Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Terrorism

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WikiProject Foreign relations This article is within the scope of WikiProject Foreign relations, an attempt to provide information in a consistent format for articles about international organizations, diplomats, and international meetings.
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Contents

[edit] Definition

I think it would be best if we defined terrorism, for the purposes this project, as "violence against civilians by an organized, non-state actor for political purposes." That rules out Hussein, various U.S. presidents, et cetera. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 04:37, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Any definition of terrorism that excludes state actors is extremely biased from the very start, and defies the historical meaning of the term. The word's very origin is based on state terrorism in the French Reign of Terror.[1] If you wish to use that definition, call it "non-state terrorism". -- DBooth 04:05, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Entirely agree with DBooth and will not participate in any project on terrorism that excludes state actors from the definition. Lexo 16:59, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

while i agree that the above definition is an admirable attempt, and certainly fits the current usage of terrorist/ism in the world media & western politics, i have several issues with it. 1. it excludes the brighton bombing. grounds - civilian does not include the commander in chief of the armed forces (also priome minister) who was widely reguarded to be the chief target of that attack. 2. 'non-state' has a haze of terrorist vs freedom-fighter to it... perhaps 'unpopular' would fit as well? perhaps finding a definition should be the prime focus of this project? i suggest 'pejorative term describing combatants in internationally unrecognised wars & their acts. often used as a dismissive tactic for their ideologies & to demonise enemies of the local state.' Commentary 12:31, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Consider Ilario Pantano.
    • The officer who held Pantano's artile 32 hearing recommended he be held responsible for his decision to desecrete the bodies of the two Iraqis he shot.
    • Pantano slowly and methodically emptied two entire magazines into them. Three shots at a time. In his June 2004 statement to military investigators he says his rifle was set to fire three bullets per trigger pull. That's twenty trigger pulls.
    • He said, several times, that he had planned out, ahead of time, that he was going to "send a message". He had briefed his troops to "send a message". "Sending a message" was his justification for firing 60 bullets. He didn't just empty two magazines into his captives. He scrawled a sign that he placed over their bodies, that read "no better friend, no worse enemy".
    • He didn't call for body pickup. Some accounts say he posed their bodies, took trophy photos, and couldn't stop bragging about his trophy kill... Another officer, another platoon commander, like himself, chewed him out, and he went back and removed the sign and called for the civilian body pickup agency.
    • Should we consider Pantano a terrorist? What does it mean if someone uses dead bodies "to send a message". What is the message of a mutilated body? Isn't it a warning, to civilians, telling them that cooperation, or sympathy, with the insurgents, could result in their death and mutilation?
    • Most press reports, in American papers, describe his two captives as "terrorists". That is not clear. They were unarmed. They didn't live in the compound where his troops found 3 AK47s.
    • Most press reports assert that his captives were advancing on him, in a threatening manner, and that he warned them to stop, before he opened fire. They assert this even though it directly contradicts his statement to military investigators. In his statement to the military investigators he said he yelled at his captives to stop -- to stop talking to one another. They weren't advancing on him. They were on their knees, facing into the open doors of their vehicle, where he had placed them.
    • So, should Pantano be counted among the terrorists? -- Geo Swan 10:37, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
      • The definition specifies a "non-state actor". Unless the U.S. disavows his actions, he can be assumed to be acting under the orders of the U.S., so this example doesn't fit. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 19:36, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
        • Well, Bush administration wants it both ways. When Rice and Karen Hughes were on their good will tours they kept insisting that incidents of abuse were isolated, the actions of rogue soldiers, and, had all been punished. -- But Pantano wasn't punished. He was exonerated. Lewis Weishofer wasn't meaningfully punished either. Kevin D. Myricks got six months for beating his captives. Weishofer who murdered his captive just gets docked a couple of months pay. Carolyn Woods lead her soldiers into beating her captives so badly two of them died. The coroner said that the only time she had seen wounds that bad was when the victim had been run over by a bus. Yet Captain Woods hasn't even been charged. She was awarded two Bronze Stars.
        • The Bush administration wants it both ways. They want the world to believe that abusers were isolated rogues -- outliers. But they want to excuse all but the most notorious of the terrorists within the forces, because holding them to account it bad for morale. -- Geo Swan 11:44, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Consider the strategic bombing campaign of World War 2.
    • The mathematician Jacob Bronowski has said that the average bomb dropped from a strategic bomber, in World War 2, only had a fifty-fifty chance of landing within five miles of its target. Five miles. Think how far that is.
