A brief attempt to define terrorism and terrorist purposes

Abstract

The article is an attempt to better define terrorism on the basis of its manifestations and purposes, to show that set of phenomena, processes, principles that best characterize it. Indeed, it is too ambitious to think that among the thousands of definitions of organizations, security services, states and scientific organizations we will be able to derive a universal definition. For the above reason, we have tried to analyze the etymological meaning of terrorism, but also the objectives of terrorism, the types of targets, the sought effects and some known “achievements” of terrorism and terrorist organizations through which the phenomenon can be described. Attached examples and photos of actual terrorist acts help us to show the current development of terrorism and almost entirely – the reorientation towards the easily vulnerable (so cold “soft”) targets. According to data from different studies, more than 90% of cases are such.