State-sponsored terrorism

The definitions of state-sponsored terrorism, terrorism, and state terrorism are controversial.

According to the United States Code:

1) the term "international terrorism" means terrorism involving citizens or the territory of more than one country;

(2) the term "terrorism" means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents; and

(3) the term "terrorist group" means any group practicing, or which has significant subgroups which practice, international terrorism.

The United States Country Reports on Terrorism 2006 defines a state sponsor of terrorism as a state that "repeatedly provide[s] support for acts of international terrorism."

Afghanistan

The Taliban's support for Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in Central Asia were viewed as state-sponsored terrorism.

Argentina

Main article: Dirty War

Under Jorge Rafael Videla, Argentina took the lead of Operation Condor and other anticommunist operations, supporting the "Cocaine Coup" of Luis García Meza Tejada in Bolivia or the Contras in Nicaragua.

Belgium

After the retreat of France from NATO, the SHAPE headquarter was displaced to Mons in Belgium. In 1990, following France's denial of any "stay-behind" French army, Giulio Andreotti publicly pointed out that the last Allied Clandestine Committee (ACC) meeting, to which the French branch of Gladio was present, had been on October 23 and 24, 1990, under the presidency of Belgian General Van Calster, director of the Belgian military secret service SGR. In November, Guy Coëme, Minister of the Defense, acknowledged the existence of a Belgium "stay-behind" army, lifting concerns about a similar implication in terrorist acts as in Italy.

In Belgium, new legislation governing intelligence agencies' missions and methods was passed in 1998, following two government enquiries and the creation of a permanent parliamentary committee in 1991, which was to bring them under the authority of Belgium's federal agencies.

Chile

During "Operation Condor", intelligence services of South American dictators in the 1970s-80s, including Argentina, traded information. Phase #3 of "Operation Condor", which allowed assassination in other countries, including United States and Europe, was activated.

France

The sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, codenamed Operation Satanic is attributed to France. While docked in Auckland, New Zealand, the Greenpeace ship was bombed by the French foreign intelligence service in order to prevent interference with a French nuclear test in the Pacific.

Iraq

The U.S. believed that Iraq allowed several expatriate groups to maintain offices in Baghdad as late as 2002, including the Arab Liberation Front, the inactive "15 May Organization", the Palestine Liberation Front, and the Abu Nidal Organization. These resistance groups and their existence were among the supposed reason given for the Iraq War led by the United States. Saddam Hussein provided financial and logistical support for various Palestinian groups, including payments of approximately $25,000 (U.S.) to the families of martyrs after their missions were accomplished. Iraq has also been hosting the Iranian separatist group and terrorist organization the "Mujahidiin-e Khalq" for decades.

Italy

Operation Gladio was a clandestine "stay-behind" operation sponsored by the CIA and NATO to counter communist influence after World War II in Italy, as well as in other European countries, which is alleged to have been involved in various terrorist acts. While Gladio is usually used to refer to only the Italian "stay-behind", the term has also been applied to all other "stay-behind" operations. NATO stay-behind armies existed in all countries of Western Europe during the Cold War, including Turkey. Suspected at least since the 1984 revelations of Avanguardia Nazionale member Vincenzo Vinciguerra during his trial, Gladio’s existence was acknowledged by head of Italian government Giulio Andreotti on October 24, 1990, who spoke of a "structure of information, response and safeguard", with arms caches and reserve officers. Further investigations revealed links to neofascists, the Mafia, Propaganda Due Masonic Lodge (aka P2), and the "strategia della tensione" followed in Italy during the 1970s-80s to block the electoral success of the Italian Communist Party (PCI).

Iran

Main article: State terrorism by Iran

The governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, Kazakhstan, and Yemen have accused the Ahmadinejad administration of sponsoring terrorism either in their, or against their, respective countries. United States President George W. Bush has called Iran the "world's primary state sponsor of terror." Iran sponsors Hizbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the al-Mahdi army, groups that Iran doesn't view as terrorist.

