A Conceptual Model of Territory for Non-State Violence Castan Pinos, Jaume; M

University of Southern Denmark

The territorial contours of terrorism A conceptual model of territory for non-state violence Castan Pinos, Jaume; M. Radil, Steven

Published in: Terrorism and Political Violence

DOI: 10.1080/09546553.2018.1442328

Publication date: 2020

Document version: Accepted manuscript

Citation for pulished version (APA): Castan Pinos, J., & M. Radil, S. (2020). The territorial contours of terrorism: A conceptual model of territory for non-state violence. Terrorism and Political Violence, 32(5), 1027-1046. https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2018.1442328

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Download date: 24. Sep. 2021 The territorial contours of terrorism:

A conceptual model of territory for non-state violence

Jaume Castan Pinosa and Steven M. Radilb

aDepartment of Political Science and Public Management, University of Southern Denmark

bDepartment of Geography, University of Idaho

Abstract: Our article challenges a common discourse that terrorist groups are relatively disinterested in territory by exploring emerging theories about territory and territoriality. We use these theories to introduce a new conceptual model of the importance of territory for terrorism that contrasts a group’s Sovereignty Claims over Territory (SCOT), which corresponds with the ultimate territorial aims of the group, with its Effective Control of Territory (ECOT), which relates to the ability of an organization to exert influence over a particular territory. Contrasting these dimensions of territory allows us to develop several archetypes of territorially-motivated terrorism. Our model predicts that, in contrast to common deterritorial discourses, truly non- territorial terrorism is likely to be quite rare as most groups engaged in violence have territorial ambitions in one way or another. We then use our model to interrogate the salience of territory to three representative cases: the Islamic State, ETA, and FARC-EP. Our analysis shows that territory remains a central motivating factor for these groups as their overall territorial aims tend to remain constant whereas their ability to control territory is more susceptible to change. We conclude by discussing the implications of our model and analysis for future research.

Keywords: Terrorism, Territory and territoriality, Non-territorial terrorism, Territorial theory, Conceptual model

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Terrorism and Political Violence, available online at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09546553.2018.1442328.

Introduction

Territory and its set of associated concepts (particularly territoriality, sovereignty, and borders) is a salient and ever-expanding theoretical lens for the study of political violence.1 And yet, territory remains an underdeveloped concern in the terrorism literature which has often argued that territory is neither an end nor a means for many violent non-state actors.2

Contemporary terrorism, it has been repeatedly claimed, is a set of territorially-disinterested actors operating through various territorially-diffused and decentralized transnational networks around the world. Much of this argument about the ‘deterritorial’ nature of terrorism has focused on the example of Al Qaeda and its modus operandi. For example, Newman argues that Al

Qaeda’s constituency is not “geographically bound … in any physically defined territory”3 while

Hehir claims that the “threat which Al Qaeda poses to the West is not one which is … clearly

territorially-bounded.”4 According to these arguments, Al Qaeda is neither dependent on nor

constrained by territory and thus represents a novel case that puts into question the importance of

territory for all terrorist organizations.5 In such arguments, territorially-minded actors are

therefore reflective of ‘old terrorism’ and territory itself has begun to vanish from the picture.

This deterritorialized perspective likely owes something in part to the difficulties in

conceptualizing terrorism as separate from warfare between territorially defined states who

themselves have historically competed over access to and control over particular spaces. Since

terrorist groups weren’t states that could claim territorially-defined sovereignty, terrorism has

been seen as something distinct from “conventional war” and its long-standing concern for

territorial control.6 Of course, the study of war has since opened up considerably to include actors other than states.7 Not coincidentally, investigations about territory and conflict have also

flourished by challenging the concept’s taken-for-granted strong association with the state.8

However, continuing to deemphasize territory in the terrorism literature is a missed opportunity that overlooks the essential yet variegated territorial character of terrorist groups, even for so- called ‘new’ groups like Al Qaeda. We seek to address this issue by building on recent scholarship about territory in order to examine terrorist groups as important territorial actors in their own right9 and to further develop a general theory of the territorial aims and strategies of such groups.

We begin by considering the recent scholarship about territory and contrast it with the dominant discourses about territory within the terrorism literature. We then introduce a new conceptual framework to address territory for terrorist groups by considering the differences between their territorial claims or ambitions and their effective control over territory. We use this framework to develop several territorial archetypes of terrorist groups and then illustrate the utility of our approach through three different cases that encompass these archetypes. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of new directions in the terrorism literature made possible by rethinking territory.

Territory and territoriality

Territory and territoriality are often presented together as core concerns for political scholarship for the reasons identified by Ruggie; if “politics is about rule,” then it also necessarily about “comprising legitimate dominion over a spatial extension.”10 In other words, politics is about territory. Territory in this sense refers most simply to the notion of a politically ordered geographic space, or a “portion of geographic space under the jurisdiction of certain people.”11 Although closely associated with the politics of states, the concept of territory has also been widely explored and broadened in the International Relations and Political Geography

literatures. For example, Ruggie argued that the spatial dimensions of politics “need not assume

the form of territorial states”12 while John Agnew’s well-known critique punctured the

assumption that states are natural geographic “containers” of modern political society and

identity, a type of thinking that he labelled as the “territorial trap.”13 These and similar critiques

gave rise to explorations of other territorial political activities and spatial orderings that continue

to challenge the geography of modern states, such as the global networks that span state spaces

and boundaries in order to circulate people, capital, and information, the emergence of trans-state

political arrangements like the European Union, and the various regional, ethnic, or cultural

attachments that challenge state-centric allegiances.

These critiques largely emphasized the need to question the ontological primacy of the

state for political theory through an exploration of territoriality, which generally refers to the

ways in which territory is socially constructed and the various actions and activities associated

with the attempts “to enforce control over a geographic area.”14 Of course, the territoriality of

modern states has been a major point of emphasis of this literature, describing the sundry ways in

which the state impresses itself into daily life within its own territory15 and, in some cases, far

beyond.16 Accordingly, while some have posited that the circulations associated with

globalization have yielded a deterritorialized world where territory is less important,17 many others now point to the ability of the state (and of other political processes) to become

“reterritorialized” in the face of such flows.18 From this perspective, there are few political acts

or agendas that can be meaningfully described as truly deterritorial.

