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Islamic terrorism (also Islamist terrorism or radical Islamic terrorism) refers to terrorist acts with religious motivations carried out by fundamentalist militant Islamists and Islamic extremists.
Incidents and fatalities from Islamic terrorism have been concentrated in eight Muslim-majority countries (Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, and Syria),[4] while four Islamic extremist groups (Islamic State, Boko Haram, the Taliban, and al-Qaeda) were responsible for 74% of all deaths from terrorism in 2015.[5][6] The annual number of fatalities from terrorist attacks grew sharply from 2011 to 2014 when it reached a peak of 33,438, before declining to 13,826 in 2019.
Since at least the 1990s, these terrorist incidents have occurred on a global scale, affecting not only Muslim-majority countries in Africa and Asia, but also Russia, Australia, Canada, Israel, India, the United States, China, Philippines, Thailand and countries within Europe. Such attacks have targeted both Muslims and non-Muslims, with one study finding 80% of terrorist victims to be Muslims. In a number of the worst-affected Muslim-majority regions, these terrorists have been met by armed, independent resistance groups, state actors and their proxies, and elsewhere by condemnation by prominent Islamic figures.
Justifications given for attacks on civilians by Islamic extremist groups come from extreme interpretations of the Quran, the hadith, and sharia law. These include retribution by armed jihad for the perceived injustices of unbelievers against Muslims; the belief that the killing of many self-proclaimed Muslims is required because they have violated Islamic law and are disbelievers (takfir); the overriding necessity of restoring and purifying Islam by establishing sharia law, especially by restoring the Caliphate as a pan-Islamic state (especially ISIS);the glory and heavenly rewards of martyrdom; the supremacy of Islam over all other religions.
The use of the phrase ”Islamic terrorism” is disputed. In Western political speech, it has variously been called “counter-productive”, “highly politicized, intellectually contestable” and “damaging to community relations”, by those who disapprove of the characterization ‘Islamic’.Others have condemned the avoidance of the term as an act of “self-deception”, “full-blown censorship” and “intellectual dishonesty”.

The current wave of terrorism peaked during 2009. Since then it has declined as result of selective military operations conducted by the Pakistan Army.According to South Asian Terrorism Portal Index (SATP), terrorism in Pakistan has declined by 89% in 2017 since its peak years in 2009.
In 2012, the Pakistani leadership sat down to sort out solutions for dealing with the menace of terrorism and in 2013, political parties unanimously reached a resolution on Monday 9, September 2013, at the All Parties Conference (APC), stating that negotiation with the militants should be pursued as their first option to counter terrorism.
With the terrorists attacks continuing in late 2013 the political leadership in Pakistan initiated a military operation against terrorists named Operation Zarb-e-Azb; a joint military offensive against various militant groups, including the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Jundallah, al-Qaeda, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the Haqqani network.The operation was launched by the Pakistan Armed Forces on 15 June 2014 in North Waziristan (part of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas along the Afghan border) as a renewed effort against militancy in the wake of the 8 June attack on Jinnah International Airport in Karachi, for which the TTP and the IMU claimed responsibility.
Operation Zarb-e-Azb has been described as turning point in Pakistan war on terrorism. The operation was successful and Pakistan experienced sharp decline in terrorism since the launch of the operation.According to National Counter Terrorism Authority (Nacta), Pakistan experienced largest number of terrorist attack in 2010. Since 2014, terrorist attacks in Pakistan have significantly declined. Pakistani officials state that the terrorism in Pakistan will decline more once the fencing of Pakistan-Afghanistan border is complete.
Pakistani newspaper, Dawn news, reports that Pakistan’s economic losses due to war on terrorism declined by 62% from 2014 to 2018. The Pakistani economy suffered $23.77 billion in 2010-11 due to expenses related to war on terrorism. This amount declined to $12 billion in 2011-12. In 2016-17, Pakistan economy suffered $5.47 billion and $2.07 billion on 2017-18. Pakistani government estimates that Pakistan has suffered total losses of $126.79 billion since 9/11 attacks.
Afghan President’s spokesperson, Aimal Faizi, told reporters that the National Directorate of Security (NDS) was working with Latif. Latif was conduit for funding to TTP. Some of the funding for TTP might have come from NDS.Former NDS head, Asadullah Khalid, posted a video belonging to TTP on his Twitter account where he claimed that Badaber Camp attack was tit for tat.

The roots of terrorism in Pakistan can be traced back to 1979 when Soviet Union had occupied Afghanistan. Terrorism in Pakistan originated after Pakistan supported the Afghan mujahedeen during the Soviet–Afghan War, and the subsequent civil war that erupted in Afghanistan. The mujahedeen fighters were trained by Pakistan’s military, American CIA and other western intelligence agencies who continued operations in the area after the war officially ended.
India’s involvement
In November 2020, the Foreign Office of Pakistan made public a dossier allegedly containing ‘irrefutable proofs’ of the Indian sponsorship of terrorism in Pakistan. It allegedly contained proof of India’s financial and material sponsorship of multiple terrorist organizations, including UN-designated terrorist organizations Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, Baluchistan Liberation Army and Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan.