Libya

After the military overthrow of King Idris in 1969 the Libyan Arab Republic (later the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya) to the bewilderment of some supported with weapon supplies, training camps located within Libya and monetary finances an array of armed paramilitary groups both left wing and right wing. Leftist and socialist groups included the Provisional Irish Republican Army, the Basque Fatherland and Liberty, the Umkhonto We Sizwe, the Polisario Front, the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine while others were on the Far Right such as the Moro National Liberation Front, the government of Libya even had brief contacts with the Neo Nazi British National Front which attempted to enlist financial aid from Libya during the 1980s. These contacts were ended after the fascist nature of the NF was discovered during Nick Griffin's visit to Libya in 1986.

In 2006 Libya was removed from the United States list of terrorist supporting nations after it had ended all of its support for armed groups and the development of weapons of mass destruction.

Out of the armed groups Libya used to support the Provisional IRA, Umkhonto we Sizwe and the Moro National Liberation Front have completely abandoned terrorist tactics or political violence.

North Korea

North Korea has been implicated in terrorist acts such as Korean Air Flight 858.

In September 2007, the North Korean foreign ministry said the United States had agreed to remove North Korea from the "list of terror supporting nations" among other "political and economic compensation measures" in an agreement by which North Korea pledged to declare and disable all its nuclear facilities by the end of 2007. However, shortly thereafter, U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill said that this was not the case, and that such a move would depend on more progress toward denuclearization.

Pakistan

A Pakistan magazine The Herald published a cover story on the terrorist training camps in Pakistan, which was training Kashmiri and Afghan militants.

Pakistan has been accused by India, Afghanistan, and other nations (including the United States, the United Kingdom and China) of its involvement in the Terrorism in Kashmir, Afghanistan, and China. Satellite imagery from the FBI which shows the existence of terror camps and data produced by India's Research and Analysis Wing clearly suggest the existence of many terrorist camps in Pakistan with at least one militant admitting the help given by Pakistan in training them. Another terrorist outfit, the JKLF has openly admitted that more than 3,000 militants from various nationalities were still being trained. Other nonpartisan resources also concur stating that Pakistan’s military and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) both include personnel who sympathize with and help Islamic terrorists adding that "ISI has provided covert but well-documented support to terrorist groups active in Kashmir, including the al-Qaeda affiliate Jaish-e-Mohammed" Pakistan has denied any involvement in the terrorist activities in Kashmir, arguing that it only provides political and moral support to the secessionist groups. Many Kashmir terrorist groups also maintain their headquarters in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, which is cited as further proof by the Indian Government. Many of the terrorist organisations are banned by the UN, but continue to operate under different names. Even the normally reticent UNO has also publicly increased pressure on Pakistan on its inability to control its Afghanistan border and not restricting the activities of Taliban leaders who have been declared by the UN as terrorists. Both the Federal and State governments in India continue to accuse Pakistan of helping several banned terrorist organizations like ULFA in Assam. Experts believe that the ISI has also been involved in training and supplying Chechnyan militants.

Until Pakistan became a key ally in the War on Terrorism, the US Secretary of State included Pakistan on the 1993 list of countries which repeatedly provide support for acts of international terrorism. The recent 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot is also blamed by various sections in the media as being a handiwork of elements in the Pakistani administration. (See Pakistan's role in the plot) Press editorials from around the world have consistently and strongly condemned Pakistan's "terror exports" In fact, many consider that Pakistan has been playing both sides in the fight against terror, on the one hand helping to curtail it while secretly stoking terrorism. Even the noted Pakistani journalist, Ahmed Rashid has accused Pakistan's ISI of providing help to the Taliban, a statement echoed by many, including author Ted Galen Carpenter, who states that Pakistan has "assisted rebel forces in Kashmir even though those groups have committed terrorist acts against civilians" Journalist Stephen Schwartz notes that several terrorist and criminal groups are "backed by senior officers in the Pakistani army, the country's ISI intelligence establishment and other armed bodies of the state." According to one author, Daniel Byman, "Pakistan is probably today's most active sponsor of terrorism."

