Tactics, weapons, targets and rationale behind the actions of the mostly operational terrorist groups across Europe

This paper discusses the practices employed by various terrorist groups that operated in European countries between the years of 1968 and 2009. We focus on the deployment of the terrorist operations as presented in the RAND Database of Worldwide Terrorism Activities. In this context we elaborate on the tactics of the terrorist groups with the highest frequency of actions that operated in the European countries showing the highest rate of terrorist activity. Their targets, the weapons used and the consequences suffered as a result of their actions (both fatalities and injuries intended for the original targets, as well as any kind of collateral damage caused to third parties) are analyzed, in order to evaluate their ideological and - perhaps - ethical standing. In particular, we look at the groups' targets as well as the tactics they used to achieve them, in a bid to explore whether there is a correlation between targeting of specific people or groups of people or other types of targets with certain international events - and if so, how these events influenced the actions of the terrorists. Within this line of thought, we also provide an outline of the political and ideological framework of the groups on focus in an effort to place them within the general historical and political context during their operational years. This is of great importance, as it enables us to run a comparison between terrorist groups that operated in different countries (albeit with similar aims) both from an ideological and operational viewpoint.

I. Introduction

One might ask why should anyone study the way terrorists acted, especially now that plenty of them have been arrested and their groups are inactive? The reason is practical. We live in a turbulent world. The issues people face every day in almost every part of this planet may appear with different parameters, but at the root they are common: injustice, social inequalities, violence, war, issues relating to human rights. For each of the aforementioned issues, depending on the recipient, there is a suggested solution; sometimes a more conservative one (from the state's side) and other times a much more extreme one (from the side of revolutionary organizations). European terrorists looked at these issues from a revolutionary perspective. They took a strong position arguing that no change can happen and no improvement will ever be made unless there is exemplary punishment of those who harmed people with their actions or those who undermined their prosperity and freedom. Terrorists had dreams (in fact killing dreams), ideals and a plan of action. They supported their ideas with a system of rules and they set criteria about the way targets should be selected (for example, their involvement in committing crimes of any kind, e.g. political, financial or social). For the innocent bystanders there was only one rule: they should remain safe and away from the operations. As we will see in the next pages though, the revolutionary actions did not prove to be as good and effective as they sounded in theory.