On Terrorist Groups: An Introduction

Abstract

This article introduces the contents of this special issue on terrorist groups. After some general remarks, we review essential concepts germane to the issue’s eight articles. Those concepts include the notion of terrorist groups and their alternative ideologies and goals. Differences between domestic and transnational terrorist attacks are briefly reviewed along with time-series plots of such attacks during 1970–2019. Other plots compare and contrast leftist and religious fundamentalist terrorist groups based on their number of attacks and active groups during 1970–2016. The introduction is devoted mainly to highlighting the individual articles and their contributions.
KEYWORDS:

• Terrorist groups
• domestic and transnational terrorist attacks
• terrorist groups’ ideologies and goals
• articles’ highlights

Description