Defining and Distinguishing Traditional and Religious Terrorism

Abstract

thus offering few if any policy options for counterterrorism measures. This assumption about religious terrorism stems from two challenges in the literature: disproportionate attention to apocalyptic terrorism, and a lack of distinction between religious terrorism and its secular counterpart. This article, therefore, aims to do four things: define and differentiate religiously motivated terrorism from traditional terrorism; investigate three goals of religious terrorism (fomenting the apocalypse, creating a religious government, and establishing a religiously pure state); consider the role of leadership and target selection of religious terrorists; and, finally, suggest a range of counterterrorism strategies based on these observations.