Most Dangerous Terrorist Groups in the World

There are various terrorist groups around the world, and they are the cause of fear and threat among the people. Terrorist attacks leave a long lasting psychological impact on people, which is certainly not a pleasant one. Terror attacks like 9/11 will be remembered as a major turning point. The most dangerous terrorist groups as listed by exploredia.com are:

Al-Qaeda:

Al-Qaeda is a militant Islamist organization which was founded by Osama bin Laden between August 1988 and late 1989. Its origins have been traced to the Soviet War in Afghanistan. It functions as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad and a strict interpretation of sharia law. It has been designated as a terrorist organization by the UN Security Council, NATO, the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, and other countries. They have attacked civilian and military targets in various countries. It carried out the September 11 attacks, 1998 U.S. embassy bombings and the Bali bombings in 2002.

The typical techniques used by Al-Qaeda include suicide attacks and simultaneous bombings of different targets. As Salafist jihadists, they think that the killing of civilians is religiously sanctioned, and they disregard any aspect of religious scripture which might be interpreted as forbidding the murder of civilians.

Taliban:

Taliban is an Islamist rebellious movement of Pashtun tribesmen. It ruled large parts of Afghanistan and its capital, Kabul, from September 1996 until October 2001. It gained political recognition from three states: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The main leader of the Taliban movement is Mullah Mohammed Omar. Kandahar is regarded as the birthplace of the Taliban.

While in power, Taliban had enforced its firm interpretation of Sharia law, and leading Muslims were highly critical of Taliban's interpretations of Islamic law. The Taliban were condemned internationally for their brutal oppression of women. The Taliban movement is mainly made up of members belonging to Pashtun tribes, the biggest ethnic group inAfghanistan.

From 1995-2001, the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence and military were widely alleged by the international community to have provided support to the Taliban. Pakistan has also been accused by many international officials for its support to Taliban, but Pakistan claims to have dropped all support for the group since 9/11. According to the United Nations, the Taliban and their allies were responsible for 75 percent of Afghan civilian casualties in 2010 and 80 percent in 2011. Currently the Taliban operates in Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan.

Hezbollah:

Hezbollah is a Shi'a Islamic militant group and political party based in Lebanon. The group receives financial and political support from Iran and Syria, and its paramilitary wing is considered as a resistance movement throughout much of the Arab and Muslim worlds. The U.S., the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Australia, Canada and Israel classify Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.

Hezbollah first emerged in response to the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, through the Lebanese civil war. Its forces were trained and organized by a group of Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Hezbollah leaders have also made many statements calling for the destruction of the state of Israel, which they refer to as the "Zionist entity".

Hezbollah, which had started with only a small militia, has grown to an organization with seats in the Lebanese government, a radio and a satellite television-station, and programs for social development. The group maintains strong support among Lebanon's Shi'a population, and is able to drum up demonstrations of hundreds.

Hamas:

Hamas is an Islamic political party that governs the Gaza Strip. It also has a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Since June 2007 Hamas has governed the Gaza portion of the Palestinian Territories, after it won a majority of seats in the Palestinian Parliament in the January 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections. They later defeated the Fatah political organization in a series of violent clashes. The European Union, the U.S., Canada, Israel and Japan classify Hamas as a terrorist organization, while the Arab nations and countries such as Russia and Turkey do not.

Hamas was founded in 1987 as an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Co-founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin stated in 1987 and the Hamas Charter affirmed in 1988 that the group was founded to liberate Palestine from Israeli occupation and to establish an Islamic state in the area that is now Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.

Egyptian Islamic Jihad:

The Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) was previously called as Islamic Jihad and originally referred to as "al-Jihad," and then "the Jihad Group", or "the Jihad Organization". It is an Egyptian Islamistgroup active since the late 1970s. It is under worldwide prohibition by the United Nations as an affiliate of al-Qaeda. It is also banned by several individual governments including that of the Russian Federation. From 1991, it has been led by Ayman al-Zawahiri. The organization's original chief goal was to overthrow the Egyptian Government and replace it with an Islamic state. Later it extended its aims to include attacking United States and Israeli interests in Egypt and abroad.

EIJ has suffered slowed down as a result of numerous arrests of operatives worldwide, most recently in Lebanon and Yemen. In June 2001, al-Qaeda and Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which were associated with each other for many years, merged into "Qaeda al-Jihad".