The salience of territoriality for politics has found its clearest expression in the Political

Geography literature. Building on seminar works and more recent efforts on territoriality in

geography,19 Elden makes clear the inseparable distinction between politics and territoriality by

asserting that territory is a “political technology” that fuses the idea of political control of space

with various legal and technical means used to produce such an outcome (such as cataloguing

property limits).20 Even so, this position echoes Ruggie and others by rightly pointing out that

territorial practices are diverse, should be expected to vary both historically and geographically,

and that this potential variation remains largely underexplored.21 An important example of such

variation is found in Agnew’s notion of “sovereignty regimes” or the different types of

territoriality present among modern states.22 Agnew observed that even among states, the

exercise of power is often spatially uneven with respect to territory; some states wield power

extra-territorially, exerting influence well beyond their own boundaries, while others only

manage influence at certain sites within their boundaries. On this basis, Agnew called for more

attention to how power works territorially as part of a larger project to disrupt persistent

“assumptions about the fixed and universal nature of territoriality.”23

It is against this backdrop of a robust and growing interest in territory and territoriality that one finds a largely deterritorialized discourse about terrorism. For instance, Sloan, Kearney, and Wise24 claimed that terrorist groups were self-evidently non-territorial as their actions were

“not confined to a clearly delineated geographical area.” Sloan and Kearney25 also coined the

term “non-territorial terrorism” or NTT, to cement the idea that the study of terrorism is really

the study of non-territorial political violence as these groups often operated “beyond the

boundaries of nation-states.”26 Since these actors could not be neatly contained by the territorial

configurations of modern states, the NTT approach served as an early influence that helped to

remove territory from the discussion.

The direct use of the NTT label has largely faded over time and there are some signs of

the reintroduction of territory into the literature on non-state violence, if not terrorism directly.

For example, Kydd and Walter27 identified territorial change, or “taking territory away from a

state either to either establish a new state or to join another,” as one of five types of enduring

political goals for non-state actors; Kalyvas28 posited that the amount of violence against

civilians by non-state actors was a function of the ability of the state to control its territory; and

Hastings29 asserted that the agendas of all non-state actors have “territorial components.”

However, more common are studies where the basic assumptions of NTT still hold sway. Bahgat and Medina30 provided a recent example by insisting that terrorist groups can be meaningfully

conceptualized as non-territorial whenever they do not exert direct control over a defined

territory.

The NTT notion is also a direct antecedent to the more familiar deterritorial discourse of

‘new’ terror networks. For example, the spatiality of groups like Al Qaeda has been referred to as

a “spider web,” “franchise,” “social movement,” and “global network.”31 Such metaphors

obviously owe something to the spatial discourses on globalization (a key concern of Ruggie as

well) and point to a geographically amorphous perspective, characterized by a lack of spatial

fixity and indifference to boundaries.32 The overarching logic behind this approach is the claim that Al Qaeda and its successors and imitators have shifted from a “territorial jihad approach to a universal jihad mindset.”33 Some have suggested this was a strategic reaction to the US-led intervention in Afghanistan that forced the organization to become “a diffuse global network, working loosely with a broader movement of affiliated groups and individuals.”34

Although the events of Al Qaeda’s expulsion from Afghanistan disrupted its ability to

behave in a state-like fashion as it could no longer wield consistent control over people and

places,35 prior to the US invasion of Afghanistan, Al Qaeda was claimed to have “controlled

territory, maintained an army and waged war, forged alliances, taxed and spent, and enforced a

system of law.”36 The core idea in this narrative is that groups like Al Qaeda are only territorial

if they behave in state-like ways and mimic the functions of states within some distinct political

space. And yet, as Ruggie noted, political ‘systems of rule’ are not always territorially fixed nor

mutually spatially exclusive in mimicry of the idealized territoriality of the state.37 Further,

Agnew showed that not even states are in full control of their own territory at all times. A

reading of the expulsion of Al Qaeda from Afghanistan as the end of the group’s territorial

character relies on a ‘trapped’ perspective that links territory only with what states do under

idealized circumstances.38

Others have pushed the deterritorial narrative further, suggesting that there are strategic

and ideological elements of such groups that make them essentially aterritorial political actors.

From a strategic point of view, the spatial fixity associated with consistent territorial control

would constitute nothing but a hindrance, a liability that would make terrorist organizations more

vulnerable to counterterrorist measures. In the words of David Knoke,39 “counterterror pressures

[…] compel terrorist groups to change” making them not just decentralized but somehow

indifferent to territory as well. This perspective is often described through reference to groups

like Al Qaeda employing a “franchise model” where training, resources and attacks occur across

multiple states throughout the world.40

From an ideological point of view, the deterritorial narrative argues that because the aims of groups like Al Qaeda are not state-centric they are therefore not territorial in any way. For example, the notion of the Ummah, or an imagined global community of all Muslims, is one that

transcends state boundaries.41 Similarly, state-based identities are seen by most Salafi/Wahhabi militants as a Western colonial construct that needs to be overcome since it divides the Ummah into artificial man-made spaces. Consequently, the deterritorial discourse suggests that, from

both a strategic and an ideological point of view, the link between such groups and territory has

been conclusively erased.42

These deterritorial claims have been critiqued before. Elden argues that Islamist groups

like Al Qaeda are demonstrably territorial if for no other reason than they have been consistently

motivated by grievances that are themselves territorial.43 Elden also notes how abstract Islamist

notions like the Ummah, the imagined near and far enemies of jihad, the idea of a competing dar al-Islam (land of peace) and dar al-harb (land of war), or a desire to re-establish al-Khalifa (the

Caliphate) are each dependent on spatial logics involving political control.44 These imagined

territories are motivating goals for many Islamist groups and, if they are to be realized

somewhere in order to be made real. This would involve the creation of new political relations

within certain spaces while also undoing existing political relations within those same spaces.

Extending Elden’s initial argument revels just how profoundly territorial non-state actors can be. For instance, consider the existence and importance of a safe haven which Arsenault and

Bacon45 define “as places in which terrorist groups can operate without fear of counterterror

retaliation or pressure” and that can enable groups to fight longer and more successfully. Safe

havens are then places within the territory of a state but where the power of the state cannot fully

reach. As such, the absence of state territorial control creates localized opportunities for

territorial control by others. The idea of a safe haven is then only deterritorial if one remains

anchored in “state-centric” notions of spatial control.46

These critiques point toward the usefulness of territory and territoriality for

understanding key aspects of terrorism and we seek to build on these ideas in order to further

extend them to terrorist groups. We do this in the next section by considering the complex

relationships between terror and territory for such groups and by introducing a conceptual model

that highlights the differences between a group’s claims over territory and their functional

control over territory.

The ECOT/SCOT model

The relationship between terrorist groups and territory may be conceptualized as complex

and multidimensional. With the aim of understanding such complexity and the many forms it

may take, we introduce here two separate, yet interrelated, territorial variables that form the basis

a conceptual model which we call the ECOT/SCOT model. These two variables in the model are

effective control over territory (ECOT) and sovereign claims over territory (SCOT).47 Each variable, described in more detail below, encompasses multiple territorial conditions which can then yield different and unique combinations. A graphical representation of the model is presented in Figure 1. While all possible combinations are not comprehensively addressed in our subsequent discussion, we do use illustrative examples that capture every condition of the two variables.

The first variable, ECOT, considers the spatial extent of a group’s practical political control over the settings and sites in which it is present. It is important to note that as De la Calle and Sánchez-Cuenca assert,48 the control of territory has great implications for terrorist groups because it opens up a wide range of possibilities in terms of tactics, allowing them to diversify their strategies and, for instance, engage in guerrilla-oriented actions. This control may be

thought of as ranging along a continuum with one end characterized by the complete absence of

control over any site, in which members or operatives of the group are forced to conduct their

affairs covertly having at their disposal at most safe houses, and with another end characterized

by unchallenged control over quite large geographical areas that extend well beyond a single

populated place or even a set of interconnected places. This outcome would be much like the

imagined landscape of political control associated with states, where power is thought to extend

across a variety of settings and places, even if it operates unevenly geographically and

temporally. We call these two ECOT conditions no control of territory and contiguous territorial control respectively.

