Freedom fighters and terrorists

Recent conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa have once again raised the mainly academic debate over how to define militant groups. In Yemen, the northern Shiite rebellion has been labeled terrorist action by the local authorities. In Iran a number of groups operate against the central regime such as the Kurd Pjak and Sunni Baloch Jundollah. In the occupied territories, Hamas has been labeled a terror organisation and in Lebanon Hezbollah also shares this label. So how do we define the term objectively?

It is clear that the two distinctions come down to motivation and tactics. To be a legitimate freedom fighter it is clear that the group must have a political agenda, must represent a majority in a defined area (not necessarily the majority nationally) and should direct their attacks against enemy forces and not civilian populations; although the argument for doing so can be made easily to justify the ends.

Terrorist groups, however, can share these same characteristics and like al-Qaeda it is clear that these groups can easily be labeled freedom fighters. They too are fighting against an enemy, for a people according to a set political (religious) agenda. The Islamic State of Iraq is one such example. In the Middle East at least most militant groups (labeled as terrorists) are fighting for political power. So can we define al-Qaeda as a freedom fighter militant group? The answer must be yes.

Any group can and has used terror as a tactic in warfare. States use it, militant groups, militias and individuals use it. Applying the label terrorist therefore becomes problematic and if used often takes on a new meaning and a meaning that lends one to see the groups less in the light of the classical terrorist group but more in the so called legitimate freedom fighter clique. One thing is for sure the label 'terrorism' has been over used particularly by governments keen to eradicate internal dissent and external threats to their power base and hegemony. Terrorism is thus used to instill fear rather than understanding and when it is used to justify certain actions is nothing but a smoke screen.