Terrorism Targets: The World Trade Center and Iran Hostage Crisis

What makes a particular terrorist group attack their targets? Religion? Politics? Ethnocentrism? Each of these and others are true.
 
Terrorist attacks have occurred on financial, political, and religious institutions. They have occurred in restaurants, stadiums, and city streets. Terrorist attacks have killed or injured countless innocents.

Who's at Risk?

The sheer variety of terrorist tactics puts almost anyone at risk. Terrorists might target law enforcement or military bases. They may choose to assassinate high-profile political figures, or kidnap and hold hostage small groups of traveling tourists. Seemingly random bombings and attacks against the general populace keep people living in fear. A target may be vital to a nation's military or economic well-being, or purely symbolic in nature.
 
The goal of the terrorist is to provoke terror, mistrust, and anxiety in the target audience. One of the most terrifying acts of terrorism is hostage taking, whether for a few days, weeks, months, or, in the case of the Iran Hostage Crisis, for over a year.

Iran Hostage Crisis

Following the overthrow of Shah Pahlevi by Islamic revolutionaries early in 1979, US-Iran relations steadily deteriorated. On November 4, 1979 Iranian extremists seized the American embassy in Tehran and took hostages. In response, President Jimmy Carter applied economic sanctions to Iran, halting oil imports and freezing assets. All diplomatic negotiations to free the hostages failed. One rescue mission was attempted in April 1980, but this, too, failed.
 
Later that year, exiled Shah Pahlevi died in Egypt and Iran was invaded by Iraq. Suddenly Iran was open to negotiation. Three things happened on January 20, 1981: President Ronald Reagan was inaugurated to office, the US released nearly $8 billion in Iranian assets, and the hostages were freed. The Iran Hostage Crisis was over. Of the 90 people inside the embassy in November 1979, 52 remained in captivity until the end of the crisis, 444 days.

World Trade Center

The World Trade Center in New York has been the target of terrorist attacks on more than one occasion. On January 26, 1993 a car-bomb explosion in the parking basement of the World Trade Center complex killed six people, injured over a thousand, and resulted in more than $300 million in damages. This was the first major terrorist attack on US soil.
 
On September 11, 2001 the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center collapsed as the result of terrorism. The coordinated plane crashes in New York City, Washington DC, and Pennsylvania resulted in the deaths of more than 6000 people and thousands of other injuries.

Audiences

Terrorists don't just concentrate on their targets and victims. They are also keenly aware of their audience: the people who will see and be affected by their attacks. The larger and more devastating the attack, the greater the media coverage and the larger the audience. By keeping this unwilling audience in mind, terrorists can indirectly affect thousands, or even millions, more people than their victims.