Title: Terrorism, Middle East | Encyclopedia.com
Headings: Terrorism, Middle East
Terrorism, Middle East
TERRORISM, MIDDLE EAST.
State-Sponsored Terrorism
The Function of Terrorist Groups
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Content: Al Qaeda's financial resources and sophisticated organization has taken terrorism to unprecedented levels, most dramatically illustrated by the devastating September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States that killed over three thousand people. State-Sponsored Terrorism
Most governments and peoples of the Middle East categorically oppose terrorism. The taking of innocent human life is proscribed under Islam just as it is under Christianity and Judaism. However, a number of radical Middle Eastern states — such as the Islamist military government in Sudan, the Libyan regime of Muammar Qaddafi, the Baathist government of Syria, the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Saddam Hussein 's former regime in Iraq — have provided or continue to provide funding and logistical support for terrorist groups. Such activities have contributed to these governments' international isolation, although the United States has at times exaggerated the extent of support these regimes have provided terrorists in order to further advance other policy goals. U.S. forces bombed Libya in 1985, Iraq in 1993, and Sudan and Afghanistan in 1998 because of their governments' alleged support for terrorism, although some of these air strikes resulted in widespread civilian casualties themselves. In 2001, the U.S.led air strikes played a decisive role in the ouster of the Taliban government in Afghanistan, which had provided sanctuary for Al Qaeda. Some intelligence and military officers and other officials in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are believed to have quietly supported Islamist terrorists, although top government leaders largely support antiterrorism efforts. Far more consequential, however, both politically and in terms of civilian lives, have been acts of state terror stemming directly from armed forces of governments themselves. For example, the Kurdish minorities in Iraq (particularly during the 1980s) and in Turkey (particularly during the 1990s) were subjected to widespread massacres, destruction of villages, and forced relocation, with civilian death tolls in the tens of thousands.