rate of terrorist organizations. The growth peaked in the 1970s and 1980s
when 137 and 122 new organizations respectively were established. The establishment of fewer
5
organizations in the 1990s can be attributed to few factors. 11 First, from the 1960s through the 1990s
internal splits within many of the left-wing and nationalist organizations drove a dramatic increase in
the number of organizations established. Internal division is not as common among the religious
organizations that were mainly established in the 1980s and 1990s, hence the emergence of fewer
groups than the 1960s-1990s.12 Second, the end of the cold war also ended the creation of new leftwing organizations.13
The Geographical Dispersion of Terrorist Organizations
Figure 2 around here
Table 1 around here
Figure Two presents the number of organizations established in different parts of the world during
the 20th century. The graph indicates that Europe was clearly the center for terrorist organization
formation followed in order by South America, the Mid-East, Asia and North America.
A close look at Table 1 indicates that although Europe has been the center for terrorist organizations,
this was focused between the 1950s and 1980s. In South America, terrorist organizations first
appeared in the 1950s, flourished through the 1960s, and declined since then. In the Middle East, the
first appearance of terrorist organizations was in the 1960s.14 New terrorist organizations, mainly
Palestinian, were formed in 1970s. In the 1980s terrorist organization formation spread to other parts
of the Middle East. A further look at Table 1 indicates that during the 1900s and in North America
the establishment of new terrorist organizations was sporadic and came in waves. In other parts of
the world, new organizations began to emerge in only after the middle of the century, becoming an
integral, and enduring, part of each continents political scene.
6
The Changing Ideologies of Terrorist Organizations
Figure 3 around here
Just as the geographical spread terrorist organizations has changed, so too has their ideological
distribution. Figure 3 indicates that a left-wing ideology was the most prominent ideology among
terrorist organizations in the 20th century. A closer look at the graph illustrates that since the
beginning of the 1950s nationalist organizations became more visible. Nationalism, as the
organizations ideological premise, peaked in the 1970s and has declined since then. Right-wing
organizations first appeared in the 1920s and 1940s, ascending during the 1950s and peaking in
number in the 1980s. This finding reflects the re-emergence of right-wing extremist parties in Europe
in the last few decades. The most interesting finding, however, is the connection of terrorist
organizations to religion. Although religious groups represent the smallest number of groups in this
study, it should be noted that while virtually no new organizations, of a nationalist, left, or right-wing
nature, were established in the 1990s, religious organizations continued to emerge: 71.4 percent of
the organizations established in the 1990s were religious ones.
Connections between Terrorist Groups and Countries
Figure 4 around here
Prior to the discussion of the findings which are presented in figure 4, it should be noted that with
regard to the whole population of terrorist groups in our data set only 13.5 percent of the groups were
found to have connections to sponsoring countries. It is especially interesting to note that the stateterrorist groups connection developed in a linear line beginning in the 1950s and peaking in the
1980s. In the 1990s no such connections appeared. Hence, we may deduce that connections between
7
countries and terrorist groups and more specifically the phenomenon of State Sponsored terrorism is
a trait of former waves of terrorism but not of the fourth one.
Connections between Terrorist Groups ad Political Parties
Figure 5 around here
With regard to connections between terrorist groups and political parties we found that out of the
whole populations of organizations 31 percent had some connection to a political party. However,
despite the fact that such connections were mostly widespread between the 1950s and 1980s the line
here is not linear. In other words, connections between terrorist groups and political parties are
visible throughout the whole 20th century yet they became more common between the 1960s and
1980s and most prominently in the 1970s.
Connections between Different Terrorist Groups
Figure 6 around here
As for the connections between different terrorist groups, only 36.1 percent of the groups in this
study had such connections. In terms of waves it is highly interesting the very much like the
connections between terrorist groups and political parties, here too this is mainly a phenomenon of
the 1960s till the 1980s which peaked in the 1970s. Nonetheless this phenomenon still exists in the
1990s, yet in more moderate figures.
8
Discussion and Conclusions
The data we have managed to assemble and analyze permit us to respond to the questions posed at
the beginning of this paper. Our task is easier if we simply reduce the questions we raised to one:
How does Fourth Wave terrorism differ from earlier manifestations of the phenomenon?
First, compared to the 1970s and 1980s, Third Wave terrorism in other words, there has been a
significant reduction in the formation of new terrorist groups during the 1990s. In terms of the
geography involved, a high proportion of the new fourth wave groups were formed in Africa,
including North Africa, and South Asia, parts of the world with large and growing Muslim
populations. Fewer new groups however does not necessarily mean better from the point of view of
the authorities. A large number of small fragmented organizations, such as was typical of the New
Left era, may pose less of a challenge than a comparative handful of groups with many adherents
operating on the basis of ‘netwar’ tactics.
Second, it seems to us a bit of a misnomer to identify Fourth Wave terrorism with religion in general.
The various millennial groups or ‘doomsday cults’ which pre-occupied the FBI and other law
enforcement organizations at the turn of the 21st century have largely fizzled at least as terrorist
threats. Instead of ‘forcing the end’ or using terrorist attacks to promote the ‘Tribulation’, most of
these groups have rarely used terrorism or, to the extent they employed it, directed the violence
against their own members – as with followers of the Heaven’s Gate organization. Aum Shinrikyo,
once a major menace in Japan and elsewhere, currently presents itself as the East Asian equivalent of
the Society of Friends.
It seems indisputable that there has been a narrowing in the ideological outlook of terrorist groups as
9
we move from the Third to the Fourth Wave. During the former period terrorism attracted groups
with a heterogenous collection of political orientations, left-wing revolutionary, nationalist, rightwing reactionary etc. Fourth Wave terrorism has been dominated not by groups inspired by religious
views in general but more specifically by ones holding an Islamist understanding of the world.15 In
fact, to the extent non-Islamist terrorist organizations appear during the Fourth Wave, they tend not
to be religious in character but nationalist (e.g. ETA) and revolutionary (e.g. FARC) leftovers from
the previous era.
