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The consensus of reliable sources describe the incident as "terrorism"
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Do attacks against military personnel count as terrorism?[edit]
There are many incidents on this list of groups or individuals targeting soldiers such as the January 1st Baidoa, Somalia attack. However, the definition of terrorism is "violence by non-state entities towards non-state entities for political or ideological reasons" and soldiers would be considered part of the state. Should these be removed? Kamalthebest (talk) 21:44, 9 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
In my opinion it's just warfare and as war does not necessarly comprehend terrorism, certain incidents shouldn't be treated as such. If an ISIL suicide car bomber blows himself up at an armed checkpoint and the soldiers were prepared for battle it shouldn't be considered as terrorism. But if a suicide bomber blows himself up in a group of soldiers that are unharmed and unsuspecting, I think this is rather a disputed case but should be considered as terrorism because in this case there is no combat. And the definition you just mentioned is one of the many definitions of terrorism. So this is always a debatable subject. I suggest other users to also give their opinion in this discussion Mr rnddude, Agila81, Skycycle. In my opinion if unarmed an unsuspecting soldiers are attacked, the attack should be considered as terrorism. Like the 2012 Sana'a bombing for example. .JBergsma1 (talk) 00:11, 10 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
My immediate thought to this was the Troubles and more specifically the infamous M62 coach bombing which killed off-duty soldiers and family members. A second example would be the Ballygawley bus bombing in which eight soldiers were killed. I've seen the M62 coach bombing referred to as a terror attack - especially at the time. So, yes I'd say it's perfectly possible to kill military personnel in a terrorist act. The question I'd ask is; are we talking about a state of warfare/social upheavel where troops have been mobilized to act in a state capacity? if not, then while their profession is as a soldier, they aren't necessarily acting in a capacity that makes them a state entity; i.e. off-duty soldiers are just people minding their own business. No doubt the legal definitions would vary from nation to nation, but, as a general rule of thumb it's entirely possible. More importantly, however, is what is being said by sources? are they calling it a terror attack? Al-Shabaab is classified as a terrorist organization, so naturally I expect anything they do to be classified as terrorism. Mr rnddude (talk) 00:48, 10 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, there is a distinction between combat and non-combat. So not every Soldier killed in an ISIL-bomb attack during battle should be included but when off-duty soldiers are targeted it should be treated as terrorism. In January this year there was an attack on soldiers in Jerusalem. It was called as a terrorist attack by officials while the soldiers were armed when they were attacked. So also with cases when soldiers were armed and not suspecting the attack it could be considered as terrorism. JBergsma1 (talk) 08:58, 10 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Terrorism is essentially an act of aggression by a hostile group against UNARMED civilians, politicians and off-duty military/police personnel, irrespective of religious beliefs or political agenda. Regarding the issue of 'non-state entities', well, nation-states can engage in state terrorism acts and it has occurred in the past e.g. Nazi Germany against population groups during World War II; and state-sanctioned militia attacks against leftist sympathizers during the Salvadoran Civil War. If a Christian-based group committed a massacre against civilians, then that is definitely considered a terror attack, and not mass murder. If the New People's Army stage an ambush against military personnel, then that is an insurgent attack employing guerrilla tactics, not terrorism. If the Moro Islamic Liberation Front conduct a night-time mortar attack against an Army base, then once again, that is insurgent warfare, not terrorism. Both type of acts should not be interchangeable. JBergsma1, Kamalthebest. Agila81 (talk) 13:13, 10 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes that's true. But the problem is is whether the attacks occur when a soldier is on duty or off duty. When a soldier or group of soldiers are off-duty and unarmed, they are pratically civilians. So in this case it's difficult to decide whether attacks on defenceless soldiers are terrorism. JBergsma1 (talk) 13:27, 10 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Well, violence done directly by state entities like the example of Nazi Germany are usually categorized as "war crimes" or "human rights violations." However, violence by non-state entities that are supported by states, such as during the Salvadoran Civil War would be "state-sponsored terrorism." I agree with your point that the line between insurgents and terrorist groups is difficult to determine. Kamalthebest (talk) 19:29, 10 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Mr rnddude:@Agila81:@Skycycle:@JBergsma1: Hello guys, the 9 February indecent in Beledweyne, Somalia is a clear example of the ambiguity over what counts as terrorism. The incident is obviously part of the War in Somalia but the only details provided in the linked source state that the bombings "killed four militiamen and wounded several others." Would you say this counts as terrorism? Should it be removed?
