NCJ Number
190881
Date Published
2000
Length
36 pages
Annotation
This chapter explored the political, theological, and strategic motivations for using nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) weapons, focusing particularly on the predominantly religious orientated groups.
Abstract
Islamic fundamentalist groups are closely linked to the steady rise in lethality of terrorist incidents. To understand the Muslim terrorist cause it is necessary to understand the background to Islamic fundamentalism. Since the 1970's, many Middle Eastern and North African regimes have failed to relieve the social tensions and dislocation that resulted from the highly uneven economic development. For Islamic fundamentalists, the aspects of the contemporary world are represented by “a monster with four heads:” the Jews, the Christians, atheism, and secularism. These negative perceptions of the West and the international system as a whole play an important role in defining the nature of the Islamist terrorist groups. The defining characteristic of the strategy pursued by Islamic fundamentalists is the goal of achieving political power. Militant leaders start from the premise that existing regimes will not respond to humanitarian appeals or peaceful marches. A major goal is to strike at United States and Western targets around the world, in order to force a withdrawal of their political, military, and economic support from secular regimes in the Middle East. They are seeking nothing less than complete western disengagement from the Muslim world. Religious cults are viewed as a sociological, psychological, or theological phenomenon, with the central theme in the most dangerous cults’ belief system being the end of the world. The most dangerous religions are messianic ones that preach that man can hasten the coming of a prophesied messiah. This is known as millenarianism or millennialism. While the different groups comprising the United States’ far right advocate a mix of paranoid, seditious, and racist beliefs, the common thread between many of them is a religious movement called Christian Identity. The cornerstone of anti-federalism is the principle that the United States government, the financial center in New York, and the media are controlled by the Jews. It appears that groups that are predominantly religious in nature generally have stronger motivations than their secular counterparts because they identify a more open-ended range of targets. 87 notes