    • Some historians argue that Churchill and Roosevelt knew, or should have known, that strategic bombing was causing enormous loss os civilian life, with practically no military results to show for it. They argued that the two real reasons for the bombing campaign were for the morale effect.
    • The allies needed to think they were striking back. By their arguments regular allied civilians, and regular soldiers and sailors needed to know somebody was doing something to strike at Germany, before the invasion of Normandy, before there was a regular second front. And they argued that regular folk wanted vengeance against the Germans.
    • Some historians have also argued that the allied leaders allowed the strategic bombing campaign to drop bombs that mainly killed civilians in order to break the morale of the regular Germans.
    • I don't know that Churchill and Roosevelt, and the senior members of their military, knowingly dropped bombs in order to terrorize German civilians. But, if, for the sake of argument, they had taken those actions in order to terrorize civilians, why shouldn't those actions be considered terrorism? -- Geo Swan 10:37, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Consider the Unabomber. He would meet the definition above, except he was a loner. He didn't have any support group. Does that mean we shouldn't consider him a terrorist? -- Geo Swan 10:37, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Depends on what "organized" means in the definition above. To simplify things, I'd say Lone-wolf terrorism shouldn't be included. This makes cases like the Oklahoma City bombing difficult, though, since it's hotly debated wether McVeigh acted alone or not. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 19:36, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
  • When the Chilean and Argentinian military juntas clandestinely kidnapped, tortured and killed those they suspected might sympathize with their political opponents, they calculated how to do it in ways that would be the most terrifying to the friends and and acquaintances of those left behind. This attempt to terrorize civilians wouldn't meet the definition above, because it didn't meet the "non-state" part of that definition.
    • One could say, "we won't consider that terrorism -- we'll call it "state terrorism", or something similar. But, does this really make sense, if the only difference between terrorism, and "state terrorism", is whether a state or non-state organization was behind it, does it really make sense to distinguish between them? -- Geo Swan 10:37, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
      • I see your point, but I think it's best to keep the situations separate, for two reasons. One is that most definitions of terrorism in the English language define non-state actors, and, to paraphrase a total idiot, "we write an encyclopedia with the English language we have, not the English language we want." The other is that actions by states are so complicated that this project could never go forward without separating the two; there's just too much grey. Admittedly, there are still gray areas: what about semi-government organizations, such as the Palestine Liberation Organization or the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam? What about state-sponsored terrorism, such as Iran's backing of Hezbollah or Uganda's unspecified support for the Lord's Resistance Army? But this at least keeps it simple enough to be manageable. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 19:36, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Consider the second attack on Fallujah.
    • My reading of the Geneva Conventions is that a belligerent that has to bombard a city has an obligation to allow the civilians to leave first. My reading of the GC is that the belligerent is obliged to provide refugee centers for the fleeing civilians. The USA didn't do this. Some civilians were able to leave. They had the money to travel. And they had a place to stay, once they left. But a significant percentage of Fallujah's residents needed the Americans to provide refugee centres. They couldn't afford to travel, or they didn't have any place to go. So they stayed behind. The Marines treated Fallujah as a free fire zone. They fired on anyone in the streets, even ambulances. They leveled whole city blocks, even though the city was still full of civilians.
    • A lot of people say Zarqari is a terrorist because he mounts attacks that he would have to know would mainly kill civilians. But, when the Marines bombarded Fallujah, they should have realized that they too would mainly kill civilians.
    • So, if Zarqari is a terrorist, why isn't James Mattis, the CO of the Marines, a terrorist? -- Geo Swan 10:37, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
      • Same as above. I personally think the actions are morally equivalent, but not semantically equivalent. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 19:36, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Ilario and Mattis were working for government organizations (US Army), so are automatically discluded from this project's scope, not neccessarily from being terrorists, that's just up to each individual. Similarily, the Dresden bombing (And why doesn't anybody ever mention the bombing of London?) falls far short of a 1975 cut-off date to have to worry about. As per whether we should differentiate between "State terrorism" and "terrorism", I think the simplest answer is "Yes, just like we differentiate between murder and assassination", they are two different phenomena in the world, that use similar tactics to achieve similar goals, but "State terrorism" would fall under a separate project. As per the Unabomber, he's a difficult case whether or not to include...Timothy McVeigh definitely acted in concert with several John Does, and the Nicholls brothers...but Theodore didn't, as I recall...personally I'd suggest we leave him off the list myself, but that would depend on consensus I suppose. Sherurcij (talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject) 19:30, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

