You will prepare and submit a term paper on Political and Criminal Objective. Your paper should be a minimum of 3500 words in length.

You will prepare and submit a term paper on Political and Criminal Objective. Your paper should be a minimum of 3500 words in length. Terrorism is perpetrated to achieve political, religious and other objectives, and involves violence and threats of violence against target groups. The objective of terrrorism is to create fear in some targeted community, and such engendering of fear extends considerably beyond the immediate victims. Furthermore, terrorist organizations often declare in public that they had perpetrated the violence. There are two main entities in the use of violence, namely the perpetrator of the violence and the victim of the violence. In certain situations, entities that lack power, employe violent acts to garner power (Lutz and Lutz 2008: 9). Terrorists aim to achieve their goals by generating abject fear.

&nbsp. &nbsp. &nbsp. &nbsp. In some definitions of terrorism, it is specified that the targets should be civilians. Most of the guerrilla groups focus their attacks on the police and military. This differentiates them from terrorists, who have no such qualms. Thus, guerilla attacks are not to be considered as terrorist attacks. For instance, in Iraq, the insurgent attacks on the allied forces were treated as guerrilla attacks and not as terrorist activities (Lutz and Lutz 2008: 11).

However, in certain situations, guerrilla attacks transform into terrorist attacks. This situation usually arises when the attacks are aimed at civilians If the attacks are targeted against civilians, they are considered as terrorist attacks.

&nbsp. &nbsp. &nbsp. &nbsp. &nbsp.The incorporation of this civilian element into the definition increases its complexity. Consequently, the question arises as to whether the off duty police and reserve military personnel have to be treated as civilians. This situation generates confusion when there are deaths of both civilians and military personnel (Lutz and Lutz 2008: 11). Under these circumstances, it becomes difficult to understand whether civilians alone had been targeted.