September 11 attacks and nationalist terrorist groups essay

Terrorism Paper 11/16/09 There are several terrorist groups throughout the world today. All the terrorist groups have one common goal and that is to rid the world of Americans and western influence from the Muslim world. There is one organization that has ties to most of all the terrorist groups in the world and is the most infamous group in the world today and that is the group called Al-Qaeda The word Al-Qaeda means “ the base” in Muslim. As an international terrorist organization led by Osama bin Laden.

The group seeks to rid Muslim countries of western influence and replace them with fundamentalist Islamic regimes. Al-Qaeda grew out of the of the ashes of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1988, after it helped expel the Soviet occupation. In 1990, Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the build up of 500, 000 troops from the United Sates and its allies enraged the leader of Al-Qaeda and with that he issued a declaration of war on the United States and its interest around the world. Also in the 1990’s Al-Qaeda stepped up its aggression against the United States with an attack on the World Trade Center and the arming of the AL-Ittihad Al-Islamiyaand attacks in Somalia that killed 18 special operation soldiers during the Battle of Mogadishu. Al-Qaeda was responsible for the US embassy attacks in Kenya and Tanzania. Some of the other attacks that Al-Qaeda was responsible for was the bombing of the USS Cole in Oct 2000, Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing over 3, 000 people. After those horrific attacks on the United States.

President George Bush sent American troops into Afghanistan to topple the regime “ The Taliban” which gave safe haven to the terrorist group and to hunt down the ones responsible for the attacks that killed some many US civilians. Osama Bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist network condone their actions and deem their war as a clash between Islam and Western civilization. The al-Qaeda terrorist campaign against the United States has been classified as a war between the “ ummah”—Arabic for the “ Muslim community”—and the Christian and Jewish West. Bin Laden openly perpetuates conflict between Islam and the West. “ This battle is not between al-Qaeda and the U. S. ,” the al-Qaeda leader said in October 2001, yet “ this is a battle of Muslims against the global crusaders. ” From Bin Laden’s perspective, this “ clash of civilizations” between Americans and the West has been under way for centuries and it is just the most recent incarnation of the Christian Crusaders.

In October 2001, the Arabic satellite news channel aired an interview in which Bin Laden expressed his views on Huntington’s “ clash of civilizations” thesis. The following is a summary of bin Laden’s points in this interview: “ Muslims, Bin Laden argues, must reverse a series of humiliations that they’ve endured since the Ottoman Empire, the last Muslim great power, was dismantled after World War I. Al-Qaeda’s 1998 declaration of a jihad, or holy war, against ‘ Jews and Crusaders’ urges Muslims to attack ‘ the Americans and their allies, civilian and military,’ supposedly as a response to U. S. policies that al-Qaeda feels oppress Muslims: the stationing of troops in Saudi Arabia; the backing of U. N. sanctions against Iraq; support for repressive Arab regimes; support for Israel; alleged complicity in Russian attacks on Muslims in Chechnya; and interventions in Bosnia, Somalia, and other Muslim regions that bin Laden sees as attempts to spread America’s empire. These Western policies, according to al-Qaeda, add up to a ‘ clear declaration of war on Allah, his messenger, and Muslims.

’” It is important to understand that al-Qaeda’s extremist politicized form of Islam only represents a small segment of the diverse religion of Islam. Due to its radical beliefs, many Muslims consider al-Qaeda’s beliefs as a “ distortion of their faith. ” Al-Qaeda has history of attacking Muslim governments, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, because they view their nations as godless, and therefore, in direct conflict with their religious beliefs. For this, and many other reasons, many Muslim countries are part of the U. S. -led coalition against al-Qaeda.

September 11th was part of an increasingly deadly trend in the evolution of terrorism. Comparing the present to that of the last decade, there are now fewer terrorist attacks, but their intentions are to kill more people. Experts attribute this trend of “ fewer attacks, more fatalities” to an increase in religiously motivated terrorism. This type of terrorism lacks some of the restraints than that of earlier versions of terrorism. Experts hypothesize that the popularized hijackings and kidnappings in the 1960s and 1970s have been reduced to simpler, but sometimes more deadly bomb operations, due to the world’s increased awareness and security. Before the 1990s, some terrorist groups operated under the belief that too much violence could backfire.

In other words terrorist groups wanted to find the proverbial sweet spot: they sought to use enough shocking violence to bring attention to a cause they felt had been neglected, but they did not want to use so much violence that their audiences abroad would become permanently alienated. ” It was the same mentality among nationalist terrorist groups—such as the Palestine Liberation Organization or the Irish Republican Army (IRA); they did not want to lose the support of their own people due to extreme violence. The Key leadership of Al-Qaeda are all on the run from the US forces and its allies that are hunting them down.

The man in charge is known as Osama bin Laden, which is the top financer for the group. Also the number two man is Ay al-Zawahiri, who is the leader of the Al Jihad in Egypt, is also the number two man of the organization. There is Abu Yahya al-Libi, who is the top Al-Qaeda recruiter. Mustafa Abu al-Yazid is an original member of Al-Qaeda and is the top advisor to bin Laden. Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah is a consultation council member and part of the religious/fatwa committee and is the FBI’s most wanted Terrorist for his involvement of the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. Saad bin Laden is the son of bin Laden and is believe to be the successor of his father.

Al-Qaeda is functional world wide with sympathizers all over and terrorist cell in almost every country of the world. They have several partners and supporters. Some of the most known are the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which was merged with Al-Qaeda when their leader Ay al-Zawahiri, became the number two man and spokes man for the organization. Lashkar-e-Taiba, is a Pakistani-based Islamic terrorist organization, seeks to drive out Indian security forces from the disputed Jammu and Kashmir regions of South Asia and establish an Islamic caliphate.

Hezbollah is a supporter and it is not yet known if they are actually part of the Al-Qaeda organization. Al-Ittihad is Somalia’s largest militia group and is a member of the organization. Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan is affiliated with al-Qaeda and has embraced Osama bin Laden’s anti-Western global terrorist ideology.

Al-Qaeda is well known for its Tactics, Techniques and procedures. Tactics are assassination, bombings, hijackings, kidnapping, and Suicide attacks. Their techincues are listed on a CD-Rom and in a Manual.

Their Procedures are long thought out planning processes that are used to get the most effect out of an attack. By far Al-Qaeda today is still a very dangerous group, with its members on the run and their finances frozen, they are still regrouping and gaining support of other terrorist organizations around the world and Al-Qaeda is still capable to carry out attacks on the United States and it’s Allies to reach there ultimate goal and to drive out western influence out of the Middle East. Works Cited ; http://www. israelnationalnews. com/news. php3? id= 41128; Jenkens, Brian Michael. “ The future Course of International Terrorism.

” World Future Society. 2001. ; http://www. wfs. org/jenkins. htm; http://www.

brookings. edu/views/interviews/telhami/20010921. htm Terrorism: Questions and Actions. May 2003. http://cfrterrorism. org/groups/alqaeda. html United Nations Home Page. 2000-2004.

; http://www. un. org/english/;