I think the Beledweyne incident should be considered as terrorism when al-Shabaab or another terrorist group claims responsibility for it (as they are considered a terrorist group). Also they tried to bring fear into the group the militiamen are a part of by attacking them (which fits the definition as well). But terrorism should be mentioned in the source if it's added to the list. When there is no mention of terrorism in the source, it should be made clear that al-Shabaab or another terrorist group was indeed responsible. JBergsma1 (talk) 00:21, 11 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
So the Beledweyne incident fits the requirements for the list as al-Shabaab was mentioned. JBergsma1 (talk) 00:25, 11 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@JBergsma1: I know that al-Shabaab was mentioned but al-Shabaab is a militant participant in the War in Somalia so not everything they do could be considered terrorism. For example, would the Houthis' "cross-border attacks on Saudi military targets in Hathira town, Jazan region, southern Saudi Arabia" mentioned in the same source count as terrorism? Kamalthebest (talk) 00:41, 11 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Kamalthebest: Well, the Houtis cross-border attacks are indeed an example of guerilla warfare as they were launching offences on military targets while there is an ongoing battle in the region. It's indeed harder to determine whether the Beledweyne IED bombing was an act of terrorism or guerilla warfare. I've seen serveral IED bombings included in the list of terrorist incidents from previous years. I don't know what the context of an IED bombing should be to treat the incident as an act of terrorism, but the IED-ambush tactic has been frequently used by militant groups like the Taliban and if you check the list of previous years you could also decide to add the Beledweyne incident. But it's indeed hard to notice the differences between guerilla warfare and terrorism. In many cases they militant group calls its actions 'guerilla tactics' while their opponents call it terrorism.JBergsma1 (talk) 10:38, 11 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Currently, any incident whose death toll exceeds 20 is bolded and any incident whose death toll exceeds 50 is underlined. Instead of doing this, or in addition to doing this, what if those Cells were colored in such that 20 deaths would be yellow, 50 would be orange and 100 would be red. Additionally, incidents where nobody is killed could be green. An example is provided below.
Dead
0
1-19
20-49
50-99
100+
This would allow for a faster search time when looking for a specific major incident and is more aesthetically pleasing. StrikeDog (talk) 06:47, 20 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The number of casualties doesn't necessarily mean it's a "major" incident, though. The Normandy church attack of last year was orders of magnitude more significant than, say, 20 people being killed in Somalia or Iraq. The reason being, of course, that states like Iraq are in a state of war, and has well known terrorist cells operating plus regular attacks. Also, something doesn't quite sit right, for me, with the idea of colour coding these things based on "severity". There's something a bit vulgar and crass about quantifying these things in that way, instead of just listing death tolls and allowing the incident to speak for itself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7D:26A0:4A00:ACE2:8C68:3A0A:1FBF (talk) 18:09, 22 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@StrikeDog The current color-coding implementation uses HTML table header cells (th) instead of table data cells (td) for the fatality and casualty fields. This significantly compromises the data structure, breaking apps that programmatically access the data. Header cells shouldn't be used for non-header data, and I encourage you to revert the changes until you can implement color-coding using table data cells, if possible. Thanks! Reldresal (talk) 17:04, 21 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Reldresal:Thanks for noticing the issue. It has been resolved.StrikeDog (talk) 22:19, 21 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@StrikeDog: Yeah, I agree. Can we have consensus before we introduce a color-coding scheme? We already have ways to distinguish between severities of attacks using bold and underlined text. I feel like such bright colors are kind of distracting. Kamalthebest (talk) 21:34, 21 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Kamalthebest: If it were up to me, I would keep the color-coding scheme as it is because it provides more information to the reader than only bolding and underlining the fatality count. The color-coding was added as per WP:BOLD. If however, the general consensus is reached that color-coding is unnecessary, it can be removed. With regards to the bright colors, I agree that it can be a little distracting but as far as editing goes it is much easier for one to type "lime" to result in a light green color than to type "#b6fcb6" which would result in a less bright light green color. Would something like the table below be better in your opinion?
You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:List of terrorist incidents#RfC: List criteria. – Levivich 17:59, 10 August 2019 (UTC)