Figure 1. The relationships between the SCOT and ECOT axes and their associated conditions.

With these two ECOT end points in mind, we find another condition in between, which

portrays a much more complex portrait of the relationship between armed groups and territorial

control than previous accounts where this interaction was reduced to a binary choice:

clandestinity or full spatial control.49 Drawing on the idea of a safe haven, we suggest the possibility of relatively small or localized areas where a group may operate without significant challenge. This localized control can be coordinated with other similar but disconnected spaces,

synchronizing the activities between them yet without possessing meaningful control in between

or beyond the set of places themselves. Information, members, and materials may flow from

place to place in support of the group but these flows must navigate securitized state spaces (such

as checkpoints) in between.50 We call this uneven geography local networked territorial control.

Unlike ECOT, which focuses on where a group wields actual control, our second variable

SCOT considers a group’s stated territorial goals or ambitions, particularly in relation to the

existing territorial arrangements that they operate within or in opposition to. The question

underpinning SCOT is rather straightforward: Does the group want to challenge the territorial

status quo of a particular state or polity? If so, we deem it to be SCOT relevant. Like ECOT, we

identify two relatively divergent ambitions that can be thought of as end points in our

framework. We call the first extraneous to reflect the possibility that a group may undertake violence without either making any claim over spatial control whatsoever or simply seeking to assume control over a preexisting political space without questioning the territory’s existence or seeking to alter it. Apocalyptic groups such as the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo, infamous for its

nerve gas attack in Tokyo in 1995, or the numerous Marxist-inspired groups in Western Europe during the ’70 and ’80, like the Red Army Faction (RAF) in Germany or the Red Brigades in

Italy, represent paradigmatic examples of this condition. It is important to note that a group may fall under the extraneous category while still seeking to control territory at the same time, like in

the case of the Colombian guerrilla FARC. The point is that they do not intend to create a

different territorial polity but rather to seize the entirety of an existing political space (often an

entire state); in other words, they do not challenge a territorial status quo and therefore they are extraneous with regard to SCOT.

In contrast, we identify a territorial claim as imperial when it strives for the realization of

a completely new political space that encompasses multiple national groups and/or is either

indifferent to or seeks to span existing state boundaries. Accordingly, this ambition requires that

actions are taken to allow the affected political spaces to be reformulated into a new coherent

territorial whole. Our choice for the term imperial bears in mind Michael Doyle’s definition of

empires as ‘relationships of political control imposed by some political society over the effective

sovereignty of other societies’51. This definition is further complemented by Donnelly, who

pointed out that empires are composite polities where a central dominant polity rules over the subordinated, previously independent, peripheries52. The idea of imperial ‘composite polities’

also necessarily implies a collection of heterogeneous political spaces. This is easy to see

through the example of the Islamic State, which has been calling supporters to join the group

through their media platforms such as Dabiq, regardless of their ethnic or national origin, to

politically remake the Islamic world. We expand on this point below and suggest that groups

with such broad ambitions (territorial and otherwise) would falls under the imperial SCOT

condition.

We also offer an additional SCOT condition based on territorial claims that may be

thought of as falling somewhere in between extraneous and imperial. This condition, which we

call fragmentative, encompasses a wide range of territorially driven ambitions. For example, it

includes ethno-nationalist secessionist or separatist movements who aim to create new

independent spaces of authority either within the boundaries of an existing state or out of the

territory of multiple contiguous states. Similarly, organizations that aspire to claim territory from

a host state in order to liberate it and annex it to a different existing state, such as the Provisional

Irish Republican Army (PIRA), also fall under this category. In this latter case, the objective is

not the creation of a new state but a border transformation where, should the group succeed in its

goals, an already existing state would gain the territory lost by the host state. Exceptionally, there

are also groups which aim for greater autonomy from a state without fully questioning the state’s

territorial integrity. This could involve the devolution of powers to regional governments,

decentralization of national political decision-making, or the creation of new sub-state

institutions that reconfigure the territorial arrangements of governance within a state. Due to the

fact that they propose some sort of territorial re-arrangements and that they have the potential to

become secessionist in the long run, as the case of armed Corsican autonomist movement

illustrates53, we have also included this sub-group in the fragmentative category.

Figure 1 below illustrates the ECOT and SCOT variables as axes in a plot and identifies

each of the respective conditions discussed above as a location on either axis. This enables us to

consider the various intersections of a group’s ECOT and SCOT as a unique territorial typology

in order to better understand the relations between violent non-state groups, their sovereignty

claims, and their territorial control. It is important to note that while a group may vary across both axes over time, only one out of nine combinations (the intersection of extraneous SCOT and no control ECOT in the lower left of Figure 1) might be suggestive of a deterritorial perspective.

The eight other combinations involve varying degrees and extents of territorial ambitions and

activities which stands in stark contrast with the generalized narrative of an era of

deterritorialized terror.

One of the main tentative conclusions of our cases is that the two axes have a

tremendously differentiated degree of mobility. Simply put, SCOT tends to be static whereas

ECOT can be highly mobile and fluid. The reason for this is that group political aims tend to

remain consistent over time. Accordingly, the associated territorial goals should be expected to

remain constant as well. However, ECOT is related to the capabilities of a terrorist group to

control territory which is a relational process due to the fact that terrorist groups are subjected to

the capabilities of their enemy that they are fighting against (in most cases a state) If an opposing state is weak, the group will be able to gain territory or to expand beyond their safe havens or

areas of localized control. Conversely, against a state that becomes stronger, the group will suffer setbacks that will undermine their effective control. Nonetheless altering a group’s ECOT may

not impact its aims, even if the group is on the verge of total defeat while changing the territorial

goals of a group would alter the very essence of the enterprise. For these reasons, we expect that it will be more likely that organizations can shift left or right along the ECOT axis over time

(perhaps even over time periods as short as a single day) rather than up or down along the SCOT

axis. However, we do not rule out the possibility of SCOT changes.

Figure 2 exemplifies the territorially diverse nature of terrorist organizations. The primary purpose of this figure is illustrative and, due to space constrains, we cannot provide an in-depth scrutiny of all these groups. Importantly, all nine combinations are not merely theoretical and each can fill be demonstrated with real examples as the figure shows. The next section will analyze three representative cases of the figure in some depth, examining their position vis-à-vis the ECOT and SCOT conditions as well as their dynamics of change and continuity over time.

Figure 2. Historical and Contemporary groups vis-á-vis the ECOT/SCOT model.