When I was contributing to some military articles several months ago, supposedly there was some discussion going on about the use of the word terrorist anyplace in Wikipedia, because it is a POV word like the N word. There have been people in various countries that called themselves freedom fighters and had sympathetic supporters world wide, who changed sides after 9/11. Many nations, particularly in Europe are so anti-Israel that the Palestians can do anything, and it is Ok, that is not considered terrorism, while attacks on camps from which suicide bombers originated, that's considered terrorism by the pro-Palestinia nations. Can we find a link to that discussion and what the outcome of it was? User:AlMac|(talk) 04:52, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Given that the definition of 'terrorism' is hotly disputed, I would think that trying to pin down a definition here counts as original research. I think the word shouldn't be used in wikipedia at all unless its part of a citation. Damburger 12:11, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I totally disagree to define terrorism as an act of violence not comitted by a State. There truly IS such a thing as State terror, as it happened at many times throughout History, so it's very bizarre and unsubstantiated to put it aside for a more "Bushworld" definition of the term "terrorism". Why can't we just agree on the definitions that were already coined by the major dictionaries???

From the Free Dictionary:

[1] : The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48

   Terrorism \Ter"ror*ism\, n. [Cf. F. terrorisme.]
      1. The act of terrorizing, or state of being terrorized; a
         mode of government by terror or intimidation. --Jefferson.
         [1913 Webster]

      2. The practise of coercing governments to accede to
         political demands by committing violence on civilian
         targets; any similar use of violence to achieve goals.
         [PJC]


[2] : WordNet (r) 2.0

   terrorism
        n : the calculated use of violence (or threat of violence)
            against civilians in order to attain goals that are
            political or religious or ideological in nature; this is
            done through intimindation or coercion or instilling fear
            [syn: act of terrorism, terrorist act]

   See also: [act of terrorism] [terrorist act]


...and a lighter definition by Merriam-Webster's dictionary:

Main Entry: ter·ror·ism Pronunciation: 'ter-&r-"i-z&m Function: noun

the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion

- ter·ror·ist /-&r-ist/ adjective or noun - ter·ror·is·tic /"ter-&r-'is-tik/ adjective


Let's go for:

"violence against civilians by an organized actor, for political or ideological purposes, aimed at influencing through fear."

[edit] Subjects

Off the top of my head, here are some subjects that ought to be covered.

General: Terrorism, Definition of terrorism, Template:terrorism, Mujahideen, Jihad, Freedom fighter, List of terrorist organisations, Suicide bomber, Counter-terrorism, Nationalist terrorism, Domestic terrorism, Terrorist front organization, Eco-terrorism, International conventions on terrorism, List of terrorist incidents, List of organisations involved in religious terrorism, Narcoterrorism, Anarchist terrorism, FBI Most Wanted Terrorists

Japanese Red Army: Haruo Wako, Osamu Maruoka, Shigenobu, Yu Kikumura, Yoshimi Tanaka, Yukiko Ekita, Kozo Okamoto, Masao Adachi, Lod Airport massacre, Japan Airlines Flight 472, Malaysia Airlines Flight 653

