Terrorism as a New Face of Warfare: Identifying Its Emerging Facets and Future Challenges

Abstract

Terrorism is the most important problem of the today's world. It is not a new phenomenon in the national and international politics but it expanded in the post World War II period. Despite its growth as a multi-faceted political concept, it is not well-understood especially, in the Western World where every act of violence against state or society is considered terrorism. It has become all too pervasive in the post 9/11 period where antigovernment protests, legitimate political movements and uprisings for independence, ethnic discriminations, domestic religious or sectarian acts and several other actions involving violence have been bracketed as terrorism. But the question regarding oppression of states against the innocent citizens demanding their right of self-determination is still unanswered. This paper is an attempt to identify the origins of terrorism as it has come to preoccupy the world in the post 9/11 period, its various dimensions and new faces, and to identify its emerging facets and future challenges