When we think of terrorists we think of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), Baader-Meinhof, the Red Brigades, Shining Path, and Al Qaeda. We think of unsavory characters like Abu Nidal, Usama Bin Laden, Timothy McVeigh, and Ilich Ramirez Sanchez (Carlos the Jackal). These guys are relentless zealots, nihilists, and utopians. They will kill, kidnap, and bomb their way through anyone to get what they want. They don’t cut deals; either you’re with them or you’re dead. When we think of terrorism we remember airline hijackings, bombings, and assassinations of famous leaders like Lord Louis Mountbatten and President Anwar Sadat. We see Munich, the Achille Lauro, and 9-11. Terrorist events seem more criminal than warlike, and they even shock the terrorists’ supporters. They come across as unjust—why toss Leon Klinghoffer, in his wheelchair, overboard on the Achille Lauro? How does this simple act of very personal cruelty help to liberate Palestine? Unlike guerrillas, these guys come across as irrational. The guerrilla resembles Robin Hood, while the terrorist resembles Jack the Ripper.

Convergence. Mao Zedong shaped modern-day guerrilla warfare and, in a way, made room for the terrorist and guerrilla to coexist. The Maoist theory of People’s War divides warfare into three phases. In phase one the guerrilla earns the population’s support by distributing propaganda and attacking the organs of government. In phase two, he escalates his attacks against the state’s military forces and institutions—there is room for some terrorism here, but it must be measured so as not to undo phase one. Phase three sees the conflict shift to conventional warfare in which guerrilla armies seize key terrain and cities, overthrow the government, and take control of the country. The initial phases of insurgency see a blurring of the lines between terrorism and guerrilla warfare, making a clear-cut designation problematic at times.

Similarities and differences. Guerrillas seem larger than life and even somewhat romantic—see Che Guevara T-shirts—while terrorists come across as wild-eyed maniacs. Guerrillas attack what they see as their inherently guilty and corrupt enemy, while terrorists attack the innocent in order to indirectly coerce their enemy. Both use asymmetric techniques but guerrillas seem to take a more or less legitimate, if aggravating, path that holds out the promise of political resolution. Terrorists follow a bloody and uncompromising path.

What is iG v 2.0? As I watched the Mumbai attack unfold over several days in late November I got the feeling that this was something different. It wasn’t a high-tech, one-shot deal like 9-11, nor was it another garden-variety, chaotic bombing like the one that struck the Marriot in Karachi. This was more like a military raid that had no planned withdrawal. It seemed to have been launched with the surgical precision of a special operation. It was quick and slick. It seemed like the iGuerrilla had left the battlefield arena and entered the realm of the terrorist.

iG v 2 is a hybrid that includes genes from the guerrilla, the terrorist, and techno genes from the iGuerrilla. I suspected that Mumbai had the latter and news reports on that came in on December 3 and 4 bore out my suspicion. The attack itself wasn’t all that original but the tools that made it so precise were. Mumbai was an outbreak of the iG v 2 virus—a Hizballah-like iGuerrilla entity augmented with an Al Qaeda–like flare for public suicidal violence. The Mumbai attack was very guerrilla but the end state was very terrorist and the innovation was very iGuerrilla.

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