Afrasianet - State-sponsored terrorism is terrorist violence  carried out with the active support of national governments and provided to violent non-state actors. States can sponsor terrorist groups in a variety of ways, including, but not limited to, financing terrorist organizations, providing training, providing them with weapons, providing logistical and intelligence support, and hosting groups within their borders. Given the derogatory nature of the word, the identification of specific examples is often politically contested and different definitions of terrorism.

A wide range of countries, in both developed and developing regions of the world, have been involved in sponsoring terrorism. During the seventies and eighties of the last century,  state sponsorship of terrorism was a frequent feature in international conflicts. From then until the second decade of the twenty-first century, there has been a steady pattern of decline in the prevalence and volume of State support. However, given the increasing level of violence it may facilitate, it remains an issue of great international importance. 

There are at least 250 definitions of "terrorism" available in the academic literature and governmental and intergovernmental sources, many of which include mention of state sponsorship In a review of key documents on international law governing armed conflict, Reizmann and Antonio specified that: 

Terrorism has come to mean the deliberate use of violence against civilian and military targets outside a generally recognized war zone by private groups or groups that appear private but enjoy a measure of covert government patronage.

The Guillmo  Committee of  the U.S. Congress provided  the following definition of state-sponsored terrorism: 

The active involvement of a foreign government in training, arming, and providing other logistical and intelligence assistance as well as providing safe haven to an independent terrorist group for the purpose of carrying out acts of violence on that government's behalf against its enemies.

The U.S. government , which has repeatedly engaged in sponsoring terrorism as a feature of its foreign policy, provides its own definition on the U.S. State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism. Experts and scholars of terrorism and conflict, such as Alex P. Schmid (former UNODC terrorism prevention officer   ), Daniel Byman , Richard Chady, and Frank Shanti, have pointed to problems with the definition of the United States, including that it is politicized and analytically unclear. And selfish by nature. 

The use of terrorist organizations as proxies in armed conflicts between states increased in the mid-twentieth century as a result of post-World War II developments,  such as the high costs of conventional warfare and the threat of nuclear war.

Israel and State-sponsored Terrorism 

The State of Israel has been accused  of being a state sponsor of terrorism. and committing acts  of State terrorism as well. 

  Several sovereign states have at one point officially indicated that Israel supports state-sponsored terrorism.

An early example of Israeli government sponsorship was  the 1954 Lavon affair , a failed bombing plot in Egypt that led to the resignation of Israel's then-defense minister. In the seventies and eighties, Israel was also a major supplier of arms to dictatorships in South America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia. In the twenty-first century, it has been accused of sponsoring and supporting numerous terrorist groups as part of its proxy conflict with Iran. 

In 2024, Mali and  Niger severed ties with Ukraine after declaring it a state sponsor of terrorism, claiming that it supported recognized terrorist organizations in Ukraine by engaging in an act of aggression against Mali. 

The United States and State-Sponsored Terrorism 

Beginning in 1959, under the Eisenhower  administration, the U.S. government recruited CIA agents  in Cuba to  carry out acts of terrorism and sabotage, kill civilians, and cause economic damage. 

In the wake of the failed Bay of  Pigs invasion , the United States dramatically escalated its sponsorship of terrorism against Cuba. In late 1961, using the military and the CIA, the United States government engaged in a large-scale campaign of state-sponsored terrorism against civilian and military targets in Cuba. Terrorist attacks have resulted in the death of large numbers of civilians. The United States has armed, trained, financed, and directed terrorists, mostly Cuban expatriates and members of  the 2506th Brigade. The terrorist attacks were planned under the direction and participation of U.S. government employees and launched from U.S. soil. Terrorist attacks by the CIA continued until at least 1965, and the CIA ordered the campaign to intensify in 1969. Andrew Bacevich , a professor of international relations and history at Boston University, wrote of the campaign: 

In its determination to destroy the Cuban Revolution, the Kennedy administration recklessly embarked on what was in fact a state-sponsored terrorism program. 

The United States trained Cuban hardline exiles Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch as part of this state-sponsored terrorist campaign. They are widely believed to be responsible for  the bombing of the Cubana 455 , the most serious aerial terrorism incident in the Western Hemisphere before the September 2001 attacks in New York and Washington. The U.S.  Department of Justice has registeredBush claimed that he had participated in at least thirty terrorist attacks, and sought to extradite him when he entered the United States illegally. The U.S. government released Bush without charge on the instructions of George H.W. Bush  and granted residency in the country. 

Operation Hurricane 

Beginning in 1979, the United States worked alongside the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia to fund and arm the mujahideen under Operation Hurricane as part of  the Reagan Doctrine , which is said to have contributed to the creation of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. However, scholars such as Jason Burke , Steve Cole , Peter Bergen , Christopher Andrew , and Vasily Mitrokhin  have argued that Osama bin Laden was "beyond the CIA   '  s vision" and that support from reliable sources does not exist "to claim that the CIA funded bin Laden or any of the other Arab volunteers who came in support of the mujahideen." 

Other U.S. Operations 

The United States is accused of arming and training a political and fighting force of some Kurds in Syria, the  People's Protection Units (YPG), a sister organization of the Turkish Kurdistan Workers' Party  (PKK). The PKK was listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization  by the U.S. Department of State,  and described as a "U.S.-designated terrorist organization" in the CIA's World Factbook.

The United States classifies some groups or organizations as terrorist and then changes to these organizations or groups operating under the American umbrella and with unlimited support, as is currently the case with Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, which seized power in Syria.