IRA

Report on Terrorist Group: Irish Republican Army

Report on Terrorist Group: Irish Republican Army

Introduction

The following paper is about the terrorism and the terrorist groups operating worldwide. However, as per the instructions, the author selected one of the terrorist groups that are known worldwide as the terrorist group. The specific group selected by the author is the 'Irish Republican Army (IRA). The other thing that discussed in the paper is about the role of the state from where IRA runs its operations. Before going into further detail, for the readers' better understanding, the author highlighted the meaning of terrorism and after that the paper focused on IRA and the role of the state. Irish Republican Army always remained a hot topic among the British regime because of the different reasons. Initially, the organization did not formulated for the purpose of carrying out terrorist activities but with the passage of time the organization transformed.

Discussion

Terrorism

The word terrorism is basically derived from Latin word 'terrere', whose dictionary meaning is 'Fear'. However, the Greeks used a word 'tromokratia', which is generated from the word tromos that means 'intense fear'. Therefore, considering both the words, one can easily understand that the word terrorism is the mixture of fear and intense fear. The modern world is now very much familiar with the term especially after the 9/11 incident. Terrorism transformed to a new level and a new era of terrorism evolved in this world where the fear is among the masses and the governments spending huge amounts of their budgets over the security purpose.

For our purposes, though, an insurgency is an organized attempt by a group of people to confront the military forces of a state and to secure control over a specified territory. Insurgents usually are also organized in an overt and military-like manner (Harmon, 2008, pp. 48-53). Terrorists typically avoid direct confrontation with military forces and are organized more like criminal gangs-secretive and smaller in number-and rarely chose to directly confront military forces. Terrorists also ordinarily do not seek to directly control and administer territory.

The organization sleeted by the author could be termed as the organization that is politically motivated. Politically motivated violence against civilian targets is terror practiced by the state against its own population or the population of an occupied territory. One of the most infamous examples is the violence of Nazi Germany against German Jews and others as well as against civilian populations in much of Europe during World War II. In this regard one could not forget the role of IRA in the Northern Ireland as well. An equally infamous example was the Great Terror in the Soviet Union, notably under Joseph Stalin, where millions of average citizens were killed or sent to labour camps and even government and military functionaries were jailed or executed, even though they were innocent of any crimes against the state. In both cases, the purpose of the violence was political: to eliminate opposition to the regime and its policies (Rapoport & Weinberg, 2001, ...