"One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." The desire for achieving freedom, spreading religion and claiming territories have led to a number of terrorists incidents which leads to human destruction, economic destabilization, and political unrest. A researcher says, "the numbers of terrorist activities are declining in the 1990's but they have become more deadly." .
Throughout the 1970's to present, many acts of terrorism have been carried out by groups, which are mainly based in the Middle East due to its lack of an effective central government. A typical example of terrorist incident was the Iranian hostage On November 4,1979 in which 3,000 Iranian militants overran the U.S embassy in Teheran and captured 54 embassy staff members. Religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini praised their actions. The militants demanded that, the Shah who ruled Iran for decades and was now seeking medical treatment in the west be turned over to them for trial. The United States apologized for crimes against the Iranian people and the Shah's assets be paid to them. .
In Africa, Angola, unidentified militants, suspected of being UNITA rebels, ambushed a vehicle near Soyo on 25 January and killed a Portuguese citizen. During May, UNITA rebels attacked two World Food Program convoys in northern Angola, killing one person and causing significant property damage. On 18 and 19 August, suspected UNITA fighters attacked two diamond mines in northeast Angola, killing nine South Africans Western Europe had the largest decline in the number of international terrorist incidents of any region in 2000. Several European states moved to strengthen and codify anti-terrorism legislation, and many signed the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Financing, which was opened for signature on 10 January 2000. There were notable examples of counter terrorism cooperation among several countries, such as the US-UK-Greek collaboration on the British Defense Attach assassination in Athens, Spanish-French cooperation against the Basque terrorist group Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA), and Italy and Spain's agreement to create common judicial space.