Empirical Cases

To illustrate the general applicability of our approach, we have selected three different organizations. The three cases we have chosen to analyze in some depth are the Islamic State,

ETA, and FARC-EP. These three groups are all non-state actors which use violence in order to

pursue their political aims and are regularly categorized, in the literature, as terrorist

organizations54. The chosen groups are representative in terms of motives, geography and, most

importantly, with regards to their relationship with territory. These groups capture variability over time, spanning from the 1960s to present. In addition, they are geographically representative

as they operate in a wide variety of regions from Europe (ETA) and South America (FARC) to

the Middle East, Central Asia, South-East Asia, Africa and to a certain extent Europe (IS). The

organizations have also been chosen because they represent the three most significant motives of

violent non-state actors; ideology (FARC), ethno-nationalist secessionism (ETA), and religion

(IS).

Last but not least, our selection of cases was driven by the fact that these groups illustrate

crucial interactions between ECOT and SCOT: Fragmentative and no control (ETA), Extraneous

and local networked (FARC) and Imperial and Contiguous (IS). As a result, every single ECOT

and SCOT condition is covered by these three groups. While a full treatment of the salience of

territory for each group is not our intention here, we do review the ECOT and SCOT of each

group in turn which yields important insights about each case and the model itself. In order to

examine these cases, we analyzed secondary literature as well as primary sources published by

the groups themselves such as political manifestos, magazines and communiqués.

Islamic State

The origins of the contemporary Islamic State (IS) can be traced back to the embryonic

Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), which was established in 2006 after an alliance between Al Qaeda in

Iraq and other radical Sunni armed groups. The Syrian civil war, and the consequent debilitation

of the Syrian state, provided an ideal context for extremist Islamic-inspired terrorist groups to

flourish and develop. Groups like ISI, originally integrated in Al Qaeda/al-Nusra and later

renamed as ISIS55 and eventually IS, made use of these favourable conditions to increase their

grip on power within local places in Syria and Iraq to foster a wider territorial expansion.

In light of our model, the Islamic State represents a paradigmatic case of a hyper-

territorial organization. In terms of SCOT, the Islamic State claims a large part of land -Iraq and the Levant- which currently belongs to various states such as Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian occupied territories56. These blatantly ambitious territorial demands lead us

to conceptualize the IS as a clear imperial case since the spatial transformations they advocate

for span the boundaries of several existing states. In the case of the Middle East, only parts of

Iraq, Syria and a small pocket in Lebanon (the municipality of Arsal) have been directly affected

by the IS plans. Their ambitions or SCOT, however, go well beyond any territory they currently

control (ECOT). In the first edition of the IS magazine Dabiq, the group ceremoniously

announced the “construction of the Islamic State and expansion of its territory.”57 This strategy

combined a two-fold overlapping goal: it attempted to eradicate the Arab states created under

colonial rule, and at the same time, it aimed to create a Caliphate, based on the Ummah. It is

therefore essential to consider in our analysis the reterritorialization element underpinned by the

IS aims and ideology (SCOT).

As explained above, their ideology in terms of territory requires the reformulation of the territorial status quo in the Middle East. Indeed, their project appears to be a territorially driven project, which inexorably causes rifts with its adversaries (state actors as well as non-state

groups such as the Kurdish-led and U.S. backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) or other

Islamist oriented groups) who have been disempowered or challenged by the emergence and

progress of this terrorist group. The SCOT imperial dimension of the group is frequently

depicted in Dabiq. On some occasions, their appetite for controlling space seems to be limitless,

as when the group claims that “the shade of this blessed [IS] flag will expand until it covers all

eastern and western extents of the Earth”58 or when they pledge to fight until “the banner of the

Khilāfah is raised high above Istanbul and Vatican City.”59

What makes the IS particularly interesting for our study is not so much their SCOT,

which is common in most nationalist oriented groups, but rather their ECOT. Considering that

they controlled a significant amount of territory at least until 2017, enjoying a quasi-complete

territorial continuity within eastern Syria, the Islamic State is the only group categorized as contiguous with regards to ECOT. This is rather unusual and even extraordinary for a terrorist actor. It has been estimated that during its period of greatest expansion, in October 2014, the

Islamic State directly controlled over 57,000 km2 in Iraq and Syria, whereas, in March 2017 its

control had been shrunk to 23,000 km2.60 This shift has been due to the non-coordinated attacks

by a multiplicity of actors (namely the Iraqi army, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), the SDF, the

US and Russian air campaigns, and the Turkish-led operation codenamed Euphrates Shield) does

not undermine its connection with territory but rather confirms the intimate relationship of the

group with it. Controlling space and places has been both a comparative advantage and a source

of vulnerability for the Islamic State. On the one hand, it allowed the group to develop

territorially bounded capabilities, such as raising revenues from oil sales within its areas of

control, and therefore enjoy some of the political, military and economic advantages associated with such widespread state-like spatial control. On the other hand, these capabilities have also made the IS more vulnerable and hence more targetable61 by its multiplicity of enemies.

Interestingly, the effective control of territory carried out by the Islamic State goes well

beyond the military domination of physical space. This dimension is accompanied by a complex

system of governance and institution building which, according to Zelin,62 includes the elements

of intelligence, “dawa (missionary activities), hisba (moral policing and consumer protection),

and governance.” The group emphasizes that its ECOT is not simply a military operation but

grounds it in claims for a concern for the welfare of people within such places: “[T]he soldiers of

Allah do not liberate a village, town or city, only to abandon its residents and ignore their

needs.”63 Thus far, unlike its Al Qaeda rival, which has focused its strategy on attacking the enemy while postponing the establishment of the Caliphate,64 the Islamic state’s main priority

has been state (or rather Caliphate) building. It could be argued that territorial control is

understood instrumentally by IS and other similar groups as a means by which to create new

governmental structures which are inspired by the (religious) values of the group and which

serve as a platform to consolidate the monopoly of power internally and its reputation externally.

For IS, territorial control generated both an element of internal military hegemony (which in turn

imprinted fear amongst outside enemies) as well as an element of cultural hegemony which has

been useful for internal consumption and for boosting support amongst potential and actual

international followers.

The Islamic State has experienced multiple transformations with regards to being able to

effectively control territory. While the group was integrated in al-Nusra Front (2012–2014), we

can situate the group in the local networked ECOT. In that phase, they were able to establish a

significant presence in Sunni majority areas in some towns in the provinces of Idlib, Aleppo,

Deir al-Zour and Raqqa. This local territorial dominance was, however, challenged not only by

the SAA but also by a myriad of powerful Islamic extremist groups.65 After the establishment of

the Caliphate in June 2014 and the successive victories against numerous actors, including the

former allies of al-Nusra Front and other extremist groups, the organization spectacularly

increases its territorial dominance achieving a contiguous ECOT status, an extraordinary

achievement for a terrorist actor. This imperial phase has, however, been ephemeral.

