Civilians+as+targets

**Civilians as targets**
Terrorism did not end after the liquidation of the main European empires in the 1950s and 1960s. In response to many circumstances it continued in many regions. In South-East Asia, the Middle East and Latin-America there were killings of policemen and local officials, hostage-takings, hijackings of aircraft, and bombings of buildings. In many actions, civilians became targets. In some cases governments got involved in supporting terrorism, almost always at arm's length so it could be deniable. The causes espoused by terrorist had not just an impact on revolutionary socialism and nationalism, but also in a few cases religious doctrines. Law, even the modest body of rules setting some limits in armed conflict between states, could be ignored in a higher cause.

How did some terrorist movements become associated with indiscriminate killings? In September 1970 Palestinian terrorists hijacked several large aircraft and blew them up on the ground in Jordan, but let the passengers free. By many it awoke as much fascination as horror. Then in September 1972 in a Palestinian attack on Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games at Munich, 11 Israelis were murdered. This event showed a determination to kill: the revulsion felt in many countries was stronger than two years earlier.

To justify these and many terrorist actions in the Middle East was that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza (which had begun in 1967) was an exercise of violence against which counter-violence was legitimate. The same was said in connection with the suicide bombings, when Palestinians attacked Israel in 2001-2. In some of the suicide bombings there was a new element which had not been evident in the Palestinian terrorism of 2 or 3 decades earlier: Islamic religion extremism.

**Soiurce:** BBC: //The Changing Faces of Terrorism.// URL: [] [Access date: 18-11-10]