Irgun: List of Irgun attacks during the 1930s, David Raziel, Lehi (group), Avraham Tehomi, Deir Yassin, King David Hotel bombing, Uri Avnery, Yitzhak Shamir

ETA: Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación, Francisco Mujika Garmendia, José Luis Alvarez Santacristina, José María Arregi Erostarbe

Palestine Liberation Organization: Fatah - the Revolutionary Council, Abu Nidal, Yasser Arafat, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Black September (group), Munich massacre, Salah Khalaf, Khartoum diplomatic assassinations, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command, Avivim school bus massacre, Dawson's Field hijackings (Leila Khaled and Patrick Arguello), Kiryat Shmona massacre, Ma'alot massacre, Achille Lauro, Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, Marwan Barghouti, Zakaria Zubeidi, Popular Resistance Committees, Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement

Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam: Velupillai Prabhakaran, S. Subramanian, Anton Balasingham, Sea Tigers, Thenmuli Rajaratnam

Hamas: Muslim Brotherhood, History of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, History of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Yahya Ayyash, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, Ahmed Yassin, Salah Shahade, Adnan al-Ghoul, Mohammed Deif, Salah Shahade, Wa'el Nassar, Salama Hamad, Imad Abbas, Nidal Fat'hi Rabah Farahat, Imad Aqel, Mahmoud al-Zahar, Netanya suicide attack, Patt junction massacre, Jerusalem bus 20 massacre, Jerusalem bus 2 massacre, Ibrahim al-Makadmeh, Members of Hamas called Qawasameh, Mohammad Taha, Khaled Mashal, Mousa Abu Marzuk, Izz El-Deen Sheikh Khalil

Provisional Irish Republican Army: Seán Mac Stíofáin, Dáithí Ó Conaill, Joe Cahill, IRA Army Council, Bloody Friday, Continuity Irish Republican Army, Real Irish Republican Army, Balcombe Street Siege, Birmingham Six, Birmingham pub bombings, Guildford Four, Brighton hotel bombing

Hezbollah: William R. Higgins, 1983 Beirut barracks bombing, Islamic Jihad, April 1983 U.S. Embassy bombing, William Francis Buckley, Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, Abbas al-Musawi, Israeli Embassy attack in Buenos Aires, AMIA Bombing, Imad Mugniyah, Ibrahim Hussein Berro, Alas Chiricanas Flight 00901, TWA Flight 847, Mohammed Ali Hammadi, Imad Mugniyah, Hassan Izz-Al-Din, Al-Manar

Red Army Faction: Andreas Baader, Thorwald Proll, Gudrun Ensslin, Horst Söhnlein, German Autumn, Brigitte Mohnhaupt, Christian Klar, Susanne Albrecht, Landshut Hijacking

Al-Qaeda: Oplan Bojinka, September 11, 2001 attacks, 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings, and many, many more

Others: Action Directe (urban guerrillas), Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia, Boricua Popular Army, Red Brigades, Shining Path, Weatherman (organization)

Lone-wolf terrorism: Eric Robert Rudolph, Timothy McVeigh, Baruch Goldstein, David Copeland, John Allen Muhammad, Lee Boyd Malvo, Theodore Kaczynski

Tangentially or controversially related: Earth Liberation Front, Animal Liberation Front, Tali Fahima, Khalid bin Mahfouz

I fill in more as I have time. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 04:37, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

By all means, edit some of these into sections on the main page - I moved over the Japanese Red Army earlier today. I'm left wondering if we should discount Irgun and try to focus on the terrorism since 1970 (1960?), to further pinpoint our focus...but then we cut out what some might see as a POV balance (other than the 1994 Mosque of Abraham massacre) - the other question that will arise is whether we want to include articles on Shamil Basayev as organizer of Beslan, or Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as an architect of 9/11...or stick only to the direct terrorists involved in the actual event. Personally I favour the latter approach, again to try and cut down on the numbers. Sherurcij (talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject) 07:22, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Finally, to pare it down a bit more, to avoid things like Jerusalem bus 2 massacre or December 2005 Palu bombing, that we also state that it's dealing with organized terrorism, or something, to avoid having to list all ___ suicide bombers and such? Sherurcij (talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject) 07:28, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea of narrowing this down. Here's my suggestion:

This projects concerns only "acts of terrorism" (as defined above) that occured since XXX (1975? 1990? 2000?) and killed over XXX people (10?). The project concerns the acts themselves, their perpetrators, victims, and surrounding topics.

