Islamic Terrorism and the Attack of September 11 Essay

Since the terrorist attacks on 9/11, America has been on edge about the topic of terrorism. Groups like Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Taliban, and now more recently, ISIS, has kept the world cautious of their every next move. Looking more closely into how these groups are formed and operate could help us better understand how they can be stopped. Studying the history of terrorist organizations can help us better predict the future of terrorist organizations.

The 9/11 terror attacks is one of the historical and fatal events that changed the United States of America forever, especially in relation to terrorists and terrorism. While these concepts were on the minds of very few people in America's population before the attacks, the 9/11 incident made terrorism to become one of the major concerns for the whole nation. This is despite of the fact that they were carried out in New York City, Washington, and parts of Pennsylvania. Since it was a major concern, the terror attacks dominated all kinds of media and contributed to increased security measures for average Americans. Moreover, terrorism currently provides a major threat to global security that any time in American and global history (Dyson, 2001, p.3). As a result, it has become a fundamental aspect for law enforcement agencies and their initiatives, particularly with the rapid technological advancements.

This article by Isabelle Duyvesteyn starts off by summarising the objectives that challenge the perspective of terrorism since the last decade of the twentieth century is fundamentally new. In this article certain questions have been debated regarding new aspects of terrorism and they are: “transnational nature of the perpetrators and their organizations, their religious inspiration, fanaticism, use of weapons of mass destruction and their indiscriminate targeting.” ("How New Is the New Terrorism?", 2017)In order to understand the depth of aspects of new terrorism the article talks about “national and territorial focus of the new terrorists, their political motivations, use of conventional weaponry and the symbolic targeting that is aimed in order to achieve a surprising effect.” ("How New Is the New Terrorism?", 2017)

This paper will discuss religious terrorism in particular. Religious terrorism can be defined as “the terrorism [is] carried out based on motivations and goals that have a predominantly religious character or influences.” (“Religious Terrorism”) An example of this will be the 9/11 attacks. It was “a series of four coordinated terrorist attack launched by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda upon the United States in New York City and the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.”(“September 11 attacks”) This attack had led to a serious causality, “almost 3000 people dies in the attacks.” (“September 11 attacks”) Osama Bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda, declared a “holy war against the United States” (“September 11 attacks”) In his “letter to America”, he stated the motives as follows: In opposition to western support for attacking Muslims in Somalia; supporting the Indian oppression against Muslims in Kashmir; the Jewish aggression against Muslims in Lebanon; the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia; U.S support of Israel and the sanction against Iraq. (“September 11 attacks”) The disastrous attack leads to a serious attention of re-constructing the old version of counter terrorism strategy, which had failed to protect the citizens against terrorism. However, ‘terrorism is far to complex for one solution to be effective in dealing with all the possible threats.” (Lygutas 146) Therefore, some of the measures have difficulties in balancing the rights of

“Since 9/11, Muslims in America are living in fear” (“In a virtual internment camp: Muslim Americans since 9/11”). When our World Trade Center came crashing down, American had one more enemy, Muslims. 9/11 was a tragic act of terrorism and those victims will not be forgotten, but because of the Muslims that did this terrible act most Muslims in America were grouped into one category, evil.

How would you like to be profiled. On September 11,2001 2966 Americans were killed. Since then, many people feel Muslims have been targeted and treated unfairly. People believe Muslims did not cause anti Muslim attitudes. My first main idea is about airport security has targeted Muslims since 9/11. My second main idea is about Americans have stereotypes Muslims since 9/11. My third main idea is about The media spreads anti- Muslims ideas.The last main idea is that many americans believe profiling Muslims make them safer. 9/11 caused anti- Muslim profiling from airport security, the media, and the American people.

Many people, mostly immigrants, because of their race or culture have had to deal with marginalization, an act of making something or someone unimportant or powerless within a society or group, having them learn to work through it because they feel like they don’t have any rights and they need to do whatever it takes to support and keep their family and themselves safe. People like Muslims and Mexicans, whether their immigrants or not, are the ones that are marginalized the most making it hard for them to live a life where they are not looked down at and are not oppressed or discriminated by others.

