While not all assassinations are carried out by terrorists most are indeed.
COLOMBO, SRI LANKA — You may or may not be aware of this but the word ‘assassin’ has a very interesting etymology. According to the Oxford English Dictionary it derives originally from the Arabic word hashshashin – those who smoked hashish – and refers to a fanatical Muslim group that carried out murder across the Islamic world during the time of the Crusades, ostensibly under the influence of the drug. If you are interested in learning more about these killers check out Bernard Lewis’ classic 1967 book The Assassins.
Today we use the term ‘assassination’ to refer to the killing of someone deemed important. Ordinary people such as you and me are killed, not assassinated. On many occasions the perpetrators of the act of murder will have underlying political, ideological or religious motivations for doing so. If so, that would make the act itself terrorist in nature.
On others it is less clear that the person wielding the gun or knife has any such reason for doing the deed. Take John Hinckley Jr. He tried, unsuccessfully as it turns out, to kill US President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981. And why on earth did he do so? Apparently he had an obsession for the actress Jodie Foster and thought that by assassinating the President he would ‘impress her’: I am guessing she failed to be impressed. Ergo, this was NOT a terrorist attack, at least not in my books.
On this day in 1995, The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) assassinated Sri Lankaa President Premadasa during a May Day event and killed 17 others.
Today’s featured attack most definitely was. On this day in 1995 Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa was killed by a Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) suicide bomber during a May Day rally in the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo. 17 others were also killed and 38 were injured, seven seriously. The killer rode up on a bicycle and was stopped before he reached the dignitary. Nevertheless he did succeed in his mission and television pictures after the blast showed bodies scattered on the pavement, along with bits of clothing, broken signboards, shards of glass and the shoes of people who had fled.
The LTTE went on to assassinate other leaders in South Asia: these may come up in future Today in Terrorism posts. The organisation was clearly a terrorist one and hence most, if not all, of its actions, were terrorist in nature. The killing of Ranasinghe Premadasa was a clear example of this.
