ns Charter. The difficulty in defining terrorism lies in the fact that 'one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter'. In places like the Middle East, Northern Ireland and the Basque Country, the word terrorism arouses many passionate feelings, claims and counter-claims. Almost everyone would agree that terrorism is wrong and illegal, as long as his own interests and actions are not branded as terrorism. However, a group of academics agreed to the following definition of terrorism in 1988:
             Terrorism is an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by (semi-) clandestine individual, group, or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal, or political reasons, whereby – in contrast to assassination – the direct threats of violence are not the main targets. The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets) from a target population, and serve as message generators. Threat and violence-based communication processes between terrorists (organisation), (imperilled) victims, and main targets are used to manipulate the main target (audience(s)), turning it into a target of terror, a target of demands, or a target of attention, depending on whether intimidation, coercion, or propaganda is primarily sought.
             This definition is too long-winded to be referred to in everyday practise, but it contains most of the central components of terrorism.
             The US Department of State definition of terrorism, which has been used for statistical and analytical purposes since 1983, is:
             Terrorism is premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.
             This definition is shorter and more manageable, but the drafters of this definition have already undermined it. The State department d...