As explained above, its recent defeats have reduced its effective territorial control

significantly, particularly in late 2017, paving the way for a downgrade of its ECOT status to

local networked and potentially to no control in the foreseeable future. Even if they reached the latter scenario, it may trigger a re-evaluation of its (territorial) strategies without altering its

ambitions. For example, one possibility is that the group replaces control in Syria and Iraq with

territorial alternatives such as Afghanistan. The potential failure of their territorial dominance

approach could also lead to a re-orientation of their focus from state/Caliphate building to a more

territorially dispersed plan. This could, for instance, take the shape of increased terrorist attacks

in the U.S., Europe and in other states perceived as enemies. As the IS was experiencing defeats

in Syria and Iraq, the organization has begun encouraging such acts of terror more adamantly

through its publications such as Dabiq and lately Rumiyah. The latter, in its first edition, reminds

its followers that “the blood of the disbelievers is halal, and killing them is a form of worship to

Allah […] striking terror into the hearts of all disbelievers is a Muslim’s duty.”66 Far from being a sign of strength, this statement may be interpreted as a sign of territorial failure. The combination between their SCOT and their ECOT suggests that the IS had the potentiality, at least before it began dramatically shrinking ECOT-wise to metastasize into a type of a state, or

as Honig and Yahel67 put it, into a terrorist semi-state (TSS) whose governance activities overlap and are perfectly compatible with its violent endeavours (see Figure 3).

ETA

The Basque armed group ETA (Euskadi ta Askatasuna, which literally translates as

Basque Country and Freedom), was formed in 1959, amidst the authoritarian rule of the Spanish

dictator Francisco Franco. The core aim of the group has been the establishment of an

independent Basque state in what it considers the Basque lands, which include four

contemporary Spanish provinces and three historical provinces in France.68 Through its armed

campaign against the Spanish state, ETA has resorted to kidnappings, bombings and the

assassination of over 800 people, which include Spanish security forces (54% of the total),

politicians and members of the state apparatus (6%), and civilians (34%).69 ETA has been

supported by a political party, originally Herri Batasuna (Popular Unity), which has changed its

name on numerous occasions in order to circumvent illegalization by the Spanish government.

The organization is considered a terrorist organization by Spain, the European Union and the

United States, which have consistently included it in their terrorist lists over the past few years.70

ETA is, together with the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) in Northern Ireland,

the most significant group engaged in political violence in Western Europe’s recent history.

Judging by current developments, and similarly to the PIRA, the organization seems to be on its

way to complete dissolution. ETA is currently engaged in a unilateral peace process, where the

Spanish government has refused to play any role, but which has the endorsement of international

prominent figures such as former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, former British PM Tony

Blair and former US President Jimmy Carter, among others. The main milestones of this peace

process are ETA’s ceasefire declaration of 2010, which was later upgraded to permanent and

verifiable by international observers, its communiqué of October 2011, where it declared the

“definitive cessation of its armed activity,”71 and its final disarmament in April 2017.

From ETA’s initial internal declaration of its principles in 1962, it claimed to be a national liberation movement seeking to achieve freedom for what it calls the historical “Basque

Country.”72 In its first external manifesto in 1964, the Basque armed group stated that “the only

solution for the Basque Country is the struggle […] for national liberation […], self-

determination and independence of the Basque Country.”73 Similar to other stateless nations like

Kurdistan, a realization of ETA’s aims would affect the boundaries of two different states so we

consider this an example of the fragmentative SCOT condition. According to Sánchez-Cuenca,74

a conception of and a claim to the Basque Country as a territorial whole is what helps to

distinguish ETA and similar nationalist groups from other types of terrorist groups, such as

religious, fascists or Marxists organizations. However, many nationalist groups also have

socialist revolutionary goals. In the case of ETA, these have harmoniously cohabitated with their

territorial aims as any move toward a more economically just society for the Basque people first

requires the realization of an independent Basque Country. As such, ETA’s territorial aspirations

have remained constant throughout its history; the recent communiqués are practically identical

as the first ones in terms of aims. In its last communiqué, for instance, where the organization

claimed to be disarmed, ETA reiterated its commitment for national liberation and Basque

independence.75

There is, however, a manifest incongruity between ETA’s stated aims and the geographic

scope of its targets. The group, similarly to other Basque non-violent nationalist organizations

like the ruling Nationalist Basque Party (PNV),76 has historically claimed that the Basque

Country is occupied by both Spain and France.77 However, its actions nearly exclusively targeted

the former while sparing the latter. There have been only three documented killings committed

by ETA in France: two undercover Spanish police officers in 1976 and a member of the French

National Police at a check point in 2011, where the group later apologized and pointed out that

the killing was unintended. The lack of coherence between the discourse of the Basque Country

and ETA’s actions is arguably connected with the fact that France played an ambiguous role in

ETA’s activities on its soil until the mid-1980s, when anti-terrorist cooperation between the two states began.78 Prior to this bilateral cooperation, the armed group had enjoyed a safe haven right

on the Spanish border.

Indeed, from the early 1960’s (ETA’s first violent act occurred in 1961 and its first

killing took place in 1968) until the mid-1980s, the group operated with relative freedom of

movement in France which considered ETA members as political refugees. We do not find this

form of sanctuary as sufficient for us to qualify the entire ETA as having a local networked

effective control of territory (ECOT) because the ability of a group to operate relatively freely in

territory controlled by another differs from the capacity to directly exert control over it.

However, it is possible to see the outlines of two subtly different permutations of the ECOT condition of no control during this period – one in Spain where ETA was contested and one in

France where it was not. Perhaps as a response to this different policy response, ETA did not seek to compromise France’s territorial integrity through its actions. Although the claim about

the extent of the Basque Country never changed, if it were to have been formed at all, it would have been a partial realization out of the territory of the Spanish state only.

Bilateral anti-terrorist cooperation between the two states in the mid-1980s had tremendously negative consequences for ETA leading to the detention of many of its leaders and members and to a dramatic hampering of its capacity to carry out attacks in Spain. After this change, there was little distinction between ETA’s clandestine territorial modus operandi in either state. Unlike the IS or our next case, FARC-EP, the organization always lacked the possibility to establish governance structures that provided services to its citizens across its area of operations. ETA, like all Western European terrorist groups, remained in a no control position in the ECOT axis across its 50+ year struggle (see Figure 3). This exemplifies that even where there is a clear and explicit determination to claim territory, the ability to establish effective control over it is not straightforward, particularly when those affected are strong and consolidated states. While it is possible for groups like ETA to conduct what Sánchez-Cuenca79

conceptualizes as a “war of attrition” and to challenge the security of a state, it is not possible for

them to threaten the foundations of the territorial status quo. However, given the territorially

defined grievance and ambition of the group, it does not follow that the failure to control space is

reflective of a ‘non-territorial’ form of terrorism.

FARC-EP

In 2002, then U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft claimed that FARC-EP, or the

Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército del Pueblo (Revolutionary Armed

Forces of Colombia-People’s Army), was “the most dangerous international terrorist

organization based in the Western hemisphere.”80 FARC-EP is a Marxist movement that has

sought the overthrow of the Colombian government since the early 1960s. Formed in the

aftermath of the 1948-58 La Violencia period of civil war in Colombia, FARC-EP emerged out

of the Partido Comunista Colombiano (Colombian Communist Party or PCC).81 After the

reestablishment of civilian government in 1958, the PCC found itself locked out of the political

process by the National Front governance system that alternated power between the two main

political parties. During the National Front period, the government routinely used military force

to restore its authority in rural areas while also supporting land tenure changes that subsidized

large-scale farming over the interests and livelihoods of small landholders.82 As a response, the

PCC organized within rural areas of Colombia and created what Brittain called rural “self- defense collectives”83 that were “against (state-supported) large landholder-based violence.” The

FARC-EP emerged as a coherent organization in 1964 following attacks by the military to

reassert its control against these largely independent rural areas.84 In this sense, FARC-EP was a reaction to the territorial aims of the Colombian state.

