Chapter 4: State Terrorism

Political Crime and Terrorism

True or False: Violence by governments be committed domestically or internationally.

True

What does Domestic state terrorism refer to?

Violence organized by a government within its own borders.

What does International state terrorism refer to?

Violence organized by a government outside its legally demarcated territory.

What is direct state terrorism?

Violence committed by agents of a government. (military troops, police officers, intelligence agents)

What is indirect state terrorism?

Involves government’s support for violence committed by entities that are not a part of the government’s formal structure.

What are the factors that contribute to domestic state terrorism?

Suppression of an insurgency, intimidation of a population from challenging the government’s power and authority, accumulation of power, and destruction of a group viewed as inferior by the ruling party of the government.

What is an insurgency?

What are the factors that contribute to international state terrorism?

Promotion of a particular ideology (religious, ethnic, economic), implementation of territorial ambitions, undermining of a geopolitical rival’s influence, and pursuit of economic benefits

True or False: In some instances of state-sponsered violence either domestically or internationally, multiple factors may motivate the violence.

True

What is State Patronage of International Terrorism?

A government engages in political or ideological violence outside its recognized borders directly.

Example of state patronage of international terrorism. (Ukraine)

Russian invasion of Ukraine and widespread mistreatment of non-combatants.

Example of state patronage of international terrorism. (USA and Israel)

Bombings of civilian targets committed by the United States and Israeli militaries in Iran since February 28th, 2026.

Example of state patronage of international terrorism. (Syria)

Various invasions of Northern Syria during the Syrian civil war, resulting in hundreds of deaths among Kurdish non-combatants.

True or False: State patronage of international terrorism can also entail a government providing overt support for violence committed outside its borders by a separate entity.

True

State patronage of international terrorism - overt support for violence outside borders of own separate entity (define the moral support)

Overt alignment with the goals or ideology of a group, including the promotion of the group within international institutions

State patronage of international terrorism - overt support for violence outside borders of own separate entity (define the logistical support)

Provision of funding, training, or military hardware to a group

What is an example of governments supporting violence outside their borders by separate entities? (LA)

Support by the U.S. government to right-wing militias and governments in Latin America that have perpetrated massacres of civilians. The Contras militia in Nicaragua in the 1980s and the government in Guatemala in 1960-1996.

What is an example of governments supporting violence outside their borders by separate entities? (Iran)

Widespread support provided by the Iranian government to various militias across the Middle East. Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthi movement in Yemen.

What is an example of governments supporting violence outside their borders by separate entities? (Russia)

The Russian government’s support for the Wagner private security company.

What is state assistance in international terrorism?

Covert support by a government of an entity outside its borders engaged in political or ideological violence. (namely, provision of financial and military assistance).

For state assistance in international terrorism , does the government identity the existence or extent of support?

Yes

What is an example of covert state assistance in international terrorism? (Iran)

Iran’s provision of weapons to Russia to help in its invasion of Ukraine.

What is an example of covert state assistance in international terrorism? (Sudan)

Military assistance provided by the United Arab Emirates to the Rapid Support forces (RSF) militia in Sudan. Demonstrated to have massacred tens of thousands of civilians in Sudan in recent years.

What is an example of covert state assistance in international terrorism? (France)

France’s military support for the Hutu-led government in Rwanda before and during the genocide against the Tutsis. Included provision of weapons and direct training. The French government was also accused of an unwillingness to stop the massacres against the Tutsis.

What is state patronage of domestic terrorism?

Agents of a government directly engage in violence against the government’s own citizens

Example of state patronage of domestic terrorism (Iran).

Massacres committed by Iran’s security forces against anti-government protesters in late 2025 and early 2026

Example of state patronage of domestic terrorism (Philippines)

Widespread violence committed against drug dealers and users by police officers in the Philippines in 2016 - 2022, in an attempt to eliminate a population the government viewed as destructive

Example of state patronage of domestic terrorism (Ethiopia).

Extensive killings, sexual violence, and torture perpetrated by the Ethiopian military in the Tigray region in 2020 - 2022, under the pretense of suppressing an insurgency.

What is state assistance in domestic terrorism?

A government’s provision of monetary and/or logistical support to a militia for committing violence inside the country’s recognized borders. In some cases, the violence by the militia occurs in conjunction with violence by the government’s agents.

What is an example of state assistance in domestic terrorism? (El Salvador)

The government in El Salvador helped in forming a right-wing militia that engaged in a campaign of violence against perceived supporters of a left-wing guerrilla force in the 1980s and early 1990s.

What is an example of state assistance in domestic terrorism? (Sudan)

The Sudanese government funded and armed a militia that committed widespread killings and sexual violence in the Darfur region, starting in 2003.

What are the important elements of state terrorism?

Various campaigns of state violence began after an attack by an insurgent group. Factors such as religion, ethnicity, or geographical location are not predictors of state terrorism.

Look at slide 12 - examples

Violence against the Tamil population in Sri Lanka; the massacres against the population of Darfur in Sudan. The response to the attack results in unimaginable brutalization of the civilian population that the insurgent group claims to represent.

What does genocide mean? And who was it coined by?

The destruction of a nation or ethnic group. Coined by lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944.

True or False (and explained): Can genocide be committed through various types of acts?

Yes. Mass killings, sexual assault campaigns, obliteration of cultural or religious centers, prohibition of victim group’s language or cultural practices, forcible sterilization, etc.

What does the UN state that genocide entails regarding acts.

Acts that are committed with the intention to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.

What does the UN categorize as genocide, what are the acts?

