[_delirium]

I don't find it useful to use the term beyond attacks aimed at actually terrorizing people. Stuff like suicide bombs in crowded public squares or metros, sarin gas releases, etc. A particular attack doesn't have to actually have any victims to qualify (it could be unsuccessful, or the outcome could be lucky), but it at least has to have that goal, or else how is it in any way "terror"?

Some kinds of animal-rights attacks on shops or universities could qualify, especially ones using indiscriminate methods like car bombs. But I don't see how it makes sense, apart from wanting to use pejorative hyperbole, to use "terrorism" to describe sabotage that damages equipment on a lab or farm, things like throwing paint or glue on things, short-circuiting electronics, etc. We already have the perfectly good words "sabotage" and "saboteur" to describe those acts and the people who carry them out. If these all start being grouped under "terrorism", then we end up with absurdities like describing the Boston Tea Party as an 18th-century terrorist attack, which I've actually seen people do, but I don't think is useful.

[DanBC]

For clarity: the examples I gave were of organisations using fire to destroy property in order to persuade those businesses to stop trading, or to make it economically impossible for them to keep going.

I mentioned a group that stole a corpse from a grave.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/may/12/animalwelfare.top...

> The militants, including a vicar's son and a psychiatric nurse, led what they called a "holocaust" against a farm which bred guinea pigs for medical research. Jon Ablewhite, John Smith and Kerry Whitburn pursued a six-year hate campaign against Darley Oaks farm in Newchurch, Staffordshire. Whitburn's girlfriend, Josephine Mayo, was sentenced to four years for a lesser part in the campaign.

> Almost 100 people connected to the farm were targeted. Explosive devices were sent to some, mail threatening to kill and maim to others. There were attacks on homes, cars and businesses. The relentless campaign culminated in the theft of the body of Gladys Hammond, a close relative of the Hall family who ran the farm, from her grave in October 2004.

> For months, activists taunted the Halls, telling them the body would be returned if they closed the farm. The body was found only last week in woodland after Smith told the authorities where it was.

This is a campaign of violence, against people, for political reasons.

[richmarr]

Sure. I don't think throwing paint is terrorism either.

The comment I replied to generalised the work of these activists as "potential property damage"... which in the case of the Animal Liberation Front's firebombing campaign, or the plan to interfere with the safe operation of a nuclear power station is incorrect. They're both acts that put lives at risk and clearly intend to cause fear beyond the event.