(Thumbnail Image: Austin American-Statesman)

After a Texas state representative called the Austin suicide plane attack domestic terrorism, he sparked widespread debate over the definition and the use of the term.

First up from Time Warner's News 8 Austin a University of Texas professor gives his take on the definition debate.

“The definition of terrorism is quite unclear itself. Basically I think that what we saw yesterday was a criminal act that incorporated elements of terrorism. The target was highly symbolic, the IRS offices, the Modus operandi was a copy cat of the 911 attacks. The perpetrator clearly had some kind of political agenda."


A former Justice Department official tells The Wall Street Journal, there's no need for debate -- the definition is clear.


"It is kind of a silly semantic game to argue about whether or not it is terrorism. It is a version of domestic terrorism. It doesn’t really matter except maybe for agencies keeping statistics."


An analyst on Russia Today talks about why the attack is not being considered an act of terrorism.


“It really doesn’t fit the criteria for that from the Department of Justice guidelines or the FBI for the lead as an actual act of terrorism. Now the interesting thing would be whether or not he’s associated with any of the anti-government groups or the anti-tax groups.”


But a reporter for Sky News disagrees.  On his blog he says the Austin attack is terrorism--just not in the traditional sense.

"True, it isn’t international terrorism, it isn’t Islamic terrorism, it isn’t even what the world seems to think of as terrorism today. But to terrorise a city, a building, the people in it, especially if the motive is even partially political, must be terrorism of a sort."


So was the Austin attack domestic terrorism, or was it just a criminal act?

Writer: Maurice Scarborough