Introduction

Although terrorism has received more attention than ever since the attacks on the US on 11 September 2001, the phenomenon is much older. In fact, there have been several periods in which (what we now call) terrorism ranked high on political and security agendas. In other words, the phenomenon is certainly not a new one. According to Walter Laqueur (2007), ‘[t]errorism appears in the Bible’s Old Testament, and there were frequent incidents of political murder, even systematic assassination in Greek and Roman history’. What is often new is the size, shape, nature and impact of these acts, as well as how we label them. This has changed in the course of the long history of this phenomenon. The French Revolution and the ‘Reign of Terror’ in 1793-1794 are considered by many to be the starting point of modern terrorism. The Revolutionary regime used ‘terror’ to deal with its opponents. Terrorism in those days clearly referred to the actions of the state, something which would change in the centuries that followed.

Historians such as Laqueur have looked into the long development of terrorism, aiming to see patterns and trends (see box 2.01). In his book, A History of Terrorism, first published in 1977, Laqueur wanted to ‘shed some light on certain problems such as the conditions under which terrorism tended to occur and the circumstances in which it prospered or failed’ (2001, p. vii). At the same time, he warned that an analysis of the history of terrorism does not offer clear-cut lessons for today, as terrorism varies in time and no country or era could be directly equated with any other.