According to the Ministry of Interior, poses a significant threat to the people of Pakistan. The current wave of terrorism is believed to have started in 2000 and peaked during 2009. Since then, it has drastically declined as result of military operations conducted by the Pakistan Army. According to South Asian Terrorism Portal Index (SATP), terrorism in Pakistan has declined by 89% in 2017 since 2009.
Since 2001, the Pakistan military has launched a series of military offensives against terrorist groups in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The offensive brought peace in those areas and the rest of the country. Many terrorists belonging to various terrorist groups were killed. However, some militants managed to flee to Afghanistan From Afghanistan, those militants continue to launch attacks on Pakistan military posts located near the border. In 2017, Afghanistan’s Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah admitted that Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has a foothold in Afghanistan.In 2019, the United States Department of Defense claimed that about 3,000 to 5,000 terrorists belonging to TTP are In Afghanistan.
According to a report by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, 23,372 Pakistani civilians and 8,832 Pakistani security personnel were killed in the War on Terrorism. Moreover, according to the Government of Pakistan, the direct and indirect economic costs of terrorism from 2000–2010 total $68 billion. In 2018, Pakistani newspaper Dawn News reported that the Pakistani economy suffered a total loss of $126.79 billion since 2001 due to the War on Terror.
Pakistan officials often blame India and Afghanistan for supporting terrorism in Pakistan. India has denied Pakistan’s allegations. However, Afghanistan has admitted to providing support for terrorist groups such as Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). In 2013, the United States conducted a raid on an Afghan convoy that was taking Latif Mehsud to Kabul. Latif was a senior commander of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Afghan President’s spokesperson, Aimal Faizi, told reporters that the National Directorate of Security (NDS) was working with Latif. Latif was a conduit for funding to TTP. Some of the funding for TTP might have come from NDS.Former NDS head Asadullah Khalid posted a video belonging to TTP on his Twitter account where he claimed that the Badaber Camp attack was tit for tat.

Various attempts have been made to distinguish among types of terrorist activities. It is vital to bear in mind, however, that there are many kinds of terrorist movements, and no single theory can cover them all. Not only are the aims, members, beliefs, and resources of groups engaged in terrorism extremely diverse, but so are the political contexts of their campaigns. One popular typology identifies three broad classes of terrorism: revolutionary, sub revolutionary, and establishment. Although this typology has been criticized as in exhaustive, it provides a useful framework for understanding and evaluating terrorist activities.
Revolutionary terrorism is arguably the most common form. Practitioners of this type of terrorism seek the complete abolition of a political system and its replacement with new structures. Modern instances of such activity include campaigns by the Italian Red Brigades, the German Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhof Gang), the Basque separatist group ETA, the Peruvian Shining Path (Sender Laminose), and ISIL (the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant; also known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria [ISIS]). Sub revolutionary terrorism is rather less common. It is used not to overthrow an existing regime but to modify the existing sociopolitical structure. Since this modification is often accomplished through the threat of deposing the existing regime, sub revolutionary groups are somewhat more difficult to identify. An example can be seen in the ANC and its campaign to end apartheid in South Africa.
Establishment terrorism, often called state or state-sponsored terrorism, is employed by governments—or more often by factions within governments—against that government’s citizens, against factions within the government, or against foreign governments or groups. This type of terrorism is very common but difficult to identify, mainly because the state’s support is always clandestine. The Soviet Union and its allies allegedly engaged in widespread support of international terrorism during the Cold War; in the 1980s the United States supported rebel groups in Africa that allegedly engaged in acts of terrorism, such as UNITA (the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola); and various Muslim countries (e.g., Iran and Syria) purportedly provided logistical and financial aid to Islamic revolutionary groups engaged in campaigns against Israel, the United States, and some Muslim countries in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Definitions of terrorism are usually complex and controversial, and, because of the inherent ferocity and violence of terrorism, the term in its popular usage has developed an intense stigma. It was first coined in the 1790s to refer to the terror used during the French Revolution by the revolutionaries against their opponents. The Jacobin party of Maximillian Robespierre carried out a Reign of Terror involving mass executions by the guillotine. Although terrorism in this usage implies an act of violence by a state against its domestic enemies, since the 20th century the term has been applied most frequently to violence aimed, either directly or indirectly, at governments in an effort to influence policy or topple an existing regime.
Terrorism is not legally defined in all jurisdictions; the statutes that do exist, however, generally share some common elements. Terrorism involves the use or threat of violence and seeks to create fear, not just within the direct victims but among a wide audience. The degree to which it relies on fear distinguishes terrorism from both conventional and guerrilla warfare. Although conventional military forces invariably engage in psychological warfare against the enemy, their principal means of victory is strength of arms. Similarly, guerrilla forces, which often rely on acts of terror and other forms of propaganda, aim at military victory and occasionally succeed (e.g., the Viet Cong in Vietnam and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia). Terrorism proper is thus the calculated use of violence to generate fear, and thereby to achieve political goals, when direct military victory is not possible. This has led some social scientists to refer to guerrilla warfare as the “weapon of the weak” and terrorism as the “weapon of the weakest.”
In order to attract and maintain the publicity necessary to generate widespread fear, terrorists must engage in increasingly dramatic, violent, and high-profile attacks. These have included hijackings, hostage takings, kidnappings, mass shootings, car bombings, and, frequently, suicide bombings. Although apparently random, the victims and locations of terrorist attacks often are carefully selected for their shock value. Schools, shopping centers, bus and train stations, and restaurants and nightclubs have been targeted both because they attract large crowds and because they are places with which members of the civilian population are familiar and in which they feel at ease. The goal of terrorism generally is to destroy the public’s sense of security in the places most familiar to them. Major targets sometimes also include buildings or other locations that are important economic or political symbols, such as embassies or military installations. The hope of the terrorist is that the sense of terror these acts engender will induce the population to pressure political leaders toward a specific political end.