For more than 50 years, FARC-EP’s revolutionary goal has been to seize the Colombian state. For instance, in a 2014 publication dedicated to FARC’s 50th anniversary, Jaime Parra, a

member of the group’s ruling Secretariat, wrote that “we are revolutionaries who are fighting for

regime change.”85 While the means used to try to achieve this ambition have certainly changed

over time, the aim itself has not. This goal has led to a state-like organizational structure within

FARC-EP, with a ruling body that set policy for the entire movement while territorially

subdividing the organization into seven different blocks, each of which are responsible for

carrying out FARC-EP’s activities within a distinct geographical area of the country.86 Within its

areas of influence in Colombia, FARC-EP also acted as a de facto state, collecting taxes from its areas of control and providing education centers, health-care, and infrastructure improvement within those same areas.87 More notoriously, FARC-EP also engaged in criminal activities, kidnappings for ransom, and the taxation of coca to raise revenues, but it was otherwise largely financially independent of other Marxist or communist groups or sympathetic foreign government, even during the height of the Cold War.88

Taken together, these elements of FARC-EP suggest a consistent yet latent state-centric territoriality driven by its claims and ambitions to political authority within the Colombian state.

For this reason, we suggest FARC-EP’s aspirations to state power best reflect our extraneous

SCOT category. The territorial extent of the Colombian state is taken for granted by FARC-EP; they have never questioned it nor have they sought to expand, partition, or otherwise alter it. In fact, they have often reified Colombia’s territory simply by using the territory of neighboring

Ecuador and Venezuela for bases to make it more difficult for the Colombian military to directly engage them.89 However, this is not to say that FARC-EP has not demonstrated distinct

territorial interests within Colombia itself. For example, during a series of peace talks in 1998

with the newly elected government of Andrés Pastrana, FARC-EP insisted on the creation of a

42,000 km2 demilitarized zone out of the Meta and Caquetá Departments in south-central

Columbia. During 1999 and 2000, FARC-EP used the demilitarized zone to carry out arms deals, consolidate its forces, and launch several offensives against the Colombian military.90 Protecting

its ability to collect taxes from coca-producing regions has also been identified as a key driver

for FARC-EP’s strategies for territorial control within the state.91 Nonetheless, the driving

ambition of the group was never limited to such areas of strategic or economic importance as

FARC-EP aspired to the whole of Colombia.

FARC-EP’s ability to control territory within Colombia has waxed and waned over time.

In the early years of the insurgency (mid-1960s through the mid-1970s), FARC-EP was largely a rural guerrilla army, limited to operating out of jungle bases and remote farming villages in central and southern Colombia. Over time, FARC-EP recruited more fighters to its cause and consolidated control over populated places in the Colombian hinterlands, leading to leading to the creation of the territorial blocks organizational structure in the 1970s. We see this as a local networked ECOT, where FARC-EP’s control over multiple populated places began to be realized. Membership and associated territorial control grew throughout the 1980s and 90s and, by the end of the 1990s, FARC-EP had expanded “to more than 60 percent of the country’ with

“a tangible influence in 622 municipalities (out of 1,050).”92 This captures nicely our notion of

contiguous ECOT as FARC-EP controlled large discrete areas, such as the Meta-Caquetá

demilitarized zone. Since the early 2000s, FARC-EP fortunes have declined due to military pressure by the Colombian government (in conjunction with military aid and counterinsurgency operations by the U.S.) and the death of several senior FARC-EP leaders.93 By 2015, FARC-EP found itself again in a local networked ECOT condition, coordinating activities in numerous places across the country while maintaining safe haven bases in remote jungle outposts.94

In 2012, FARC-EP began discussing yet another peace process with the Colombian government. Unlike previous false starts, this led to FARC-EP signing a formal peace treaty in

2016 and it is now reportedly in the process of surrendering its arms in exchange for guarantees to enter the political system in Colombia.95 Even though it will likely maintain political support from rural areas, FARC-EP will no longer have any effective control over territory once the de- arming process is complete, giving it a complete cycle through the ECOT axis of our model

(Figure 3). The case of FARC-EP shows that our model has utility in a case of ideologically- based terrorism as well as in illustrating our key points about the relative stability of a group’s

SCOT and the inherent dynamism of its ECOT over time.

Figure 3. Terrorist groups’ mobility across ECOT categories over time. Speculative outcomes are shown by the dashed lines.

The usefulness of territory

We have offered our model as a potential vehicle to escape from what we see as an

unhelpful deterritorialized approach regarding terrorism which continues to mask more than it

has reveals. One of the potential explanations for elucidating the dominance of deterritorialized

thinking about terrorism is the strong and exclusive association of territory with the state; another

may be due to a fixation on territory only as effective spatial control, which most terrorist groups struggle to realize. Accordingly, our model incorporates and formalizes two different perspectives on territory (effective control and territorial claims) to demonstrate that territory is indeed more than state-like spatial control. It also involves (at a minimum) the territorial aims of groups on the one hand and the control they exert (or fail to exert) over space and time on the other.

Accordingly, a straight forward yet important conclusion that we draw from our cases is that territory is of paramount importance for these three very different types of groups that have been engaged in political violence, including those that have routinely been described as non- territorial. Each of the groups we analyzed were demonstrably interested in producing territorial outcomes even as their ability to control space changed over time or if they simply eschewed direct territorial control as a strategy. By implication, even though the territoriality of such groups did and should be expected to vary, there is a vital relationship with territory that underpins each case. Further, our model suggests that even though it is not impossible for these actors to be de- or non-territorial, this is not a very likely scenario. This brings us to a more general assertion: territory is useful for understanding the actions and ambitions of the types of non-state actors often labeled as terrorists. For this reason, we stress the importance of being

critical, or at least skeptical, of any assumptions that suggest that these actors are inherently non-

territorial or have become somehow deterritorialized.

Another important takeaway from our cases is that we have shown that one of the aspects

of territory that we explore (ECOT or effective control) is far more dynamic over time than the

other (SCOT or sovereignty claims). Since terrorist groups are usually contested by states, their

ability to directly exercise widespread spatial control is historically uncommon and, when it does

occur, temporally limited. As a consequence, non-state actors often appear deterritorial through

an emphasis on territory solely as effective spatial control. The primary value of our model then

is the introduction of a multidimensional approach to thinking about territory. From this

perspective, nearly every type of intersection of the various ECOT and SCOT conditions is an

opportunity to reflect on territory and an invitation to explore in depth how it is understood,

made, and used by actors other than states. Of course, we do not claim that our model is

complete or that it encompasses every possible form of territorial control or every typology of

territorial ambition. Instead, we view it as a useful yet flexible tool that can contribute to

academic and policy debates and discussions. Our aim is that such discussions will potentially

lead to the model’s adaptation and refinement to better enable our understanding of the subtle

complexities of territory.

