...Tracking al Qaeda Since 9/11 NAME SCHOOL Author Note (text). Tracking al Qaeda Since 9/11 Al Qaeda is a ubiquitous organization in the world today; it exists and operates on multiple continents, it has more funding than some small countries, it has ties and tacit support from state governments. This essay seeks to describe the pre 9/11 al Qaeda and compare that to the al Qaeda that we know and love (to hate) today. Background al Qaeda is a Sunni Islamist terrorist organization that operates across the world, but is based out of and concentrates on attacks in the Middle East, Northern Africa and a smaller condensed affiliate in the Philippines. Al Qaeda is responsible for attacks in North America, Europe, Africa and Asia. In today’s world of the Global War on Terrorism and seemingly un-ending technological surveillance means, al Qaeda, by definition as a terrorist organization must be a secret one or face immediate destruction at the hands of any number of governments. The following sections will discuss the structure, strengths, and weaknesses of al Qaeda as it has changed from September 2001 to today. Structure Pre 9/11: Al Qaeda was very typically structured as a hierarchical organization circa 2001. It had a small leadership cell with different organizational cells below it like security and recruiting. Some descriptions include as many as 4 levels of organization (Tucker, 2008). While the lines of al Qaeda’s hierarchy were much less clear in actuality than they...
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...Al Qaeda a terrorist group was founded by Osama bin Laden and Mohamad Ataf in 1989. The main objective was to drive the United States of America out of Muslim African countries, Saudi Arabia and the entire Arab Peninsula. The death of Osama bin Laden was a major blow to the group. Prior to his death the group was more coherent and structure with central leadership and smaller units with delegated missions. Even with the demise of its head the terrorist group continues to make world news headlines. Al Qaeda disintegrated into several groups that all embrace the groups initial ideologies and methodologies. The though the group has declined, its influence has soared. These splinter groups all have a connection and have a central agenda. They argue though open source data on the groups' innovation practices are necessarily more sparse, we contrast the doctrinal texts with selected examples, which suggest caution in assuming that group doctrine is necessarily put into practice "as written" (Jackson & Loidolt 2013, p. 233) Byman reviews that with Bin Laden's death, these affiliates retain their operational capacity. They continue to try to undermine U.S. allies and some, such as AQAP, will attempt to strike U.S. targets beyond the region in which they operate. His success has made them all far more lethal, but keeping the ties strong depended heavily on Bin Laden's charisma and his access to funds. Zawahiri is less charismatic than Bin Laden. The group influences like minded...
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...Many were connected in some way to the conflicts in the Middle East and directed at the United States, culminating in the attacks of September 11, 2001. Terrorism is unique in that the majority of the acts perpetrated have no direct connection to foreign governments. Rather, terrorism emanates from extremist cells within the populace, with a network of individuals and properties living everyday life alongside the general population. The problem is further complicated because the enemy is hardly ever together as one, instead spread across different countries, and indeed continents. In present day War on Terror, it is necessary to eliminate small cells of extremists living among the general populace, often in a covert manner. Small, low-profile yet highly accurate and effective strikes that do not involve US military personnel are essential to avoid harming innocent civilians. One of the most famous weapons to be developed from these emerging necessities in the 1980’s and 1990’s is the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), more commonly known as the Predator Drone. The politics, geography, and targets of the War on Terror make the Predator Drone an ideal weapon for use in Afghanistan and Pakistan, two of the most important areas of anti-American terrorist activity. Working alongside the CIA’s network of intelligence gathering, the past five years have seen increasing utilization of the Predator Drone for both...
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...Group 1: The War in Afghanistan * Find facts about al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden. Osama Bin Laden Born Sheikh Osama bin Muhammad bin ’Awad bin Laden, was born in March 10th 1957 in Riyadh Saudi Arabia. He was the founder of the Islamist militant organization Al-Qaeda, an organization that was responsible for many attacks in different parts of the world killing thousands of civilians as well as the high-profile targets. He did most of his work under the name of the Islamic religion and specially the sharia law. Osama was born in a very wealthy family, to a Saudi Arabian father and a Syrian mother; he had a total of 52 siblings. In his early ages Osama studied engineering, economics, business administration and religion where he specified in interpreting the Quran and Jihad at King Abdul-Aziz University in Saudi Arabia. Osama got married when only 17 years old, to his second cousin from his mother side of the family. Throughout his life Osama got married five times, and ended up having about 24 children. His strong religious conviction got him to join the local Islamic groups, in 1973. And in 1979 he took to Afghanistan, after the then Soviet Union had invaded the country, and in the 1980’s he officially joined the war in Afghanistan as a volunteer, against the soviet occupying power. One of his main struggles in live was the growing influence of the United States in the Middle East. He felt that the policies of the US government were the prime reason of the unhappiness...
