The Methodology of Terrorism

Terrorist organizations have been committing atrocities against innocent civilians throughout the world for hundreds of years. Terrorism has evolved in many different forms and from various motivations such as religious protest movements, political revolts, and social uprisings. Regardless of the motives for terror, the problem is the financing of terrorism and terrorist organizations themselves. Recent global terrorist attacks using high technology and extensive networks have shown that money is essential to provide the means behind all terrorist activities. Individual terrorists plan terrorist operations and require resources to live, prepare, and implement their plans. The use of money laundering and financial support schemes are the root of the cause. If money laundering were curtailed or even eliminated, and financial supporters of terrorism were identified terrorism would decrease dramatically. To achieve these goals would take monumental efforts. The United States, United Nations and all sovereign nations would need to take cooperative action that has never been accomplished. Terrorism, its' history, concepts, reasoning, methods, and financial roots are object of this research.

Terrorism is one of the most extensively discussed issues of our time and at the same time it is also one of the least understood. The term itself “terrorism” means many different things to different people, cultures, and races. As a result, trying to define or classify terrorism with one universal definition is nearly impossible. The definition of terrorism used in this research is a reflection of much of the Western and American way of defining it. The definition of terrorism is,

“An anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent...

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... matter how many lives were affected. After acquiring money terrorists rely on an overabundant amount of money laundering and financial concealment schemes. Without money laundering significant sums of legitimate money would be very hard to produce in the short spans of time between terrorist attacks and reorganization. The possibility of defeating such enormous amounts of illegal money laundering and illegal terrorist financing schemes would require a global effort. Every nation would have to establish anti-money laundering and terrorist financing legislation, along with support from the United Nations and groups such as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on money laundering. Is this even a possibility? Could every nation in the world put their political, racial, religious...differences behind them in order to prevent the financing of terrorism?