Terrorism has been a major concern for the whole world for many decades now, it’s safe to say that it will never be possible to wholly eradicate terrorism from our society. Terrorist attacks whenever executed, only destroy the surroundings and not only objects sometimes an entire religion is burnt down with it. There is only one way to define terrorism that it is the unlawful use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims which means that terrorism will only be spread and evolve dangerously as the government does not approve of their claims easily because they are not reasonable at times. Certain videos and messages received show that terrorism is still an urgent threat to the society also the attacks being executed show that they have increased in numbers and developed better ways to attack the society. Although many people argue that terrorism has been eradicated after the execution of Al-Qaeda’s leader Osama- Bin Laden or been reduced by a great extent from the past few decades and although people even highlight the positivity of the occurrences this is so not true.  The terrorists whether individual or in a group are expanding and growing powerful as days pass, they do not play by rules and people need to understand the logics as to why these attacks are executed and how, people and groups that execute them also they need to be made aware of the many more negative effects terrorism has over our society, eventually how to counter terrorism as a whole.

One of the sources claims on the rising of terrorism after the assassination of Bin Laden. It lists Bin Laden’s son as a ‘Global terrorist’ which is a reason to be concerned about. Not only does it provide a message it also shows that the terrorist groups are active and are ready to avenge their leader’s death. It gives an insight into Hamza-Bin Laden’s life also his interest in joining his father’s terrorist campaign. The appearance of him in propaganda films and in documents indicate that the young man was being groomed for a Qaeda leadership role which proves that he can be cause mass destruction to the society. On the other hand, one of the sources shares an interesting experience of the son of a terrorist himself explaining his father’s indulgence in terrorism and further forcing his son to target practice and train with him. Zak Ebrahim explains his take on terrorism also that he used to hate his father for executing several terrorist attacks and how he finally left him and chose peace over terrorism. This argument provides an explanation to all the people in the world that you always have a choice between right and wrong and that terrorism arises from misunderstanding and sometimes out of pure anger which is why attacks are executed. This explains one logic that the attacks emerge from various misapprehensions but this does not provide a solution to the cause, this only gives the people an explanation to think about. 

To support the argument that the many terrorist groups are still active and in power even after 9/11, Daniel R. DePetris provides with the five deadliest terrorist groups on the planet. He adds that like it or not terrorism will continue to be a problem for Unites States, its allies and the rest of the international community. He presents his list of operational groups today and the list is topped “The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” also known as (ISIS OR ISIL) : exactly the type of organization: strong enough to rout several divisions of a national army, and rich enough to sustain their operations at an impressive pace. The second one is “Boko Haram” The jihadist group in northeastern Nigeria catapulted to the world’s attention when a boarding school in the Nigerian border town of Chibok was raided in the middle of the night. Another one of them is the “Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quad Force” a highly-secretive branch of the Islamic Republic is nonetheless incredibly effective at what it does: connect with, maintain and support terrorist groups in the region that will enhance Iran’s regional posture and keep its enemies off balance. The fourth one is the “Hakkim Network” although the Haqqani network was only designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department in the fall of 2012, the organization has been and remains the most lethal strain of the anti-U.S., anti-ISAF insurgency in Afghanistan. The last one is “Kataib Hezbollah” formed in 2006 or 2007, was once known for ambushing U.S. troops during their patrols of Iraqi neighborhoods and for placing armored-piercing IED’s on the roads that U.S. Humvees would use. He presents all this information to aware the people around the world that terrorism is still active and is growing ruthlessly.

Jeff Victoroff’s article on The Mind of a Terrorist provides data and theoretical material which provides the government information to strengthen the policies to reduce the effect. This source explains the feelings, ideas and the social influences of modern terrorist groups. To understand the logic of why terrorism takes places it’s important to understand that why do people even become terrorists. It explains the psychological thinking of a terrorists and tells that sometimes a person does not know what he is up to and that it can be harmful also that terrorist behavior is probably always determined by a combination of biological, temperament and environmental influences.  Jeff states that it can be immensely useful to understand the mind of a terrorist so that it helps to prevent the attacks from even executing he also says that the terrorist groups will grow to immense power and that they will have to be stopped. This article helps people understand the significance of the topic and people would be interested in this research as they want to see the world evolve into a better and peaceful place.

To support the claims made by the articles used, the next source provides an insight into a new way developed by the terrorist groups to keep their activities operational. Gabriel Weimann’s book on ‘Terrorism in Cyberspace’ argues that terrorism has not been won yet. He says that even though Al-Qaeda’s leadership has been largely destroyed and its organizations have been disrupted, the operations continue effectively and that the attacks take 12,000 lives annually worldwide. He explains that the terrorists have adapted to a new method of organisation  which helps them to spread them their evil ideology which is that largely by going online terrorist have created more than 10,000 websites that offers their users emails, chat rooms, e-groups, forums, virtual message boards and Google earth too suited for executing their attacks and keeping their organizations alive. He discusses a lot of things such as how terrorism came online and explains that in this endless war on terrorism when terrorists saw a potentially harmful way to exploit the society they started using and abusing the Internet for terrorism purposes also as it is proven to be a fast and efficient platform for the flow of communication.

Although people would argue that it is not harmful for the society as terrorism cannot be spread immensely through the platform of Internet but he says that it is a serious matter which is proving to be successful in favor of the terrorist groups and that it needs to be dealt with. This source is important for the research question as this too explains the logics and the new way of thinking the terrorist groups have conducted as it also vastly important to keep the people updated about everything also aware the government to produce better technologies and strategies for defense.

