NCJ Number
101561
Date Published
1985
Length
41 pages
Annotation
This report on terrorist groups and their activities in Italy during 1983-1985 updates the report entitled, 'Terrorism and Security: The Italian Experience,' which examines terrorism in Italy between 1968 and 1982.
Abstract
Reduced terrorist activity in 1983, 1984, and the first semester of 1985 confirms trends discernible in the later stages of the period addressed in the previous study. There has been a steady decline in the aggregate number of annual terrorist attacks and in the overall quality of terrorist operations. Other trends reflect continued dissidence among terrorists, evidenced in the repeated failure of terrorist formations to operate as a force capable of uprooting or paralyzing democratic institutions. Terrorist groups have not recovered from the unprecedented setbacks suffered in 1982 because of systematic law enforcement operations, timely intelligence collection, and terrorists' confessions. There are indicators, however, that terrorism continues to be a tool for organizations and groups, domestic and foreign, entertaining broader subversive designs. Terrorism is attracting a new generation of recruits, and experienced terrorists at large and in prison continue to believe in their causes. According to the Italian Government, there are 295 leftists terrorists and 68 rightist terrorists at large. Some terrorists and extremists are combining political objectives with common crimes. There is evidence of efforts to mount a broad support base through the exploitation of economic and social tensions through terrorists' infiltration of ideological groups, notably the pacifist movement. The presence in Italy of transnational formations with anti-Western designs is of particular concern to the United States.