Acta Universitatis Danubius. Relationes Internationales, Vol 4, No 1 (2011)

Abstract

The aim of this article is to describe the "new face" of terrorism in the twenty-first century indicating the transition to mass destruction weapons (nuclear terrorism, chemical, biological), to ethnic-religious terrorism, the occurrence of massive gray area phenomena of terrorism and how this
phenomenon became a strategic weapon. Mega-terrorism has been existing, at a conceptual level, ever since the 70’s, when the experts of this phenomenon tried to find a semantic cover for the situations that certain organizations, groups or terrorist or extremist sections would get some Weapons of Mass Destruction Systems. Actually, the 11th of September tragedy proves that megaterrorism represents the premeditated destruction, the lack of negotiations, of a tactical goal that was to be accomplished by means of a threat. The mega-terrorism actors do not intend to get themselves known to the public, do not require anything, do not see the threat as means or device to reach their
purpose. The 21 st century mega-terrorism simple logic is materialized in the systemic destroying of the enemy, no longer representing a political power or a government, but an entire ‘disobeying’,
‘corrupted’, ‘unfaithful’ population indifferent to the mega-terrorist actors’ desires. New dimension against mega-terrorism determines not only a rethinking of how to combat it, but also the realization of a conceptual legal framework and measures established to materialize the political decision.