We fundamentally concur with Murphy96 and others that territory is a powerful, if underutilized, analytic lens. As such, we think our model also has the potential to be applied in future studies. For example, our model could be used to develop a critique to the binary oppositions of new/old terrorism with regards to territory. Additionally, it could also offer an entry point to explore territorial strategies used by terrorist groups by emphasizing the dynamic and relational character of the ECOT variable. All the intersections in our model are, to a certain

29 extent, territorially significant which spans the common old (nationalist and ideological) and new

(religious) categorizations of non-state actors, including terrorist groups.97 Moreover, since territory is salient to nearly all such groups in one way or another, we believe our model can be applied to specific cases in more detail. Doing so promises to yield new insights about why such groups remain a powerful force in contemporary politics which involves their imagined alternate territorial outcomes, and their efforts to challenge, and perhaps at times, to reinforce the spatial status quo.

1 Justus Uitermark, “The particularities of territory,” Territory, Politics, Governance 3, no. 1 (2015): 1–6. 2 See Stephen Sloan, Richard Kearney and Charles Wise, “Learning about terrorism: Analysis, simulations, and future directions,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 1, no. 3-4 (1978): 315–329; Rohan Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002); Calvert Jones, “Al Qaeda's Innovative Improvisers: Learning in a Diffuse Transnational Network,” Cambridge Review of International Affairs 19, no. 4 (2006): 555–569; Aidan Hehir, “The Myth of the Failed State and the War on Terror: A Challenge to the Conventional Wisdom,” Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 1, no. 3(2007): 307–332; David Knoke, “Emerging Trends in Social Network Analysis of Terrorism and Counterterrorism,” Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences (2015): 1–15. 3 Peter R. Neumann, Old and New Terrorism (Cambridge: Polity, 2009), 51. 4 Hehir (see note 2 above), 320. 5 Richard Medina and George Hepner, The geography of International Terrorism. An introduction to Spaces and Places of Violent Non-State Groups (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2013), 27–29. 6 Neumann (see note 3 above), 8. 7 See for instance Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars. Organized Violence in a Global Area (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999). 8 John Agnew, “The territorial trap: the geographical assumptions of international relations theory,” Review of International Political Economy 1, no. 1 (1994): 53–80. 9 Steven M. Radil, and Colin Flint, “Geographies of cosmic war: Comparing secular and religious terrorism in space and time,” in Stanley Brunn (ed.), The Changing World Religion Map: Sacred places, identities, practices and politics (London: Springer, 2015), 3459–3472. 10 John Ruggie, “Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations,” International Organization 47, no. 1 (1993): 148. 11 Jean Gottmann, The significance of territory (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1973), p.5. 12 Ruggie (see note 10 above), 148. 13 Agnew “The territorial trap” (see note 8 above). 14 Robert Sack, “Human territoriality: A theory,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 73, no. 1 (1983): 55–74. 15 See Joe Painter, “Prosaic geographies of stateness,” Political Geography 25, no. 7 (2006): 752-774. 16 See John Agnew, “Sovereignty regimes: territoriality and state authority in contemporary world politics,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 95, no. 2 (2005): 437–461. 17 See Neil Brenner, Bob Jessop, Martin Jones, and Gordon MacLeod, “Introduction: State Space in Question” in Neil Brenner, Bob Jessop, Martin Jones, and Gordon MacLeod (eds.), State/Space: A Reader (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), 1–26.

18 See Stuart Elden, “Missing the point: Globalization, deterritorialization and the space of the world,” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 30, no. 1 (2005): 8–19. 19 The literature on territory and territoriality is too expansive to be described here but see David Delaney, Territory: A Short Introduction (Blackwell, 2005) for a thorough review. 20 Stuart Elden, Terror and Territory: The Spatial Extent of Sovereignty (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009), 810–812. 21 Ibid, 803. 22 Agnew, “Sovereignty Regimes” (see note 16 above), 456. 23 Agnew, “Sovereignty Regimes” (see note 16 above), 456. 24 Sloan, Kearney and Wise, “Learning about terrorism” (see note 2 above), 319. 25 Stephen Sloan and Richard Kearney, “Non-territorial terrorism: an empirical approach to policy formation,” Conflict 1, no. 1-2(1978): 131–144. 26 Stephen Sloan, Terrorism: The Present Threat in Context (Oxford: Berg, 2006), 65. 27 Andrew H. Kydd and Barbara F. Walter, “The strategies of terrorism,” International Security 31, no. 1 (2006): 52. 28 Stathis N. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 29 Justin V. Hastings, No Man’s Land: Globalization, Territory, and Clandestine Groups in Southeast Asia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010), 19. 30 Karim Bahgat and Richard Medina, “An overview of geographical perspectives and approaches in terrorism research,” Perspectives on Terrorism 7, no. 1 (2013): 38–72. 31 Neumann (see note 3 above), 39. 32 Marc Sageman, Misunderstanding Terrorism (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press, 2016), 5. 33 Gunaratna (see note 2 above), 235. 34 Jones (see note 2 above), 556. 35 See Jacob N. Shapiro, Terrorist's Dilemma: Managing Violent Covert Organizations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013). 36 Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror: Radical Islam's War Against America (New York: Random House, 2002), 169. 37 Ruggie (see note 10 above), 149. 38 Agnew “The territorial trap” and “Sovereignty Regimes” (see notes 8 and 16 above). 39 Knoke (see note 2 above), 4. 40 Medina and Hepner (see note 5 above), 43. 41 Olivier Roy, Globalized Islam. The search for a new Ummah (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 1. 42 Jaume Castan Pinos, “Terror, territory and statehood from Al Qaeda to the Islamic State,” in Olivier Walther and William Miles (eds.), African Border Disorders. Addressing Transnational Extremist Organizations. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017). 43 Elden “Terror and territory” (see note 20 above). 44 Ibid, 44–45. 45 Elizabeth Grimm Arsenault and Tricia Bacon, “Disaggregating and defeating terrorist safe havens,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 38, no. 2 (2015): 87–88. 46 Aurélie Campana and Benjamin Ducol, “Rethinking Terrorist Safe Havens: Beyond a State-Centric Approach,” Civil Wars 13, no. 4 (2011): 396–413. 47 See also Castan Pinos (see note 42 above). 48 Luis De la Calle and Ignacio Sánchez-Cuenca, “How Armed Groups Fight: Territorial Control and Violent Tactics,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 38, no. 10 (2015): 797. 49 This is the case in De la Calle and Sánchez-Cuenca (see note 48 above). 50 Colin Flint, Introduction to Geopolitics (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012). 51 Michael W. Doyle, Empires (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), 19. 52Jack Donnelly, “Sovereign Inequalities and Hierarchy in Anarchy: American Power and International Society,” European Journal of International Relations 12, no. 2 (2006):140. 53 In 1976 the pro-secession militant Corsican organization ‘Corsican National Liberation Front’ emerged out of the ashes of the pro-autonomy armed group ‘Corsican Regionalist Action’. 54 We acknowledge that the label of ‘terrorism’ is highly contested. Resolving that conflict is not the purpose of this article. 31

