Study of the Spatial Dimensions of Terrorism

Intrduction:Although terror and terrorism are not new phenomena in the world and its history back to the formation of policy and governance¡ but in the last decades of twentieth century with the development of technological and communicational tools¡ proliferation of advanced weapons¡ complex organizing¡ jobbery of authorities¡ and formation of ethnic¡ national and ideological incentives¡ power and role of terrorist groups and organizations has been increased. Terrorism has become one of the major challenges of the 21st century. Growth and expansion of terrorist attacks in recent years has caused specialists to focus on explain of the reasons of formation and growth contexts and expansion of this phenomenon and analysis of its various aspects. Among the various aspects of terrorism and terrorist attacks¡ spatial dimension has attracted particular interest of political geographers. There are a few geographical studies in terrorism literature¡ and most of them are deprived of a conceptual framework. These conditions and factors provide the need for identifying spatial dimensions of the phenomenon in order to have philosophy and certain nature for geographic studies of terrorism.
This article seeks to answer this question that “what spatial dimensions does the terrorism have? To answer the question¡ this article has used descriptive-analytic method. The required data is collected through library resources¡ documents¡ statistical data of scientific websites and International reports in connection with the terrorist attacks.
Geographers in general and political geographers in special have little interest in studying terrorism. Therefore¡ geographers’ contribution to development of terrorism concept is minimal. In order to draw a specific theoretical framework for geographic studies of terrorism¡ spatial dimensions of terrorism and terrorist attacks would be identified and analyzed. These dimensions can be discussed in six questions. 1- In which spaces does terrorism arise? (Which spaces create terrorism) 2- Which places are targeted by terrorists? 3- What is the territory purpose of terrorists? 4- In which scale and geographical territory do terrorists act? 5- What geographical methods and techniques are used by terrorists? 6- Which geopolitical and spatial reflections do the terrorist attacks have?
Political geographers have to identify and analyze spatial dimensions of terrorism and terrorist attacks as a political phenomenon. Evaluation of the spatial dimensions of terrorism illustrates this phenomenon structurally and functionally which is one of the geospatial analysis capabilities. Structural aspect of geographical study of terrorism explores the impact of territorial and geographic factors¡ characteristics and motivations on formation of this phenomenon. While the functional aspect of geographic study of terrorism pays attention to use and impact of terrorism and terrorist attacks in the geographical space.