South Africa

From the 1960s, apartheid South Africa has been accused of involvement in a series of unsolved terrorist incidents:

• According to information revealed in 1998 by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, South African, British and American secret services might have been involved in the 1961 aircrash in Zambia which killed UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld.
• Apartheid-era superspy, Craig Williamson, is alleged to have assassinated Sweden's prime minister, Olof Palme, in February 1986 (see Olof Palme assassination).
• Accused by Graça Machel, South Africa's Directorate of Military Intelligence is alleged to have caused the death of President Samora Machel of Mozambique in a 1986 aircrash in South Africa (see Mozambican Tupolev Tu-134 air disaster).
• Accused by former British diplomat, Patrick Haseldine, South Africa is alleged to be responsible for the sabotage of Pan Am Flight 103 in December 1988.

The apartheid regime regarded the ANC and SWAPO as terrorist organisations and set up its own counter terrorist units to respond to the threat posed. It carried out the assassination of a number of political opponents in foreign countries (for example Ruth First and Dulcie September) and attacked what it deemed to be terrorist targets. South Africa also supported and participated in armed conflicts in neighbouring countries such as Angola and Mozambique.

In the years 1986 to 1990, South Africa employed the Civil Cooperation Bureau to carry out its terrorist activities.

Soviet Union

Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky the founder of the KGB State Security Service, today known as the FSB, advocated the use of the forces of the state as an agent of terror. His use of the term terrorism to describe the activities of the Soviet Union was blatant, as he wrote "we represent organized terror."

The first official announcement, published in Izvestiya, "Appeal to the Working Class" on September 3, 1918 called for the workers to "crush the hydra of counterrevolution with massive terror". This was followed by the decree "On Red Terror", issued September 5, 1918 by the Cheka.

The terms "repression" and "terror" were normal working terms in the Soviet Union, since the "dictatorship of the proletariat" was supposed to suppress the resistance of other social classes. The entire "ruling classes" have been exterminated, including "rich people", and a significant part of intelligentsia and peasantry labeled as kulaks. The numerous victims of extrajudicial punishment were called the "enemies of the people". The "mass terror" by the state included summary executions, torture, sending innocent people to Gulag, involuntary settlement, and stripping of citizen's rights. Usually, all members of a family, including children, were punished simultaneously as "traitor of Motherland family members". The repressions have been conducted by Cheka, OGPU and NKVD in waves known as Red Terror, Collectivisation, Great Purge, Doctor's Plot, and others. The terror against "ruling classes" and general population was practiced in Soviet republics and at the territories "liberated" by Soviet Army during World War II, including Baltic States, Eastern Europe, China, and North Korea.

After the 1953 death of Stalin and subsequent destalinization, the KGB continued its policy of supporting some terrorist organizations. KGB General Aleksandr Sakharovsky said that "In today’s world, when nuclear arms have made military force obsolete, terrorism should become our main weapon." He also claimed that "Airplane hijacking is my own invention". In 1969 alone 82 planes were hijacked worldwide by the KGB-financed PLO. George Habash, who worked under KGB guidance, explained: "Killing one Jew far away from the field of battle is more effective than killing a hundred Jews on the field of battle, because it attracts more attention."

Lt. General Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest ranking Soviet block intelligence defector, described operation "SIG" (“Zionist Governments”) that was devised in 1972, to turn the whole Islamic world against Israel and the United States. According to him, KGB chairman Yury Andropov explained him that "a billion adversaries could inflict far greater damage on America than could a few millions. We needed to instill a Nazi-style hatred for the Jews throughout the Islamic world, and to turn this weapon of the emotions into a terrorist bloodbath against Israel and its main supporter, the United States." Andropov also would have tell him that "the Islamic world was a waiting petri dish in which we could nurture a virulent strain of America-hatred, grown from the bacterium of Marxist-Leninist thought."

According to Pacepa, the following organizations have been assisted, at one period or another, by the KGB: PLO, National Liberation Army of Bolivia (created in 1964 with help from Ernesto Che Guevara); the National Liberation Army of Colombia (created in 1965 with help from Fidel Castro), Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine in 1969, and the Secret Army for Liberation of Armenia in 1975.

The PFLP received support from the Soviet Union.

Spain

It was proven in a judicial trial that death squads Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación (GAL), who worked since 1983 until 1987, were financed and backed by key officials within the Spanish Homeland Ministry under PSOE's cabinets. Then President of Spain, Felipe González, was suspected to be implied, but was no prosecuted.

Some of GAL's operations against ETA were done into French territory.