What do you think? Is this a good way to be thorough, yet narrow the scope? We could call it the "contemporary terrorism" project if we wanted to be more precise. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 01:27, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Well the Munich Massacre and Dawson's Field hijackings were 1972 and 1970 respectively, and personally I'd say they epitomize the "golden age" of terrorism, at least in the West - so I'd suggest making the date 1970. Whether or not we should include a minimum death count I'm wary, since many things, like the hijackings, did not end up with any fatalities (other than the hijackers), but still sowed terror, made global headlines, and were the birth of a new movement.

[edit] More terminology

  • Al-Qaeda
    • There is what THEY call the Crusaders for which I do not see a Wiki article explaining this belief system. There is reference to the medieval crusades, which occurred before the USA came into being.
  • Fatwa is a religious part of Islam in the absense of Sharia or Islamic secular law. It is important to make sure there are no attacks on normal parts of a religion because some parts of it have been used by some religious leaders to foment war against the West.
    • The fatwas proclaimed by Osama bin Ladin have got enormous press coverage, distorting the meaning of fatwa in the eyes of non-Muslims.
      • Oops, he issued two separate fatwas
      • 1996 titled: "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places."
      • 1998 has 3 grievances
        • U.S. occupation of the Arabian Peninsula (at the invitation of nations there to protect them from Saddam after invasion of Kuwait)
        • U.S. aggression against the Iraqi people (aftermath of Saddam invasion of Kuwait)
        • U.S. support of Israel
    • Pat Robertson issued a Christian equivalent of a fatwa, calling for the assassination of Hugo Chávez, then withdrew it after heavy criticism.

User:AlMac|(talk) 08:15, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Good luck on this

I'll try to contribute as I can, but doubt I'll be able to do enough to call myself a "participant" (I'm in poor health)... I see you running into all kinds of controversy from people who deny any difference between stealth attacks on innocent civilians and nation-state military actions, but by my lights there is indeed an objective difference with real moral implications, and I hope you can hold the line on that. JDG 20:03, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Taking off main page, throwing back here behind the curtain

main article

|Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti |Taha Yassin Ramadan |Awad Hamed al-Bandar |Abdullah Kadhem Roweed Al-Musheikhi |Mizher Abdullah Roweed Al-Musheikhi |Ali Daeem Ali |Mohammed Azawi Ali Sherurcij (talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject) 20:17, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Trolling for opinions

9/11 hijackers, we seem to say "They also used the alias..." quite a bit, when it seems like a slightly POV term, when these are almost entirely FBI mix-ups, or media misspellings, not aliases. I'm in favour of keeping the list of additional names for a reader to search for online, but think we should instead say "His name was at various times identified as..." - thoughts? Sherurcij (talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject) 13:54, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

So long as the name is very similar, that sounds like a good idea. I'd be careful about "Zaid Jarrahi" in particular, since that is the focus of quite a bit of contoversy - but that article says "There are many variations on his name, including. . .", which should be fine. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 14:07, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
Arabic names seem more prone to innocent nicknames, even without the complications of different transliterations. And some cultures, like Russian, Native American, and, it seems, some Arabic cultures, seem more prone to apply innocent nick-names to people. See the Combatant Status Review Tribunal for Abdullah Kamel Abdullah Kamel Al Kandari -- his name is spelled half a dozen different ways in his dossier. Yet, he was told that he was detained because his name matched one found on a hard drive captured from another al Qaeda suspect's computer. -- Geo Swan 16:40, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
No kidding. Check out Abu Nidal, born "Sabri Khalil al-Banna", also known as "Amin al-Sirr" and "Sabri Khalil Abd Al Qadir" -- and each of these could be spelled 50 different ways! – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 16:56, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Heh

