Terrorism is the new plague of the 21st century. It has become a global threat that everyone should fight resolutely.

To be efficient, the "war against terrorism" cannot be limited to a simple aphorism, common to all diversified situations. The concept itself is complex and its recent proponents require lengthy expositions.

As history shows, the word "terrorism" is a late-comer. It expressed an extreme and indiscriminate violence perpetrated by individuals (states being preferably being accused of "war crimes").

During 1792-95, the time of the French Revolution, the so-called "Terror", its leader Robespierre was never called a "terrorist".

Apart from a few isolated cases in the 1800s, it was the wars of independence that started witnessing the use of the word. Combatants became "terrorists" until they become "national heroes" once independence was gained.

While the French Resistance in the Second World War was considered "terrorist" to the Nazis, nobody would claim that America was a "terrorist state" when indiscriminately carpet bombing civilians and soldiers in Vietnam.

Libya or Israel may, for different reasons, have acceded to the status of political actors practising a form of "state terrorism", but the word was more commonly used for all those laying down bombs from Corsican activists to IRA soldiers and from Basque separatists to the Red Army Brigades.

However, due to its diversified content, no one would have thought of using the same means in order to resolve the Northern Ireland conflict or the fight against the Bader Meinhoff gang in Germany.

The existence of terrorism in a democracy is an insult to the freely expressed choice of a majority, whereas fighting for independence calls for other considerations.

There is a difference between imposing one's view by force and fighting for freedom. While some methods of action can be identical terrorists use the means they have which usually are not those of a nation tactical alliances can also be woven.

Yet a difference can be made according to the situation and fights for independence are usually viewed differently.

So how has terrorism progressively become a global phenomenon? In the aftermath of the Palestinian uprising any fighter using extreme violence has been put on the list of "terrorists" for now; anyone who opposes a dominant power will soon be put on that list.

Whoever fights Israeli expansionism is labelled a potential terrorist. Look at the 12 UN officials arrested last week in Occupied Jerusalem.

Listen to Russia's President Vladimir Putin talking of Chechnya nationalist fighters (forgetting the thousands of civilians deported in cattle trucks by Stalin during the winter of 1944).

And were not the matter so serious, reflect on Richard Perle's accusation of "terrorism" against those journalists who dared investigate him in one of the many embezzlements he has been part of.

Except for the remarkable achievement of Bush, who was able to unite all the anti-coalition components in Iraq, it is clearly of interest to the established powers to favour an alliance that enables co-operation between nations to fight a common enemy.

That the actions of Zionists are quickly approved by American neo-conservatives is a sad example of what manipulation can achieve. It allows Israel, in a recent example, to kill dozens of innocent people while the rest of the world keeps quiet, as it has been doing for the past two weeks during its Gaza Strip incursions.

Two hundred children were murdered in Beslan; thousands of civilians gassed with napalm in Vietnam and in Iraq; nearly 3,000 people killed in the World Trade Centre and Pentagon attacks, and 4,400 Palestinians have been shot dead since Ariel Sharon's stroll into the compound of Al Haram Al Qudsi Al Sharif.

All this may make people believe it is only the number of victims that differs and reaction can only be a total condemnation of such acts.

But will the result of action in fighting global terrorism be to give birth to new terrorists replacing those who died or were jailed, as if evil could be extruded from the person and the disease cured through the killing of the patient?

Because at the end of the day, terrorism must be fought. As Pope John Paul II said, "Violence breeds violence, it is a no-exit road". But he added shortly after that "one should address the roots" since no monolithic solutions ever answered diversified situations.

Some actions can be taken in unison the gathering and sharing of sensitive information for instance but no action will ever succeed if the underlying reason for the terrorist act is not addressed.

First there must be an analysis of the cause. The conflicts in North Ireland, Palestine or Chechnya still need to be solved through other means than fighting. Any indiscriminate action will only result in the emergence of a unified terrorist front, threats of other dimensions than of Al Qaida, as Iraq shows.

Ignoring an appraisal of the underlying elements to terrorist action will ultimately lead only to more terrorism.

As long as Russian soldiers deny Chechens the right to independence; or Israeli soldiers continue to humiliate Palestinians, striking whom and when they want in the Occupied Territories, there will be terrorism. The alternative is to kill all Chechens and Palestinians.

Is this what the "civilised world" wants? Some policies are doing as much to create new terrorists as to end terrorism. In the wait for governments to reflect and not succumb to the manipulations of those who abide by partisan considerations, let me conclude with a remark by Laurent Freedman of London's Kings College: "In the end, the best way to deal with evil leaders is to provide people with few reasons to follow them."