Terrorism can have outrageous effects and completely havoc a society as well as an individual, these sources talk about what harm they do to the society and how and if the can be overcome. With the execution of the cruel attacks comes more crueler effects on the society and Roger M. Kubarych’s article ‘Aftermath of the terrorist’ although only talks about the effects on US it can be said these effects have also been witnessed worldwide. The main claim of this article is to highlight the economic, financial and political consequences on US as it is the victim of one of the largest assault. He says that most of the attacks take place in US when it has only been barely averting a recession also it has a crushing impact on consumer confidence, he says that there is a mixed impact on business investment which makes large as well as small companies to improve their internal risk management systems. He explains that due to all the problems the world will also feel the pain of the US economic slump. A source that supports all the arguments made here is Tim Krieger’s and Daniel Meierrieks ‘What causes terrorism’ which specifically covers the social, political and demographic effects after attacks worldwide. It tells us that terrorism has a negative effect on the economy as attacks may not cause immediate effect but they indirectly have substantial political and economic cost. They provide another interesting argument that the targets of transnational targets arise poverty too as poor countries do not generate more terrorism than rich countries which results in decreasing international publicity as these attacks usually are executed for the terrorism publicity too.  Kubarych, Krieger and Meierrieks point out all these things as these are important harmful effects caused by the terrorist attacks or any terrorist activity, occurrences like this unbalances the society in forms of socially economical which leads to poverty, lack of education and lack of political freedom. Another important branch it grows is religious conflicts which further creates more damage. 

Terrorism not only results in physical destruction but it is more than capable of mental destruction to a huge extent. This claim is made by Omar Alnatour in his article “Muslims are not terrorists” in which he explains that an entire religion is put to be slaughtered for the ruthless deeds of a group of people. Not only Muslims many other religions often witness this scrutiny. Alnatour ferociously says that every time an attack occurs Muslims watch closely hoping the suspect is not a Muslim because these terrorists are not likely to be Muslim just because the amplified mass media coverage and extreme unjustified justice has provoked people to change their perceptions towards a certain religion and the hate has grown to a much dangerous extent. He supports his argument with statistics and examples to prove that Muslim is a peaceful religion that has no intent to hurt anybody, he adds that non-terrorist Muslims make up majority of terrorists in the United States and in Europe. All his facts help him shape up a good argument that cannot be denied by people. He pleads people to change their thinking towards certain religions and not believe to anything they see. These effects that are mentioned are actually helpful to explain the research question’s claim, these effects have been witnessed worldwide which weaken the healthy bond of the society. Religion is a sensitive topic, he adds that that the hate needs to eradicated from the society to make the world a better place, he says when you respect and love the people around you the situation will instantly get peaceful. People would not argue against this topic they have all felt the injustice faced by religions and a vast majority of people are ready to take the step to see their society evolve into a better one.

Most of the sources talk about the negative effects over the society but Stephen Johnson differs on some views as he argues that there are many positive effects that can arise from terrorism in his ‘Trauma, Recovery and Growth’. He argues with examples that the effects of a terrorist attack are good for society such as the positive domain of personal group functioning, development of new strengths and skills, altruism and behavioral effects and quite innovatively it also says that after a few weeks of attacks the trauma-related-symptoms decrease quickly and thus our emotions have a normal adaptive value. He adds that there is a chance of posttraumatic growth after instances like this. But all the arguments he mentions would feel insensible to many people as in order for the positive effects to take place the bad deed has to happen. The arguments made by Johnson are not reasonable as the completely neglect the fact that the society has to be damaged in order to gain positive effects. This article mostly proves to be a kind of a hope for people that there is always something good waiting at the end of the road. Most people would undoubtedly consider this not rational but maybe that’s the way it is, if after the bad deeds people see a ray of hope for a better future for themselves they will follow that path. This source helps to support the effects of terrorism and how cruel they can be on people, it breaks people.

The sources talk about the effects and the development of new technologies or new strategies also the logics of terrorism but it all comes down to this that is there actually a way terrorism can be countered. Dustin V. gives an interesting a realistic theory to hopefully reduce terrorism, his articles title is “Counter Terrorism with Non-Violence” in which he starts off by presenting stats that prove how cruel and treacherous attacks have been executed. He says that after the 9/11 attacks, terrorists have carried out over 20000 deadly terror attacks, killing millions of people. There attacks include more than 47,000 bombings, 14,000 assassinations, and 5,300 kidnappings. There are around 256 International terrorists group, which are carrying out attacks in the world for their demands. When questioned, what is needed to take down terrorism? He answers that the answer lies in the basic roots of terrorism, most of the terrorists are uneducated or unemployed and the terrorist organizations greed them with money or completely brainwash them to join their evil campaigns. He says that a terrorist is born when they are denied from their fundamental rights and discriminated because of their caste, religion and sex and they feel the urge to commit crimes to take revenge. He takes the blame and says that it is undeniable that these monsters are created by people only. “You can kill a person, but it will take ages to kill an ideology” he adds to further prove his arguments that people need to educated, if proper education is given to the backward people than no one can make fool them and they will be able to take their decision regarding their life advantage. Another important fact is Employment, many of the youth see terrorism as the only option left when they are unemployed and cannot even fill their stomachs. It is immensely significant for the society to grow and the factors and arguments pointed out by Dustin help tackle terrorism also help to vastly explain how it can be eradicated from its roots. All the people of the world care about the current situation of our society and they want their future generations to grow older in a place which only has positivity and peace around it.

In conclusion, I have posed my sources and arguments to explain my research question as much as possible, it talks about all the factors of terrorism, the active terrorist groups, the logics with which terrorist attack, the positive and negative effects of terrorism on society and eventually the ways to counter terrorism. Terrorism is shaping up to be the most urgent threat for our society and the government along with the people of the world need to take immediate effective actions. I personally believe that terrorism can be reduced to an enormous extent if the people around unite and help the uneducated people to break free from the restraints of terrorist groups and rather help them to create a pleasant future for themselves.