Killing members of the group. Causing severe bodily or mental harm to members of the group. Deliberately inflicting on members of the group conditions of life calculated to cause its physical destruction in whole or in part. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Why do governments engage in genocidal campaigns?

Eliminate a threat to its power. Accumulate more power by violently targeting a demonized group and consequently gaining support among the broader population. Destroy a group the ruling party of the government views as inferior (Through physical extermination, often accompanied by widespread expulsion from the country).

True or False: In some genocidal campaigns, multiple factors contribute to the violence?

True

What is the background of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire?

Ethnic Armenians predominantly lived in 6 provinces within the Turkish-led Ottoman Empire where they experienced discrimination socially and legally. Late 1800s, Ottoman Armenians advocated for reforms for greater rights, which contributed to a sense among ethnic Turks and Kurds that Armenians could not be trusted and posed a threat.

What did the Armenians face in Ottoman Empire?

Experienced several large-scale massacres beforehand by Ottoman troops and Kurdish civilians. The arrest and subsequent execution of hundreds of Armenian intellectuals. Then were deported once they knew they were collaborating with the Russian Empire during WWI.

What is another name for Committee of Union and Progress?

Young Turks

What did the deportation of the Armenian population mean?

Marching through the Syrian desert, leading to many deaths. Massacres as well and disease. More than 1 million deaths.

What is the background of the Greeks and the Ottoman Empire?

There was the perception by the Ottoman Turks that the Greeks were more economically successful than them and that they believed that the Ottoman Greeks worked on behalf of Greece and sought to betray the empire.

What kind of rules were implemented against the Greeks?

Economic boycotts, forced labor in military units, starvation, fatigue, and widespread massacres committed against Greeks by Ottoman Troops. Greek villages were destroyed and its populations massacred. Culminated in the burning of the Greek city of Smyrna, and the death of at least 10,000 people. All together 800,000 Ottoman Greeks died in the genocidal campaign against them .

True or False: The genocidal campaigns by the Ottoman Empire are NOT collectively referred to as the first genocide of the 20th century.

False; They ARE

What did the Nazi Party believe?

Jewish people are the inferior race and that by eliminating them, they would be on a quest for domination of the world.

What laws were placed on the Jewish population?

Prohibited Jews from working in civil service jobs. Restricted the enrollment of Jews in schools and universities. Stripped Jews of German citizenship. Prohibited Jews from marrying ethnic Germans.

What types of organized violence against German Jews happened in 1938?

Thousands of Jewish businesses and synagogues were destroyed.

Nazi forces invaded European countries in 1939; how was this facilitated?

Facilitated by the collaboration of like-minded local authorities and populations in the countries that Nazi Germany occupied. Led to arrests of Jews in Germany and the occupied territories and their confinement in concentration camps.

What was the plan for Nazi’s to exterminate the Jewish population in Europe?

Implemented by organized massacres and the transportation of Jewish detainees to death camps in occupied Poland. They were killed by exposure to carbon monoxide and Zyklon B in these camps. The Holocaust of Jews in Europe entailed the murder of approx. 6 million people.

What is the background of the Bengalis in East Pakistan?

Pakistan was divided into two parts not physically connected to each other. East Pakistan had a higher population than the Western part of the country, but they were economically disadvantaged and politically disenfranchised. This led to a campaign that promoted autonomy for East Pakistan, which was viewed as a threat by the government in West Pakistan.

What was another reason why East Pakistan was viewed as a threat?

Rooted in religion. A sizable Hindu minority population lived in East Pakistan. The West Pakistani government perceived this population as loyal to India, and consequently devoted to weakening the country.

What happened in East Pakistan?

There was violence by Pakistani militaries, and the violence by its troops was widespread and indiscriminate. Indicated that the actual aim was to exterminate the Bengali population of Pakistan. At least 300,000 people were killed by the Pakistani military, and at least 200,000 women were sexually assaulted.

How did the genocidal campaign end in East Pakistan.

After a military intervention by India.  Led to East Pakistan seceding and becoming an independent country called Bangladesh.

What is the background of the Palestinians in Gaza?

 Following the election and an unsuccessful overthrow attempt, Israel imposed a blockade of the Gaza strip, the strip that they have occupied for almost 40 years.

What did the blockade of the Gaza strip led to?

The blockade of the area led to large amounts of food being smuggled into Gaza through underground tunnels from Egypt. Solidified Hamas’ authoritarian grip on the population. The group had full control over all essential goods in the Gaza Strip. Tunnels also used to smuggle rockets and other weapons to Hamas.

True or False: Israel’s response to the October 7th attack has been classified as genocidal by multiple international organizations.

True

What are the factors that categorize Israel’s October 7th attack as a genocide?

Indiscriminate bombings of the Gaza Strip with powerful and imprecise bombs. Repeated bombings of healthcare facilities. A blockade that prevented the entry of food and medical supplies into the Strip. An explicit plan to forcibly expel the Palestinian population to other countries. Statements by Israeli politicians and military officials that promoted complete destruction of the Strip and its population.

What are the two main factors that contributed to the extensive campaign of violence by the Israeli government?

 View of the entire population of the Gaza Strip as a threat and the elimination of that threat. The Israeli prime minister’s coalition includes two far-right parties, and prolonged killings of Palestinians appeal to the ministers of those parties and their supporters.

U.S. Department of State annual report on terrorism, what does it classify states as?

State sponsors of terrorism - commit international acts of terrorism

2026 - list of state sponsors of terrorism

Iran, Cuba, North Korea (excludes countries that engage in state terrorism, but they are allies of the US)