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...affiliation with the attack has been categorize as terrorist. The Islamic as a whole is a great faith for one to follow but a small group associated with the religion has caused much shame to the community. Al-Qaeda is a militant Islamist organization founded by Osama bin Landen in the late 1980s, which was the terrorist organization solely responsible for the attack of 9-11. Al-Qaeda has redefined the way we look at the Islamic religion. Al-Qaeda is the reason many Americans view the Islamic religion in such a negative way and classifies all Muslims as terrorists. Al-Qaeda is a political movement with a demonstrated military ability, which has sought to bypass the state while co-opting its attributes and channeling its resources (Mohamedou 42). The organization, which coalesced in Afghanistan under the initial troika leadership of Palestinian teacher Abdallah Azzam, Egyptian surgeon Ayman al Dhawahiri, and Saudi businessman Osama Bin Laden in August 1989, was born more in context of a major international armed conflict, namely the Soviet Union’s failed take –over of Afghanistan from December 1979 to February 1989 (Mohamedou 18). War instead of social protest, political opposition or religious reform was hence the organizations historical maker (Mohamedou 18). Al-Qaeda is a terrorist group that was brainwashed by their leader Osama Bin Laden and they believe if they sacrifice their life for the cause, they will be rewarded at the gates of heaven. The...
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...only part of what LeT is trying to accomplish. Uniting all Muslim majority regions in all countries surrounding Pakistan is also a goal of the LeT. To safeguard all Muslims in the world and defend Muslims under non-Muslim rule is another ideological goal. LeT has regularly supported using force to achieve its goals, andhas sworn the flag of Islam would be planted in Washington. Fair, C. Christine. “Lashkar-e-Taiba Beyond Bin Laden: Enduring Challenges for the Region and the International Community.” Testimony Prepared for the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee’ Hearing on “Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and Other Extremist Groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan.” May 24, 2011. Lashkar-e-Tabia attacked Indian army wives and children in May 2002. The United States stepped in to prevent war. This activity caused to U.S. military forces in Afghanistan. Jayshree Bajoria. “Profile: Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure) (a.k.a. Lashkare-Tayyiba, Lashkar e-Toiba; Lashkar-i-Taiba)”. Council on Foreign Relations. 2010. Attacks In New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Varanasi, Kolkata, and Gujarat India have...
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...Al-Shabaab Profile Al-Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahidden (al Shabaab) is a designated terrorist organisation (National Counterterrorism Centre, 2013) and part of al Qaeda, which operates in Somalia aiming to establish an Islamic Somali state(Atwan, 2013 pp.111-114). Al-Shabaab would want to meet clandestinely with the pirates. Al-Shabaab’s need for financing, and al Qaeda’s emphasis on finding local sources, means that al-Shabaab supports pirates in exchange for receiving a portion of the pirates’ ransoms (Atwan, pp.121-126). Ports and maritime access are essential for piracy and al-Shabaab can use this as leverage for further collaboration (Akhgar, 2013 p.42). The failed US attack on an al-Shabaab Barawe stronghold and al-Shabaab’s subsequent deployment of beach defences are demonstrative of the advantages of operating out of al-Shabaab controlled ports and evidence of al-Shabaab’s ability to withstand attacks by foreign forces (Ahmed et al., 2013). When meeting with the pirates, al-Shabaab could ask for control of the AusAID/WFP food shipment and future pirate food hauls. Over 3 million people are reliant on aid in Somalia (Atwan, p.118) and the food could be used to restore Somali faith in al-Shabaab, lost after recent al-Shabaab attacks. Food supplies could provide incentive for recruitment to the al-Shabaab cause if distributed in Somalia, or in the Somali populated areas of Kenya and Ethiopia. Al-Shabaab would not meet with aid agencies such as the WFP. The WFP was ‘banned’...
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...and Middle Eastern groups had easier access to other areas such as Western Europe, bottom line was geographically close to their home countries, and they were able to draw upon expatriate communities or locals who sympathized with them. Finally, based on these results from this article I see why democratic systems are considered vulnerable to outbreaks of terrorist incidents because political openness that facilitated terrorism in Western Europe and West Germany. What steps has the United States taken to protect Americans against terrorism? Today the U.S. has taken many steps to prevent terrorism, which they call counterterrorism. According to (Mueller) during the past decade, the United States have weakened al Qaeda due to the coordinated efforts or our military,...