A third way in which contemporary terrorist organizations differ from their predecessors concerns
their links to other entities. Here we are obviously dependent upon ‘open source’ information (see
the earlier discussion of our data base). Covert relationships may exist of which we are unaware. But
so far as our data suggest, contemporary terrorist groups appear much more autonomous than their
Third Wave predecessors. Groups formed during the 1990s were significantly less likely to enjoy
state-sponsorship than those that emerged during the Cold War era. Not only has the Soviet bloc
disappeared but such long-standing terrorism supporting states as Libya and the Sudan have
apparently gone out of the business. In addition, despite the current cooperation between Al Qaeda
and Hezbollah in Lebanon, on balance our evidence indicates that Fourth Wave groups have less to
do with one another than the Third Wave ones. Here, we should remember that a high proportion of
the latter shared a revolutionary outlook, one that promoted solidarity between European groups and
various Third World ones. Such joint operations as the skyjacking of an Air France jetliner by a PLO
and German Red Army Fraction band in 1976 (the Entebbe affair) or the skyjacking of a Lufthansa
airliner two years later by the same organizations are illustrative.
We may say approximately the same with respect to the relationship between political parties and
10
terrorist groups. Such ties are not completely a thing of the past. Hezbollah, for example, is an
organization that carries out terrorist attacks from time-to-time while competing successfully at
Lebanese elections. Also, in Spain Batasuna continues to act as the ‘political wing’ of ETA.
Nevertheless, during the Third Wave a large number of terrorist groups regarded themselves as
belonging to a Marxist-Leninist or Trotskyite family. Belonging to this revolutionary family often
meant the relevant groups defined themselves as acting on behalf of a vanguard party, e.g., the
People’s Revolutionary Army in Argentina, Peru’s Shining Path.16 Contemporary Islamist groups, on
the other hand, have no such organizational commitments. In any case, political party – terrorist
group linkages are less common in the Fourth than the Third Wave of terrorist activity.
Threat assessment, particularly after the events of September 11, has become a big business. We
conclude this discussion by offering a brief, cost-free threat assessment of our own. Fourth Wave
terrorism is distinguished from its immediate predecessor in being at once less complex from both
organizational and ideological perspectives but more dangerous. The danger resides, of course, in the
often indiscriminate nature of the violence. Instead of selective assassination of potentates or the
‘knee-capping’ of particularly despised members of the bourgeoisie, the stock-in-trade of earlier
groups, contemporary terrorism has often become an exercise in mass murder. We may derive some
comfort though from Rapoport’s observation that each of the preceding terrorist waves lasted about
one generation, a few decades. If this pattern holds true for the present wave, we are now
experiencing its downside. But of course what follows the end of the Fourth Wave remains to be
seen.
David Rapoport, “ Modern Terror: The Four Waves” Current History (December 2001)
pp. 419-425; A revised version of this paper was presented at the annual conference of the
1
11
International Society of Political Psychology in Berlin, July 16-19, 2002.
2
The literature is enormous but see for example, Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism
(London: Victor Gollancz, 1998) ad passim; Mark Juergensmyer, Terror in the Mind of God
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000) ad passim; Walter Laqueur, The New Terrorism
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1999) ad passim.
John Arquilla, David Ronfeldt, and Michele Zanini, “Networks, Netwar, and
Information-Age Terrorism,” in Ian Lesser et. Al., Countering the New Terrorism (Santa Monica,
CA: Rand Corporation, 1999) p. 56.
3
4
For a discussion see Walter Laqueur, Terrorism (Boston: Little, Brown, 1977) pp. 196-
197.
5
Schmid, Alex, P & Jongman et al. Political Terrorism, Amsterdam, North-Holland Publishing,
1988.
6
Office of the Coordinator of Counter Terrorism; http://www.usis.usemb.se/terror. The data in
this source was cross checked with others. The impressionistic conclusion is this is the most
reliable and comprehensive contemporary source.
7
Ideology is coded as 1 left wing; 2 nationalist-separatist; 3, religious; 4 right wing.
8
This is coded in a binary fashion, yes, no.
9
This, too, is a binary code, yes, no.
10
Again, binary, yes, no.
The data for the 1980’s and 1990’s is drawn from a source different than that for the prior
years, introducing a possible source bias. A cross checking of each data set against
organizations, in the 1990’s lead us to conclude if a bias exists, which we doubt, the consequence
is marginal.
11
12
See for example, Walter Laquer, The New Terrorism (New York, Oxford University Press,
1999) p127-155; and Michel W Zanini, The Making of Terrorism (Chicago, University of
Chicago Press, 1988) pp 147-216.
13
The vaguely structured right-wing groups, arising from the violent subculture of the 1980's fall
outside our definition of terrorist organizations, and are not included in this data base.
14
This observation excludes three organizations founded in the 1930's, the Stern Gang and Irgun
in Palestine, and the KHL in Lebanon.
15
For recent accountings along these lines see Paul Wilkinson’s list of terrorist groups
12
produced by the British government. Paul Wilkinson, “ Active Terrorist Groups” Aviation
Security 7:3 ( June 2001) pp. 18-24. Or, for the American perspective see Patterns of Global
Terrorism 2001 (US Department of State, May 2002) pp. 85-130.
See, for example, Richard Gillespie, “”Political Violence in Argentina: Guerrillas,
Terrorists and Carapintadas,” in Martha Crenshaw (ed.), Terrorism in Context (University Park,
PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995) pp. 211-248.
16
13