Heading towards dangerous terrorism?

The article gives a broad survey of recent trends in terrorism and briefly discusses the potential fur weapons of mass destruction terrorism. The repo rt also touches upon the possible relationship between terrorism and partic ipation in peace support operations, and the potential of sabotage by terro rist groups against the petroleum sector. In the light of recent debate on emerging threats associated with critical infrastructure and information sy stems, this report surveys the debate on cyberterrorist threats against suc h infrastructure. It further discusses to what extent civilian infrastructu re has been targeted by terrorist groups in the past, based on a number of statistical surveys of terrorist attacks. The article argues that civilian infrastructure has rarely been targeted by terrorist groups in peace time. Although the potential for attacks against civilian infrastructure cannot b e excluded, such sabotage attacks are generally much more likely in an inte rnal civil-war situation than in peace time. The article concludes by recom mending more attention to measures aiming at preventing mass-casualty terro rism, which has become somewhat more prevalent over the past decades.