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...Al-Qaeda From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search al-Qaeda القاعدة Participant in the Persian Gulf War, the Global War on Terrorism, the War in Afghanistan, the Iraq War, and the Syrian Civil War Active 1988-present Ideology Sunni Islamism[1][2] Islamic fundamentalism[3] Takfirism[4] Pan-Islamism Worldwide Caliphate[5][6][7][8][9] Qutbism Wahhabism[10] Salafist Jihadism[11][12] Leaders Abdullah Yusuf Azzam (1988-1989) Osama bin Laden (1989-2011) Ayman al-Zawahiri (2011-present) Area of operations Worldwide (predominantly in the Middle East) Strength In Afghanistan – 50–100[13] In Egypt –Unknown In Iraq – 2,500[14] In the Maghreb – 300–800 In Nigeria –Unknown In Pakistan – 300[15] In Philippines – Unknown In Saudi Arabia – Unknown In Somalia – Unknown In Syria Unknown In Thailand -Unknown In Yemen –500–600[16] Allies Taliban Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan East Turkestan Islamic Movement Al-Shabaab Islamic Courts Union (dis) Jundallah Lashkar-e-Taiba Jaish-e-Mohammed Jemaah Islamiyah Boko Haram Abu Sayyaf Iraqi insurgents Caucasus Emirate FARC[17][18] Syria (alleged)[19][20] Qatar (alleged)[21] Opponents United States of America Israel International Security Assistance Force Syria Iran Afghanistan Pakistan Turkey Yemen Egypt Algeria Colombia Al-Qaeda...
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...September 11th terror attacks were a sequence of four attacks by al-Qaeda terrorists on the United States. They were carried out by al-Qaeda, an Islamic terrorist group. The terrorist attacks were launched in New York City and in the metropolitan area in Washington D.C on Tuesday, 11 September 2001. 19 al-Qaeda terrorists commandeered four planes and flew them into buildings in suicide attacks. Among the planes that were hijacked, were United Airlines Flight 175 and American Airlines Flight 11. These planes were crashed into the South and North towers of the World Trade center, respectively. American Airlines Flight 77 was crashed into the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, widely known as The Pentagon. The fourth plane was United Airlines Flight 93. Despite being targeted at Washington, D.C, its passengers tried to overcome the hijackers and ended up being crashed into an open field in Pennsylvania. The attacks killed approximately 3000 people. Among them included all 19 hijackers and the 227 passengers who were aboard the four planes. The 9/11 terrorist attacks are considered the most fatal case for firefighters in United States history. The bipartisan Commission was given the mandate of researching and presenting its conclusions, findings and recommendations that would ensure that a similar scenario of the September 11th attacks did not happen again. The Commission found out that al-Qaeda had used loopholes in the United States’ aviation security systems...
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...Terrorism and Homeland Defense Fundamentals Weekly Assignment 3.2 Part One: 1. Describe the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine in 1947. For two years after the end of WWII, the world was in constant flux. New countries and boundaries were being drawn and one of the most contested and controversial was the creation of an Israeli/ Palestinian state. The Learning Network (2011) states the following: On Nov. 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for Palestine to be partitioned between Arabs and Jews, allowing for the formation of the Jewish state of Israel. Since 1917, Palestine had been under the control of Britain, which supported the creation of a Jewish state in the holy land. Sympathy for the Jewish cause grew during the genocide of European Jews during the Holocaust. In 1946, the Palestine issue was brought before the newly created United Nations, which drafted a partition plan. The plan, which organized Palestine into three Jewish sections, four Arab sections and the internationally-administered city of Jerusalem, had strong support in Western nations as well as the Soviet Union. It was opposed by Arab nations. US Central Intelligence Agency (para. 1-3) 2. Why do you think that Palestinian terrorists concentrate on soft targets? The concentration on soft targets is a result of the need to draw attention of a global audience that is increasingly challenging to traumatize, the growing sophistication of the terrorists...