Just as per the earlier discussions on the difference between what is known about the hijackers (Hani Hanjour enrolled at Sawyer Aviation), and what is only 'known' about them, but widely reported by the media (Atta enjoyed lapdances, based on the testimony of strippers who recognise his face), I think I found my favourite, where this link indicates Folks at the Chapel of Love quickie-marriage emporium even swear they saw Atta driving a cab. Heh Sherurcij (talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject) 11:45, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] important in the present scenario

there is no doubt that Al qaeda is the number1 terrorist organisation in the world,and it is not listed here.so i have. and by the way,how come this project doesnt have templates? Mes Aynak?--Jayanthv86 18:45, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Al-Manar

Although the article doesn't appear on your project page, I guess this article would fit into your project, since al-Manar has been listed as a terrorist organization by the state department: I would like to improve/expand/ the article on this tv station (possible even to FA status) and was hoping you guys would be interested in helping me. I have searched the whole internet for sources and listed them as a sub-page of my user page. Would you be interested in helping here?--Carabinieri 10:44, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Talk:Terrorism

Check the archives. A lot of key topics there.

For example. Osama bin Laden, and his representatives, have made several speeches trying to explain why they declared war on America, and what it is they want ... their conditions for peace. Does their position have a place in this Wikipedia, and can it be protected from vandalism? User:AlMac|(talk) 04:59, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes it does, and it can be only with vigilance. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 12:57, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Talk:Islamic extremist terrorism

Another place with relevant discussion, defining terminology. Terrorism may or may not include Islamic extremists. Which is the more correct terminology? Islamist or Islamic? I feel like we may need a Wikithesaurus giving the best words to use in what context. This would be a prerequisite to merging some similar articles. User:AlMac|(talk) 08:08, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

"Islamic" just means having to do with Islam. The hajj is an "Islamic" rite, for instance. "Islamist" is a political belief that the state should be based on "Islamic" principles. (Many Muslims would say that if you are a Muslim, you must be an Islamist, since Islam is a whole life system that includes politics just as much as it does morality, but that's another matter.) Anyway, Islamists are frequently non-violent, but nearly all Muslim terrorists are "Islamists" -- they want to establish a Muslim state.
The word "extremist" is also very troubling. Ziad Jarrah was not, I would argue, a Muslim extremist, since he apparently drank alcohol and had a girlfriend who didn't wear a veil. He wasn't even a good Muslim, much less an extreme one. The Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is much more of an "extremist" in the sense of "fundamentalist", but he advocates voting and has issued a fatwa against political violence in Iraq. I think the word "extremist" is just a POV term that doesn't help describe someone's actual belief system. Wouldn't it be better to say that Sistani is a "devout" Muslim, and Jarrah was a "less devout" Muslim? Both are obviously Islamists. But Jarrah believed in killing civilians in order to acheive a political goal, and Sistani does not.
I think the term "violent Islamists" is the best one to use. It describes someone willing to use violence to establish a Muslim state. But of course many violent Islamists reject terrorism, arguing that violence is only justified in warfare against enemy soldiers -- like the Qur'an says.
I hope this helps, – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 13:09, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Where is the proof?

Way too much self-serving identification of groups and individuals as terrorists here. Where is Luis Posada Carriles, the mastermind behind the explosion of a Cuban airliner?

Where is the discussion of false-flag terrorism, used by certain countries to frame their political enemies?

Clearly this page and project has been started with the intent of demonizing anti-american and anti-Israeli "terrorists". So much of the information here, esp. the identities of the WTC demolition-related hijackers is based on nothing more than the assertions of a lying administration... talk about revisionist history...

