The phrase "a system of terror" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe an organized method or structure that employs fear as a means of control or oppression.
Example: "The regime established a system of terror to suppress dissent and maintain power over the population."
Alternatives: "a regime of fear" or "a culture of intimidation".
But for those who were kidnapped – and lived in fear even after their release, as they tried to pay the monthly instalments – it was a system of terror.
Bishop Voderholzer said he would personally meet any of the victims who wanted to speak to him and accused two unnamed former school leaders of imposing a "system of terror".
But he was an unattractive character, unscrupulous and choleric, brutal and coarse in speech and action, who tried to rule by a diet subordinated to his will and a system of terror.
A1 LIFE IN THE AFTERMATH -- In the town of Qalat Sukkar, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, the Baath party apparatus managed a system of terror based on the collaboration of neighbors, friends and family members.
Radicals saw this period, which included the 1794 Treason Trials, as "the institution of a system of TERROR, almost as hideous in its features, almost as gigantic in its stature, and infinitely more pernicious in its tendency, than France ever knew".
In the body of the text, Nazism virtually drops out (it was, he says, a system of "irrational terror"—not at all what interested Camus), sharply narrowing the inquiry.
Mohammed travelled around the world, building contacts and a system of ad-hoc terror networks.
The deferred dreams of that era seldom produced explosions, because the state had a very efficient system of terror.
Austrians were overrepresented not only in the system of terror against Jews but also on the battlefields.
Responsible for the broad lines of policy, as well as for the system of terror that upheld the state, he left detailed administration to his subordinates.
But while no one has yet been made to answer for the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge, their nationwide system of terror is now being documented from the bottom to the top.
