Religion and Terrorism

Terrorism has long plagued the existence of peace and security in society, where secular groups have resorted to violence against non-combatant targets in order to influence the policies of a governmental or nongovernmental organisation. The concept of terrorism, whilst elusive and vague in definition has been categorised into various forms of terrorism, these being dissident, state-sponsored, and religious terrorism to name a few. This paper will argue that the most dangerous form of terrorism is religious terrorism. To deliver an effective argument this paper has been divided into three sections; the first will argue that the most dangerous form of terrorism is religious terrorism by examining what it is, how it is dangerous, and why it is more dangerous than other forms of terrorism. Secondly, this paper will argue that the most dangerous proponent of religious terrorism is the organisation of the Taliban, to support this claim; an analysis of the group will be given, including background information, information on the Taliban’s policies and recent activities, and the threat this groups poses on the international community. Lastly, this paper will analyse and critique the current governmental policies combating terrorism, and will then provide policy recommendations which could be implemented by governments, militaries or NGO’s. The justification for this paper is simply that the validation of religious terrorism as the most dangerous form of terrorism will allow for effective international coordination towards combating terrorism. Various parameters of study were encountered in the process of this paper as there is much contention on which is the most dangerous form of terrorism, which gave way to biased opinions and misleading quotations regarding factual information on various organisations implementing terrorist tactics, namely the Taliban.
Although the concept of terrorism has no definition which is universally agreed upon, the notion of religious

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