Counter-terrorism refers to the practices, tactics, and strategies that governments, militaries, and other groups adopt in order to fight terrorism. Counter-terrorism is not specific to any one field or organization; rather, it involves entities from all levels of society. For instance, businesses have security plans and sometimes share commercial data with the government. Local police, firefighters, and emergency medical personnel (often called "first responders") have plans for dealing with terrorist attack. Armies conduct combat operations against terrorists, often using special forces. Building a counter-terrorism plan involves all segments of a society or many government agencies.

Counter terrorist tactical units

Today, many of the western countries have special units, designated to handle terrorist threats. Besides various security agencies, there are elite tactical units whose role is to directly engage terrorists and prevent terrorist attacks. Such units perform both in preventive actions, hostage rescue and responding to on-going attacks.

These units are specially trained and equipped for CQB with emphasis on stealth and performing the mission with minimal casualties. The units include take-over force, snipers, EOD experts, dog operators and intelligence officers.

Examples for such units are the Israeli Sayeret Matkal (military) and YAMAM (civilian), the U.S. SWAT teams, the British SAS, the Austrian Cobra unit, and the German GSG-9.

Counter-terrorist units, by country

See also: special forces.