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the whole Muslim world, their terrorist activities against Israel are seen by
other Muslim nations as an example (Frayman, 1999). The aggression against
Israel is described in the PLO proclamation declaring “the right of the Pales-
tinian Arab people to its sacred homeland Palestine and affirming the in-
evitability of the battle to liberate the usurped part from it, and its
determination to bring out its effective revolutionary entity and the mobiliza-
tion of the capabilities and potentialities and its material, military and spiri-
tual forces” (History of PLO). This proclamation in itself was equal to
declaring the holy war. In 1975-1978 the organization planned two attacks
against Israel resulting in 50 Israeli casualties. However after the Gulf War,
(under the USA pressure) the PLO has made major steps to improve relations
with Israel (Nye, 1997). 
The new page in history of terrorism was opened by Osama Bin Laden-
declared the terrorism number one by the USA. Bin Laden began his career
with fighting against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in 1980s. Later he cre-
ated a pro-Islamic terrorist network, Al-Qaeda. He soon contacted other ter-
rorist organizations operating in the Middle East and thus created a global
network. The main goal of the organization was to oust United States from
the Middle East and arrange a coup in Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden and his net-
work have organized such attacks as the explosion in the World Trade Center
in 1993 in New York, the attack on the National Guards’ training center in
Saudi Arabia (1995); attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania
(1998). Bin Laden together with Sheikh Haled Mohammed has planned and
organized the 9/11  attacks. Despite the massive war-on-terror Bin Laden
still remains undetained (Biography of Osama Bin Laden). 
The United States reacted on the 9/11 events by the “War-on-Terror”
which began in a week after the strikes. On 18
th
of September the US Congress
validated the use of force against terrorists, and the large-scale anti-terrorist
operation began. The campaign covered the immense territories of Europe,
Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East. According to Raymond Duncan
(2006) the War on Terror can be divided into four phases. On the first stage
the world sided with the US in its war against Talib government- suspected in
supporting the 9/11 attacks. On the second stage the world alliance has began
to collapse. The United States and its allies began to disagree on the strategic
and tactic issues. According to the author the disagreement increased after US
declared its decision to strike Iraq as well. This was accompanied by US failure
to intervene in the conflict between Israel and Palestine- thus dissatisfying
its Muslim allies. On the third stage of the anti-terrorist campaign (January
2002) President George W. Bush articulated the concept of “axis of evil”, hav-
ing such states as Iran, North Korea and Iraq in mind. According to the pres-
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ident, these were the countries that supported and sheltered international
terrorism. (Schism between US and its allies kept to increase). On the fourth
and the final stage of the campaign US has once again opened itself for coop-
eration and tried to ratify aggression against Iraq in the Security Counsel.
However in March 2003 US assault against Iraq began while four members of
the Counsel- including Germany, France, China and Russia remained against
the war. USA successfully occupied most of the Iraqi territory in a month
(Duncan, 2006). It should be noted, that after mobilizing the US forces in Iraq
the situation in Afghanistan began to deteriorate. 
Thus results of War on Terror are still open to question. All what can be
said at the moment is that the threat of terrorism has long been underesti-
mated. Perhaps the most dangerous about terrorism is the fact that it already
has become a sort of ideology for some societies, believing the violence to be
the only way of preserving their traditional values against the overwhelming
forces of globalization. 
Theories on Terror
The success in confronting terrorism largely depends on studying the
nature and the causes of terrorism. This issue is attracting interest of many
experts who try to create a theoretical framework explaining terrorism. The
main theories applied to terrorism in international relations include the
Structural, The Psychological and the Rational Choice theories. There also
exist a number of other, less widely accepted theories such as the Communi-
cations Theory, Conspiration Theory, etc. 
According to the Structural Theory terrorism is caused by the specific
social, political, economic and cultural environment existing in various soci-
eties. The Psychological Theory on the other hand, tries to discover the factors
which induce an ordinary citizen to turn into terrorist. The latter theory is
also interested in the internal dynamics of the terrorist groups and the inter-
action of the three elements of the act of terror: the terrorists, the direct and
the indirect target (the audience). And finally the Theory of Rational Choice in-
vestigates the cost-benefit analysis of a person entering a terrorist organiza-
tion (Ross, 1993).
Jeffrey Jan Ross (1993) in his article “Structural Causes of Oppositional
Political Terrorism: Towards a Causal Model” indicates 10 structural causes
of terrorism: (the importance of the factors here are presented in the growing
order) 1. Geographic location; 2. Type of the political system; 3. Level of mod-
ernization; 4. Social, cultural and historical environment; 5. Organizational
structure and uneven process of development in various segments of society;
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