Any constructive criticism is welcomed. Luis Posada Carriles should indeed be a part of this project, for instance. But it's important to assume good faith. I listed Israeli terrorists as well as Muslim terrorists. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 13:08, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Aye, similarily, I welcome the addition of any notable terrorists of any stripe. The two that I am most familiar with are the Beslan hostagetaking (which was not religiously motivated, so can hardly be called anti-Muslim...I've actually been one of the people keeping the term "Islamic terrorists" off the Beslan page for months now - and the 9/11 hijackers, who I definitely don't think I villanize, and instead grow paranoid about whitewashing. Try actually reading articles before you complain about them, and where you see gaps, help us fill them :) Sherurcij (talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject) 13:32, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Counter/anti terrorism

Can we add the pages on Counterterrorism and antiterrorism to this project, or must we only refer to individuals here? I ask this because my expertise is in my experience wtih CT/AT tactics in the military, not history. ⇒ SWATJester 20:23, 7 February 2006 (UTC)


Speaking of adding things, can we add the recent intelligence summit in where Terrorism was a key topic (second only to release of tapes showing Saddam's intent to avoid Weapons Inspectors)? ⇒ SWATJester Ready Aim Fire! 10:13, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] India related articles

Just stumbled on this and find the project attractive; however, I do not have much time on my hands these days - so, I'll leave a note. Babbar Khalsa seems to be ok, but the articles on the terrorists mentioned there need to be started or improved. I see regular discussions on Talk:Nelson Mandela as to the contention that he is a freedom-fighter vs. the one which calls him a terrorist. I see the same on Talk:Terrorism in Kashmir as well, so someone may want to step in. --Gurubrahma 08:47, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Red Army Fraction

I took liberty in adding the German Red Army Fraction and the German Autumn to the project page. I feel that these articles also could need some work. Ben T/C 03:02, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Juba (sniper)

While I really hate to bring even more opinions to this article, it could really use expanding. Can someone here help out? It is becoming incredibly hard to find anything verifiable on this sniper/freedom fighter/terrorist. Thanks. --The1exile - Talk - Contribs 16:49, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request for feedback

Hello - would someone with more knowledge on the subject look at The Order (group) and the related David Lane & Robert Jay Mathews entries and decide if this group and the individuals involved meet the amorphous criteria of domestic terrorists? There has been some contention about the matter over at Talk:David Lane. These entries have a "fan base" and The Order & Robert Jay Mathews are pure starry-eyed fancruft at the moment. David Lane is tagged with the terrorist category, but the other two are not. I argued that David Lane meets the criteria, but now I am bowing to the experts on the subject to determine if this is an accurate representation. WeniWidiWiki 23:09, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jean Charles de Menezes??!!

He's no terrorist! It was a mistake! Keep up with the times, man! Foriegners shouldn't add someone that they don't know everything about! They should ask here! --NatovR 16:38, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Khodov

Replaced "stub" with "good" - acknowledging how much work was spent on this. The main problem remaining is when his brother was released from prison. Various reports clash with the version of Der Spiegel. User:Pan_Gerwazy--pgp 23:38, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] AFD Relisted for more input

Pasban e Islam has been nominated for deletion. Reading the article and the one substantive comment on the AFD, the organization has been associated with terrorism. The AFD has been relisted for more input, and I thought you might be a group in good position to give more input and or improve the article to address the nominators concerns. GRBerry 22:09, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Added my voice of support for the article, also threw it on my own backburner of things to google around and see if I can find any more information to add in the near future. Much thanks for the heads-up :) Sherurcij (talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject) 22:48, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:WikiProject Terrorism and counter-terrorism

This is a newly formed project with a more expansive scope. They've decided to target anything that can be categorized at Category:Terrorism or it's subcategories. Take a look. GRBerry 03:43, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ziad Jarrah

Ziad Jarrah is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 22:25, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Al-Manar

Me and some other editors have been creating this article and would like help and think it should be part of the project. Is it ok for me to add the terrorism project template on the talk page of the article? I have just joined today.Hypnosadist 15:59, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jimbo Wales highly recommended ...

Jimbo Wales highly recommended to delete the article about the SPK and all links to the Wikipedia-project terrorism. See our recent Boston meeting, see the juridical proceedings of SPK against Wikipedia.

