Scholars have written on the extensive risks that transnational terrorism entails for militant groups that perpetrate such attacks. However, despite these risks, transnational terrorism has become an increasingly common feature of civil wars. This raises the question: Why do rebel groups launch terrorist attacks outside of the countries they are fighting civil wars in? I argue that weaker rebel groups are more inclined to turn to such tactics because they are desperate, and as a result, are more willing to make the gamble to signal their resolve, impose costs on their enemies, avoid direct military confrontation with domestic security forces, and generate external support. Using data on the transnational terrorist attack patterns of all rebel group–government dyads present in the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) Dyadic Dataset from 1970 to 2013, I find that conventionally weak rebel groups are more likely to rely on transnational terrorism.

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跳出框框思考：内战中的跨国恐怖主义

学者们已经写过跨国恐怖主义给实施此类袭击的激进组织带来的广泛风险。然而，尽管存在这些风险，跨国恐怖主义已成为内战日益普遍的特征。这就提出了一个问题：为什么反叛组织在他们进行内战的国家之外发动恐怖袭击？我认为，较弱的反叛团体更倾向于采用这种策略，因为他们走投无路，因此更愿意进行赌博以表明他们的决心，让敌人付出代价，避免与国内安全部队发生直接军事对抗, 并产生外部支持。