Terrorist attacks against military targets and armed forces in international law





Short Abstract



International terrorist groups have become stronger than before. Nowadays, they can not only plan and implement terrorist attacks to public properties but also dare to threat and attack military targets including military facilities and armed forces. Furthermore, both acts of aggression by the US and Israel against Iran in 2025 and 2026—which led to the ‘12-Day War’ and the ‘Ramadan War’—began with the widespread assassination of Iranian military commanders. This is while the traditional definition of terrorism defines this violence as attacks on civilians, public and government facilities to create a climate of intimidation and terror in society. So, targeting military objects raises some important questions on the legal description of the attack and its applicable law, respectively. This article seeks to answer whether an attack by a terrorist group against military facilities and armed forces of a State is a terrorist attack and, if so, how the anti-terrorism law should be applied in confronting it. The author hypothesizes that attacks against military facilities and armed forces are deemed terrorist attacks in situations where they would not have been taking part actively in hostilities in a situation of armed conflict.



Extended English Abstract

International terrorist groups have become stronger than before. Nowadays, they can not only plan and implement terrorist attacks to public properties but also dare to threat and attack military targets including military facilities and armed forces. Furthermore, both acts of aggression by the US and Israel against Iran in 2025 and 2026—which led to the ‘12-Day War’ and the ‘Ramadan War’—began with the widespread assassination of Iranian military commanders. This is while the traditional definition of terrorism defines this violence as attacks on civilians and public and government facilities in order to create a climate of intimidation and terror in society. Therefore, when terrorist groups attack a military target or armed forces, important questions arise regarding the legal description of the attack and, consequently, the applicable laws to counter it. The main question is when a purely military target or armed forces are targeted by terrorist groups with political motives, can the attack be considered a terrorist attack and consequently, applied international rights and obligations regarding counter-terrorism to that attack and its perpetrators?

In response to this question, this article attempts to prove the hypothesis that attacks on military targets and armed forces during times other than armed conflicts are considered terrorist acts and that counter-terrorism laws, including anti-terrorism conventions, are applicable to them.

The article concludes by using the library collection method of its sources and the systematic analysis research method to prove its hypothesis: A significant number of international counter-terrorism conventions were adopted at a time when most terrorist acts were individual. Individual terrorism, while dangerous, is not capable of threatening military objectives. For this very reason, until the last decade of the 20th century, governments and international and regional organizations did not consider attacks against military targets and armed forces as terrorist and excluded them from international and regional anti-terrorism instruments. The growth of religious extremism, along with the communications revolution, has provided the basis for the emergence and growth of transnational and organized terrorism. Unlike individual terrorism, this type of terrorism has the ability to attack military targets and armed forces. Military sites and armed forces who are not engaged in active hostilities are in practice no different from public places and civilians, and at the same time they are a tempting target for a terrorist group to demonstrate its power and legitimize. In such circumstances, the exclusion of attacks against military targets and military personnel from the definition of terrorism and inclusion of the counter-terrorism instruments would be a gift to terrorist groups. The legal rule must follow and regulate the legal reality, otherwise, the law will remain abandoned.

A review of developments in counter-terrorism documents indicates that the legal rule is moving in the aforementioned direction: the counter-terrorism conventions adopted in the late 2000s have extended their provisions to attacks against military targets and armed forces, provided that the targets or armed forces being attacked are not engaged in an active armed conflict. The latter condition is important from two perspectives. First, the interference of different legal regimes must be avoided: the application of counter-terrorism law during armed conflicts, where humanitarian law is applicable, would create serious problems in determining the rights and obligations of the parties to the conflict. Second, the meaning and application of the phrase “period of armed conflict” is problematic. Because there are situations during armed conflicts that, although covered by international humanitarian law, do not necessarily constitute an armed conflict in the strict sense of the word, care must be taken to ensure that the application of counter-terrorism law does not weaken the parties to the conflict, particularly the people fighting against occupation.





Keywords: terrorism, military targets, military personnel, armed conflict periods, humanitarian law.