I assume you mean "delete reference to the SPK article in this project", not deleting the actual article itself. Assuming that's what you mean, I actually agree with you, I had removed it myself once already while tidying up the main page since it didn't seem to fit within the scope at all. Let's give it a week, and see if we can get (non-votestacked) 75% consensus to remove it. Sherurcij (Speaker for the Dead) 12:55, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I made no recommendation about this article. The anon ip number should be ignored.--Jimbo Wales 23:34, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Attempted Bombing in Germany

Should we create an article of these attempted bombings of trains in germany. [1] Hypnosadist 23:46, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed merger of projects

Considering that the two projects have a significant amount of overlap, I was wondering whether the members of this project would consider merging the project with the Wikipedia:WikiProject Terrorism and counter-terrorism. Badbilltucker 23:30, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay by me. LDH 09:47, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 22:21, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Timeline of terrorism

Hello,

I hope I'm not taking up too much of everyones time, however, a few months ago I was working on a timeline of terrorist activities based on the same format as my other timeline's on organized crime, piracy and the American Wild West. While it was unfortunatly nominated for deletion due to concerns regarding its encyclopedic worth, it was restored on my user page where I had begun working on putting entries in to more specific timeslines (see Timeline of the Irish Republican Army) and I was curious if this might be of any help to the project ? The original timeline was compiled from the following references, with exception to information from the official United Nations and Interpol websites:
  • Crenshaw, Martha and John Pimlott, ed. Encyclopedia of World Terrorism. Armonk, NY: Sharpe Reference, 1997. ISBN 1-56324-806-9
  • Kushner, Harvey. Encyclopedia of Terrorism. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Inc., 2003 ISBN 0-7619-2408-6
  • Henderson, Harry. Terrorism. New York: Facts On File Inc., 2001. ISBN 0-8160-4259-4
  • Mickolus, Edward F. and Susan L. Simmons. Terrorism, 1996-2001: a chronology. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002. ISBN 0-313-31785-2
  • Sawinski, Diane and Matthew May. Terrorism: Biographies. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group Inc., 2003. ISBN 0-7876-6567-3

I've also been working on missing topics lists based on these specific books as well, it it would be any help to the project in the future. MadMax 04:41, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The 9/11 article is in bad shape

Myself and several others have tried to make September 11, 2001 attacks more encyclopedic but there has been considerble resistance from a group of people 'guarding' the POV of the article. The opening paragraph uses the word 'terrorist' in the editorial voice. I don't care if it has a citation - it's written as the opinion of wikipedia and wikipedia is not supposed to have an opinion. Words like 'massacred' and 'murdered' are used instead of the neutral 'killed'.

The editors camping out the article simply cannot see their own bias. Something needs to be done there. Damburger 12:22, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Well I've removed the "massacred" comment, and left a talk-page comment about the "murdered" comments - I'm sorry to agree with you that the article is a mish-mash of conspiracy theorists, terrorist-haters and editorialists. ("Some people believe 9/11 changed the world forever...", etc)
Personally I'm always in favour of "less is more" on these gigantic articles, and prefer to break it down into Psychiatric evaulations of Sherurcij's rampage, Fatalities from Sherurcij's rampage and Criticisms of the official reaction to Sherurcij's rampage when we're dealing with something like this. :Unfortunately, these "camped" editors do more harm than good - I still consider the Beslan Hostage Crisis to be a sad pinnacle of how quickly an article's quality can deteriorate. Sherurcij (Speaker for the Dead) 05:23, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 23:26, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Crime

I've been asking around on various crime and criminology related WikiProjects concerning a proposal for WikiProject Crime and, if the project gains support, weither members of WikiProject Terrorism and other projects would be interested in forming a Portal:Crime in order to organize and coordinate overlapping crime and criminology related projects ? MadMax 21:57, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lone wolf (terrorism)

I've done my best to help this article, and I thought I'd draw attention to it from other editors. It still needs help. --Saswann 18:53, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New article

I'm creating a new article 2007 Plot to Behead a British Muslim Soldier. Hypnosadist 00:00, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Ooh, nice - I'll try to give a hand. Sherurcij (Speaker for the Dead) 05:38, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Note: Article has been merged into a preexisting one on the subject. KazakhPol 06:08, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
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