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Drawing on Rapoport’s fourwaves thesis, thisstudyaskswhether the emergence of terrorist semi-states (TSS) in the 21st-century MENA region andPakistan meanthatweareseeingthebeginningofanew(fifth)wave. We define a TSS as a rebel group that a) has control over portions of a weak state’s territory, maintaining governance there; b) but still launches terrorist attacks against third-party states. To be considered a fifth wave, the new terrorism phenomenon at hand must both fit Rapoport’scriteria of a wave(beglobal,havethesamedrivingforce)andalsobesignificantly different from the prior wave. Clearly, the TSSs are different from the religious terror groups of the fourth wave in key respects: they prioritize territorial control, they engage in a much wider array of governance activities (not just social services), most of their victims have been mem bersofthesamereligion—namely, Muslims (whichsuggests that they are driven more by the pursuit of power than by Jihad); and finally, their behavior (though not their statements) shows they have a local rather than a universal agenda. The main counter-argument is that TSSs are all Islamic and have so far not been exported globally.