This essay examines the reasons terrorist organizations deliberately target innocent civilians and non-combatants as a means of making political statements. Drawing on scholarly sources, the paper argues that such attacks serve multiple interconnected purposes: achieving operational success against better-equipped sovereign states, shaping public perception and generating fear, exploiting the just war doctrine to justify asymmetric violence, and advancing ideological or nationalist goals akin to genocide. The essay also explores how the timing of attacks on civilians can directly influence political outcomes, as illustrated by Palestinian attacks preceding Israel's 1996 elections. Together, these reasons reveal a calculated strategic logic behind terrorist violence against innocents.
There are numerous reasons why terrorists deliberately target those considered innocent — such as civilians and non-combatants. One can argue that the very definition of a terrorist organization is one that challenges "the peace of mind of everyday people" (Augustus & Martin, 2010), which is achieved effectively by targeting them. In many instances, terrorist organizations lack the resources to mount a full-fledged military assault — such as that which typifies conventional wars — due to a paucity of numbers, a dearth of finances, and a lack of requisite hardware and weapons. In these instances, one of the most viable options for these organizations and their objectives (which are almost always political) is to make figurative statements in the form of targeting innocents. There are few more effective ways of expressing one's political ambitions and extremism than by destroying the lives of innocents who happen to represent the interests of the political regime that a terrorist organization is attempting to subvert. Targeting innocents thus becomes a way of demonstrating political conviction and the lengths a terrorist group is willing to go to achieve its goals — expressed through action-based, calculated violence.
The thesis above is readily supported in any number of ways. One of the most notable is that targeting innocents provides a means by which a terrorist organization can help ensure "operational success" (Nemeth, 2010). Terrorist organizations are only as credible as they are able to both be perceived as threatening and to actually carry out threats. In situations where such organizations are outmanned, out-financed, and outmatched in technology and weaponry by a sovereign state, one of the most accessible means of creating a threat is by attacking innocents. There is a randomness associated with such attacks that amplifies the nature of the threat they produce and enables a swiftly attainable degree of operational success — one that is not as easily achieved by attacking military targets.
Considered from this viewpoint, attacking innocents allows terrorists to metaphorically pick the proverbial "low-hanging fruit." Civilians are not nearly as fortified or prepared for an attack as military personnel are, which makes them far more readily victimized. The entire point of a terrorist operation is to create fear — attacking innocents who are unprepared and lack the means to counteract such an assault is one of the most viable ways of achieving the operational success terrorists need to produce that fear.
The notion of engendering operational success is intrinsically related to another reason terrorists attack innocents: to shape public perception. Public perception is perhaps the very foundation upon which terrorist organizations exist. Ideally, such organizations seek to create a public persona in which they are feared, and attacking non-combatants and civilians achieves precisely this. However, it is worth noting that there are other dimensions of public perception that are equally vital to terrorist organizations. In some perverse ways, attacking innocents is also a means of fostering "public support" (Nemeth, 2010) for a terrorist group.
Terrorist organizations are able to propagate their existence partly through public support. The relationship between public support and the targeting of innocents is both causal and inverse. Research indicates that when terrorist organizations have public support "as proxied by economic performance and repression," there is a "statistically significant effect in increasing the likelihood of terrorist violence against civilian targets" (Nemeth, 2010). Additionally, attacking innocents can generate further support by helping to make political statements, garner "mass media coverage of events" (Toft et al., 2010), and bring substantial awareness to the causes of terrorist organizations. Public support is, however, just one facet of the overall shaping of public perception that operates at the core of why terrorists target innocent people. Getting people to fear terrorist organizations is achieved by shaping public perception of those organizations, and killing innocents helps achieve both of those ends.
The just war doctrine also figures into why terrorists attack innocents as a means of making a political statement and shaping public perception. There is a degree of irony associated with this reason, since the doctrine's purpose is to both justify the need for and the means of engaging in warfare — with both dimensions meant to align with what is considered just. Nevertheless, it is not inconceivable that terrorists believe that due to the disparity in manpower, weaponry, and financial resources that frequently exists between themselves and their targets, there is a degree of justice involved in attacking civilians and non-combatants. This viewpoint is illustrated in the following passage:
"Terrorists adapt just war tradition to justify asymmetric attacks"
"Ideological goals drive indiscriminate targeting regardless of combatant status"
"Attack timing maximizes political impact on elections and policy"
In summary, terrorist organizations frequently find it advantageous to attack innocent people to make political statements about their causes and their conviction in those causes. The timing of attacks on innocents and the imperative to spread fear combine to make such statements all the more pronounced. In almost all of the examples referenced in this paper, the overarching goal is to achieve organizational success and to influence public perception of the organization. Even concepts such as the just war doctrine are regularly manipulated toward this end, functioning as one more means of inducing fear. Together, these reasons reveal that the targeting of innocent civilians is not random cruelty but a calculated strategic logic embedded within the political ambitions of terrorist organizations.
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