Definition of "terrorist attack" []

• A surprise attack involving the deliberate use of violence against civilians in the hope of attaining political or religious aims (noun)

WordNet. Princeton University. 2010.

• "Days after Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-born U.S. citizen and resident of Connecticut, tried to blow up a car bomb in Times Square, Sen. Joe Lieberman seized on renewed fears of a terrorist attack to announce his latest legislative gambit: the "Terrorism Expatriation Act" -- or "TEA" -- which would revoke the citizenship of any American "who is found to be involved with a foreign terrorist organization as designated by the State Department.""
• "This scare about an imminent WMD terrorist attack on the United States was politically quite useful for the Bush administration, which was only six weeks away from ordering the invasion of Iraq under the flag of disarming the supposedly WMD-armed regime of the terrorist-supporting Saddam Hussein."
• "A CIA operative identified as Rich B. opened the briefing: There will be a significant terrorist attack in the coming weeks or months, he stated."