Amir Taheri, in Arab News (June 18, 2004):

...In March 1994 during a visit to Algiers it was hard to avoid the impression that the Algerian state was on the verge of collapse and that the terrorists would soon ride into the capital to seize power. The nation had suffered human and physical losses on the scale of a conventional war. The damage done to its economic and administrative infrastructure by the terrorists ran into billions of dollars. Thousands of municipal buildings, schools, clinics, libraries and private homes had been destroyed. Dozens of villages had been turned into desert, their inhabitants driven out or massacred.

By 1996, however, the tide had begun to turn against the terrorists and within a year it was clear that Algeria was no longer in mortal danger. By 1999 Algeria had won its war against terrorism.

A similar story could be told of Peru, the Latin American nation most affected by terrorist war.

At one point, the main terrorist organization known as Sendero Luminoso (The Shining Path) was capable of striking anywhere and anytime it wished. Over almost two decades, the terrorist war claimed the lives of at least 30,000 people, mostly civilians. By seizing control of a good chunk of the illicit narcotics trade, the terrorist groups had access to an almost endless source of cash to finance their campaign.

And, yet, by 1999 Peru, too, seemed to be emerging from its ordeal. With Sendero Luminoso flushed out of its safe havens and its leadership in the can, the Peruvian state was able to reassert its authority even in the deepest jungles of the hinterland.

Algeria and Peru are not the only nations to have faced and defeated modern terrorism. Egypt and Turkey have had similar experiences with exceptionally brutal terrorist movements.

Today no fewer than 22 countries are affected by terrorism of one form or another. In some, like India, the Philippines, Thailand and Myanmar, the state has succeeded in containing the terrorist threat without fully defeating it. In others, like Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Afghanistan, terrorism has transformed into low— intensity warfare that could continue for years.

Elsewhere, as in Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast and Uganda terror groups have organized themselves into mini-armies that control large chunks of territory and threaten the central state.

But all these experiences reveal one important fact: No terrorist movement in the past two decades has succeeded in overthrowing the state and seizing power for itself. This is in contrast with the experience of the previous decades that saw several terrorist movements, often disguised as revolutionary guerrilla movements, come to power on a wave of violence.

How did Algeria, Peru and other nations that have defeated terrorism managed to do so in the face of heavy odds?

The question is of interest to the latest victims of terrorism, including Saudi Arabia.

While Algerian, Peruvian and other experiences in fighting terrorism show important differences, they all have several key features in common.

The first of these is a psychological determination on the part of the ruling elites to stay the course. One central aim of the terrorist, of course, is to instill fear in society in general and the elite in particular. By refusing to be frightened, society and its leaders achieve their first victory against the terrorists.

This, of course, is easier said than done. In Algeria, for example, the terrorists launched a campaign of murdering university teachers and students, especially girls. Scores were killed, mostly by having their throats slit. The immediate effect was dramatic. More than half of the students of the Algiers University stayed away for weeks and months. By 1995, however, the authorities had provided enough security to persuade the students, and their teachers, to return. This was still an act of daily courage on the part of tens of thousands of young people who were prepared to risk their lives but not to allow terrorists to close the universities.

In both Peru and Algeria the authorities started by grouping key personalities of the system in fortified neighborhoods so as to protect them against assassination attempts. But they soon realized that this made the task of the terrorists easier. The terrorists, using a few people for surveillance, could chart the movements of all the key people to and from a small area. This gave them fixed targets while they themselves enjoyed maximum mobility.

The terrorists achieved spectacular successes by killing many top people. Dozens of ministers, governors, mayors, trade union leaders, political party personalities, prominent media men and women were murdered in Peru and Algeria. In Algeria they even assassinated the head of state.

Later, both countries decided to spread their key personnel widely, beyond the terrorists’ capacity to organize surveillance operations leading to assassinations.

The second lesson to learn is to understand the difference in the rhythm and tempo of the terrorist organization and the state security forces. The terrorist is almost always capable of running the 100-meter course faster than his state adversaries. He aims at achieving big victories quickly and with a few spectacular operations. The state security forces, on the other hand, must be prepared to draw the terrorist into a marathon course. They need to slow things down as much as possible and to make sure that even the most spectacular attacks fail to produce the results desired by the terrorists.

The third lesson to learn is the strategy of forcing the terrorists into fixed positions before moving against them. The terrorist constantly seeks anonymity, like fish in water.

But he also needs safe havens, hospitals, recreation centers, places to hide his bigger weapons, and facilities to train new recruits or imprison potential defectors. All this means a loss of mobility which is the terrorist’s key advantage over the state.