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom (UK) is accused of supporting Loyalist terrorist groups, both within the UK and also in cross-border operations into the Republic of Ireland. namely the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and Ulster Defence Association (UDA). These groups support the territory of Northern Ireland remaining part of the UK. The UK is accused of providing intelligence material, training, firearms, explosives and lists of people that the security forces wanted to have killed. The UK security services have been accused of involvement in the Dublin and Monaghan Bombings by the UVF on 17 May,1974 which killed 33 and wounded nearly 300 civilians.

On the 17 April 2003, Sir John Stevens published his third inquiry into collusion between the British Army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) with Loyalist paramilitaries. It stated that there had been collusion in the murder of Pat Finucane by Loyalists.

A former RUC officer, John Weir, has admitted to colluding with Loyalist terrorists in the 1970s in activities that led to the death of ten Catholics and that his superiors had knowledge of 76 more killings carried out by the UVF in the same time period. He also alleges that members of the SAS killed Loyalists who may have planned to expose the collusion.

The UK has also been accused by Iran of supporting Arab separatist terrorism in the southern city of Ahwaz in 2006.

United States

Main article: State terrorism by United States of America

The United States has been accused of being a state sponsor of terrorism by various groups and nations, including Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua. The United States sponsored anti-Soviet Afghan Mujahideen during the 1980s, supported the Contras in Nicaragua, intervened in other Central American and Caribbean conflicts, and supported anti-government groups in Iraq following the 1991 Gulf War. In these actions the United States has committed and, in many cases, employed proxy groups to commit acts against governments in order to further its own ideological or political initiatives.

The earlier School of the Americas has been criticized for allegedly teaching torture techniques and human rights violations done by some of those who attended the school. It has since been reorganized as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation and several changes have been made due to the criticisms.

In the 1980s the United States was convicted by the International Court of Justice (World Court) for 'unlawful use of force' for actions taken by US personnel and for supporting the Contras. The US then vetoed UN Security Council resolutions calling it to terminate its support.

The New York Times reported that the CIA orchestrated a bomb and sabotage campaign between 1992 and 1995 in Iraq via one of the resistance organizations, Allawi's group. No public records of the secret bombing campaign are known to exist, and the former U.S. officials said their recollections were in many cases sketchy, and in some cases contradictory. According to the Iraqi government at the time, and one former CIA officer, this caused civilian casualties. "But whether the bombings actually killed any civilians could not be confirmed because, as a former C.I.A. official said, the United States had no significant intelligence sources in Iraq then."

The CIA recruited and trained anti-Castro Cuban militants living in Miami, Florida in secret bases in Florida. The Bay of Pigs Operation is the largest publicly-acknowledged covert CIA-sponsored Cuban insurgent attack against the Cuban government during the cold-war era. This operation involved attacks against military targets. As civilians were not the intended targets of the attack, it is incorrect to refer to it as terrorism.

The bombing of Cubana Flight 455 was allegedly involved Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles, persons who had earlier had contacts with the CIA. However, there is no evidence that the United States organized the bombing.

United States list of state sponsors of international terrorism

The U.S. list of state sponsors of international terrorism is a list, compiled by the U.S. State Department, of countries that the United States' sees as sponsoring terrorism. Inclusion on the list imposes strict sanctions.

See also

• State terrorism
• Asymmetric warfare
• False flag

Further reading

• Dreyfus, Robert. The Devil's Game: How the United States unleashed Fundamentalist Islam. Pluto Press, 2005.
• Lerner, Brenda Wilmoth & K. Lee Lerner, eds. Terrorism: Essential primary sources. Thomson Gale, 2006. ISBN 9781414406213 Library of Congress. Jefferson or Adams Bldg General or Area Studies Reading Rms LC Control Number: 2005024002.
• Tarpley, Webster G. 9/11 Synthetic Terror, Made in USA -Progressive Press. ISBN 0-93085-231-1
• Chomsky, Noam. The Culture of Terrorism ISBN 0-89608-334-9
• Chomsky, Noam. 9/11 ISBN 1-58322-489-0
• George, Alexander. Western State Terrorism, Polity Press. ISBN 0-7456-0931-7

External links

• Overview of State-Sponsored Terrorism - Released by US Department of State
• State Sponsors of Terrorism, US Department of State, accessed 10-2006.