I was eating cheerios on the morning of Tuesday, September 11th, 2001, when a friend of my family’s came over and told us to turn on the news. A Boeing 767 had just impacted the north tower. Everyone was confused about what was happening, to include me. This is really the only memory I have specifically of the attacks on 9/11, when I was 5 years old. I knew and understood what had happened that day. What I never heard about was the legislation that passed in the days to follow.

"Who are you?"(Eggers 206) were the first words that Abdulrahman Zeitoun heard from the police officers that had surrounded him and his friends with their guns drawn as he walked out of 5010 Claiborne that he owned. He had been stopping by the house to use the telephone once a day to call his wife Kathy, who was in Arizona with their four children to escape Hurricane Katrina, a catagory 5 hurricane that had hit New Orleans, the city they lived in. Abdulrahman Zeitoun had stayed home to protect his many properties that he and his family had required in the sixteen years since he had moved to the city. He was a general contractor and owner of Zeitoun Painting Contractors, LLC. He also owned several rental houses around the city and had

The government’s response to the September 11, 2001 events was quick and decisive. Government officials attributed responsibility for the attack to Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda organization. One result was an announced policy shift from deterrence to preemption, generally referred to as the “Bush Doctrine.” (National Security Strategy, [http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html].) Given the potential consequences of terrorist attacks employing weapons of mass destruction, government decision makers felt that the nation could not afford to sit back, wait for attacks to occur, and then respond. The nation was mobilized; combating terrorism and crippling Al Qaeda became top national priorities. The use of military force against different terrorist groups and infrastructure gained increasing acceptance in Government policy circles. In addition, a February 14, 2003, National Strategy for Combating Terrorism [http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030214-7.html] gave more emphasis to the role of international cooperation, law enforcement and economic development in countering terrorism.

Background/Cause: The September 11 attacks were largely caused by Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda. He held beliefs about the United States leading up to the attacks saying that America was weak. According to his comrade, Abu Walid al-Masri, bin Laden believed that the United States was much weaker than some of the people he was associated with. Bin Laden believed that the United States was a “paper tiger,” a belief not only held because of America’s departure from Lebanon, but also by the withdrawal of American forces from Somalia in 1993 and from Vietnam in the 1970s (Bergen).

In this paper, the principles of distinction, proportionality and military necessity will be defined and discussed in relation to the event of 9/11. As well as, the legal constraints that are associated with the conduct of hostilities under the new conditions imposed. The term “terrorism” and “terrorist” were included following the events of 9/11, identifying a new type of enemy. Narratives of who the enemy was changed towards individuals who were or seemed like a Muslim. Muslims were perceived as the new enemy. This subsequently led to major legal constraints such as

Living the United State when one thinks of a terrorist attacks often their mind will first go to a larger scale attack such as the events of September 11th 2001. “September 11, 2001 changed the United States forever, the terrorist attack that day marked a dramatic escalation in a trend toward more destructive terrorist attacks which began in the 1980s. It also reflected a trend toward more indiscriminate targeting among international terrorists. The vast majority of the more than 3,000 victims of the attack were civilians. In addition, the attack represented the first known case of suicide attacks carried out by international terrorists in the United States.” (Waston, 2002) However as the years have gone by we have come to learn that terrorist attacks are not always on a large scale and that even one person who is inspired by the ideologies of a terrorist group without being directly connected to them can carry out attacks. Those that engage in this type of terrorism are referred to as lone wolf terrorist. A recent example of such an even was the mass shooting at the San Bernardino Inland Regional Center in December of 2015.

Kingsley, Okoro. "Religion and Terrorism: A Socio-Historical Re- Consideration." Journal of Alternative Perspectives in the Social Sciences 2.2 (2010): 550-576. Academic Search Complete. Web. 26 Oct. 2015.

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