In an article penned for Maclarens, authors Nicholas Koehler and Stephanie Findlay write a proactive essay about the radicalization of Osama Bin Laden titled “Bin Ladens Ruinous Legacy”.
The article begins with an account of early Al Qaeda attacks and the spectacular failures that ensued. The story begins in Yemen with an account of a series of attacks that occurred in the early 1990s. Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda operatives attempt to bomb two hotels in Aden where just two days prior up to 100 U.S. service members were being housed. While the attack failed and it left only two dead, the lessons learned were invaluable to the terrorist organization. Yemeni authorities found an arsenal of weaponry associated with the plot, including 25 other explosive devices, two anti-tank mines, two machine guns and a pistol. That stash and the large quantity of cash recovered from a suspect's apartment pointed to an operation of means and sophistication.
As inept as the attacks were Osama Bin Laden was able to achieve his goal of pushing American troops out of Yemen. Nonetheless he remained focused on his primary goal of displacing the American military presence he felt had arrived as an occupying force in Saudi Arabia in 1990 to establish a base of operations for the first Gulf War. …show more content…
On February 26, 1993, in New York City, an Al Qaeda operative drove a Ryder rental truck loaded explosives into an underground parking garage in the World Trade Center's north tower. The subsequent blast tore a hole five stories high into the building, ripped doors off elevators and caused dense smoke to curl high up through the tower's emergency stairwells; the explosion killed six and injured over 1,000 more. The attack, it later emerged, had been designed to topple the north tower and cause it to careen into its southern