55 Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (Syria). 56 We will focus on the claims of the Islamic State in the Middle East not those of its affiliates elsewhere. 57 Islamic State, The Return of the Khalifah. Dabiq 1, 2014a, http://media.clarionproject.org/files/09-2014/isis-isil- islamic-state-magazine-Issue-1-the-return-of-khilafah.pdf, p.13 (accessed August 7, 2017). 58 Islamic State, Remaining and expanding. Dabiq 5, 2014c, http://media.clarionproject.org/files/islamic-state/isis- isil-islamic-state-magazine-issue-5-remaining-and-expanding.pdf, p.33 (accessed August 7, 2017). 59 Islamic State, From the Battles of Al-Ahzāb to the War of Coalitions. Dabiq 11, 2015, http://www.clarionproject.org/docs/Issue%2011%20-%20From%20the%20battle%20of%20Al- Ahzab%20to%20the%20war%20of%20coalitions.pdf, p.9 (accessed August 7, 2017). 60 Pierre Bretau and Madjid Zerrouky, “Comment l’Etat islamique a reculé en Irak et en Syrie depuis 2014,” Le Monde, 13.03.2017, http://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/visuel/2017/03/13/comment-l-etat-islamique-a- recule-en-irak-et-en-syrie-depuis-2014_5093896_4355770.html#KBqYXJIF678AgVbo.99 (accessed August 4, 2017). 61 Stacey Erin Pollard, David Alexander Poplack and Kevin Carroll Casey, “Understanding the Islamic State’s competitive advantages: Remaking state and nationhood in the Middle East and North Africa,” Terrorism and Political Violence, (2015): 15–16. 62 Aaron Zelin, “The Islamic State’s Territorial Methodology,” The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Working Paper 29 (2016): 1. 63 Islamic State, The Failed Crusade. Dabiq 4, 2014b, http://media.clarionproject.org/files/islamic-state/islamic- state-isis-magazine-Issue-4-the-failed-crusade.pdf, p.27 (accessed August 7, 2017). 64 Celine Marie Novenario, “Differentiating Al Qaeda and the Islamic State Through Strategies Publicized in Jihadist Magazines,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 39, no. 11 (2016): 955. 65 Charles R. Lister, The Syrian Jihad: Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and the Evolution of an Insurgency (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 1. 66 Islamic State, Dhul-Hijjah. Rumiyah 1, 2016, http://clarionproject.org/wp-content/uploads/Rumiyah-ISIS- Magazine-1st-issue.pdf, p.36 (accessed August 7, 2017). 67 Or Honig and Ido Yahel, “A Fifth Wave of Terrorism? The Emergence of Terrorist Semi-States,” Terrorism and Political Violence (2017): 5. 68 Biscay, Álava, Guipuzkoa and Navarre in Spain; Lower Navarre, Labourd and Soule in France. 69 Luis De la Calle and Ignacio Sánchez-Cuenca, “La Selección de Víctimas en ETA,” Revista Española de Ciencia Política 10 (2004): 63. 70 Teresa Whitfield, Endgame for ETA. Elusive Peace in the Basque Country (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 2. 71 Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, 20 October 2011 Communiqué, 2011, http://politica.elpais.com/politica/2011/10/20/actualidad/1319131779_738058.html (accessed July 15, 2017). 72 Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, Principios, 1962. Retrieved from the Lazkao Benedictine Monastery Archive. 73 Euskadi ta Askatasuna, Manifiesto de ETA al Pueblo Vasco, 1964. Retrieved from the Lazkao Benedictine Monastery Archive. 74 Ignacio Sánchez-Cuenca, “The Dynamics of Nationalist Terrorism: ETA and the IRA,” Terrorism and Political Violence 19, no. 3: 289. 75 Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, 7 April 2017 Communiqué, 2017, http://www.eitb.eus/es/noticias/politica/detalle/4756739/comunicado-eta-7-abril-2017-se-declara-desarmada/ (accessed July 15, 2017). 76 The PNV rules in the Autonomous Basque Community, which comprises the provinces of Álava, Biscay and Guipuzkoa. 77 Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, Manifiesto de ETA al Pueblo Vasco, 1964. Retrieved from the Lazkao Benedictine Monastery Archive. 78 John L. Sullivan, ETA and Basque nationalism: the fight for Euskadi 1890-1986 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2015). 79 Sánchez-Cuenca (see note 74 above). 80 John Ashcroft, “Prepared Remarks of Attorney General John Ashcroft: News conference,” November 13 2002. (Washington: United States Department of Justice, 2002). 81 James J. Brittain, Revolutionary Social Change in Colombia: The Origin and Direction of the FARC-EP (London: Pluto Press, 2010). 82 Doug Stokes, America's Other War: Terrorizing Colombia (London: Zed Books, 2005). 32

83 Brittain (see note 81 above), 2. 84 William Avilés, “Paramilitarism and Colombia's low-intensity democracy,” Journal of Latin American Studies 38, no. 2 (2006): 379–408. 85 Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-EP, 50 años de Resistencia de un pueblo: 1964-2014, 2014, https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4M49efCgB_mN2NaeXBWX3JDSWM/view (accessed August 21, 2017). 86 Brittain (see note 81 above). 87 Robin Kirk, More Terrible Than Death: Massacres, Drugs, and America’s War in Colombia (New York: Public Affairs, 2003). 88 Brittain (see note 81 above). 89 Linda Robinson, “Terror Close to Home,” U.S. News and World Report, 135 no. 11(2003): 20–22. 90 Édgar Téllez, Óscar Montes and Jorge Lesmes, Diario Íntimo de un Fracaso: Historia no Contada del Proceso de Paz con las FARC (Bogotá: Editorial Planeta, 2002). 91 Bettina Ng’weno, Turf Wars: Territory and Citizenship in the Contemporary State (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007). 92 Brittain (see note 81 above). 93 Oeindrila Dube and Suresh Naidu, “Bases, Bullets, and Ballots: The Effect of US Military Aid on Political Conflict in Colombia,” The Journal of Politics 77, no. 1 (2015): 249–267. 94 Partlow, J., & Cobb, J.S. “An end to Colombia’s war seems close – except in rebel territory,” The Washington Post, 17.10. 2015. 95 Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-EP, Political Participation, 2016, http://farc-epeace.org/peace- process/agreements/agreements/item/936-political-participation (accessed August 21, 2017). 96 Alexander B. Murphy, “Territory’s continuing allure,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 103, no. 5 (2013): 1212–1226. 97 David C. Rapoport, “The Four Waves of Modern Terrorism” in Audrey Kurth Cronin and James K. Ludes (eds.) Attacking Terrorism: Elements of a Grand Strategy (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2004), 46–73.