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Concept
State-sponsored terrorism
Summary
State-sponsored terrorism is terrorist violence carried out with the active support of national governments provided to violent non-state actors. States can sponsor terrorist groups in several ways, including but not limited to funding terrorist organizations, providing training, supplying weapons, providing other logistical and intelligence assistance, and hosting groups within their borders. Because of the pejorative nature of the word, the identification of particular examples are often subject to political dispute and different definitions of terrorism.
A wide variety of states in both developed and developing areas of the world have engaged in sponsoring terrorism. During the 1970s and 1980s, state sponsorship of terrorism was a frequent feature of international conflict. From that time to the 2010s there was a steady pattern of decline in the prevalence and magnitude of state support. Nevertheless, because of the increasing consequent level of violence that it could potentially facilitate, it remains an issue of highly salient international concern.
There are at least 250 definitions of "terrorism" available in academic literature and government and intergovernmental sources, several of which include mention of state sponsorship. In a review of primary documents on international law governing armed conflict, Reisman and Antoniou identify that: Terrorism has come to mean the intentional use of violence against civilian and military targets generally outside of an acknowledged war zone by private groups or groups that appear to be private but have some measure of covert state sponsorship. The Gilmore Commission of the U.S. Congress gave the following definition of state-sponsored terrorism: the active involvement of a foreign government in training, arming, and providing other logistical and intelligence assistance as well as sanctuary to an otherwise autonomous terrorist group for the purpose of carrying out violent acts on behalf of that government against its enemies.
The U.S.
Official source
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