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...TERROR GROUPS AROUND THE GLOBE- HOW TO ELIMINATE THEM Terrorism is a problem which the country has been continuously facing for more than two-three decades but now has emerged as a global problem against which an internationally united battle has to be fought constantly. Violent behaviour in order to create an atmosphere of fear in the society or a part of it for political ends is generally termed as Terrorism. A terrorist is a person who creates fear panic among the organization to which he belongs. Terrorists resort to various ways to accomplish these goals like planting crude home-made bombs, hand-grenades or other explosives in a shopping centre or a crowded place like a railway-station or a bus stand or even a bus, train or aeroplane, kidnapping, assassination or hijacking. Different terrorist activities all over the world may have different aims, but a few goals, common to all may be underlined. It may be because they want a regime to react or they intend to mobilize a mass support through fear, to eliminate opponents or enemies or to magnify their cause. Terrorist groups are the biggest threat to any civilian of any country. Here is the list of terrorist groups from the ones who are not very well known and whose terror attacks are not much recorded to the ones who terrorize the whole world and cause severe catastrophe. 10. Armed Islamic Group of Algeria (GIA) With an endeavor to overrule the Algerian government, this terrorist group was founded in July 1992 and became...
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...Executive Summary After Osama Bin Laden was killed by a U.S. military raid in Pakistan, his aides have followed his footsteps and started their own branch of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). This organization was formed in January 2009 through a union of the Saudi and Yemeni branches of al-Qaeda (Masters, Jonathan. 2012). This fairly new group has the closest components and core, associated with Bin Laden’s former Al-Qaeda network. With the country of Yemen unstable, this organization looks to overtake the country with new recruits and spread their cause to its borders and beyond, from their stronghold in the southern part of the country. The AQAP’s primary goals are to try and bring down a United States airliner, spread Islamic Law, and continue to draw out a long fight forcing America to slow the economy by spending its money on security for the nation. Fighters arriving back to Yemen from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan bring their experiences and provide valuable training to the new recruits. Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, mastermind of bomb making, has almost made all of his devices come to life. By gathering intelligence and focus overtime, we know more about how potentially deadly and a threat this organization is to the United States. Current operations with drone surveillance and strikes are trying to take out this organization’s operatives. Imbedded agents are trying to gather information on the ground to try and foil the next plot. The United States has been...
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...What is al-Qaeda? Al-Qaeda, Arabic for "the Base," is an international terrorist network founded by Osama Bin Laden in the late 1980s. It seeks to rid Muslim countries of what it sees as the profane influence of the West and replace their governments with fundamentalist Islamic regimes. After al-Qaeda's September 11, 2001, attacks, the United States launched a war in Afghanistan to destroy al-Qaeda's bases there and overthrow the Taliban, the country's Muslim fundamentalist rulers who harbored bin Laden and his followers. Like his predecessor George W. Bush, President Barack Obama has committed U.S. strategy to destroying al-Qaeda’s safe haven in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, and limiting the group's ability to strike U.S. targets. What are al-Qaeda's origins? Al-Qaeda grew out of the Services Office, a clearinghouse for the international Muslim brigade opposed to the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In the 1980s, the Services Office--run by bin Laden and the Palestinian religious scholar Abdullah Assam--recruited, trained, and financed thousands of foreign mujahedeen, or holy warriors, from more than fifty countries. Bin Laden wanted these fighters to continue the "holy war" beyond Afghanistan. He formed al-Qaeda around 1988. Where does al-Qaeda operate? There is no single headquarters. From 1991 to 1996, al-Qaeda worked out of Pakistan along the Afghan border, or inside Pakistani cities. During the Taliban's reign al-Qaeda shifted its base of operations into Afghanistan...
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... But the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were an attack on the heart of America.” The immediate effects from 9/11 like death and destruction are very disturbing, and that leaves Americans wondering why someone would kill thousands of innocent civilians. The causes of 9/11 have been a topic of debate for many years, and many of the effects are quite evident in our society. The September 11th attacks performed by the Al-Qaeda were caused by certain motives that root from conflicts with the United States and the effects run deeper death and destruction and are displayed through changes in American law and culture. First, a leading cause towards the 9/11 attacks is the United States’ foreign policy which favors Israel over Palestine in the Israel-Palestine Conflict. Israel and Palestine have been been conflicting since the mid 20th century due to issues that involve the control of the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem. Primarily, the issue involves the Israeli Jews and the Palestinian Muslims Osama Bin Laden, the leader of the Al Qaeda was anti-Semitic (a hatred of Jews), took favor of the Palestinians. United States military supporting Israel, which led to deaths of many Palestinians, obviously upset bin Laden and fueled his hate towards Americans even more. Bin Laden stated in his Letter to America: “Why are we fighting and opposing you? The answer is very simple: (1) Because you attacked us and continue to attack us. a) You attacked us in Palestine.” Bin Laden...
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