The
War on Terrorism is the common term for the
military, political, legal and ideological conflict against
Islamic terrorism and Islamic militants, and was specifically
used in reference to operations by the United States
, the United Kingdom
and its allies since the September 11, 2001
attacks.
The stated objectives of the war in the US are to protect the
citizens of the US and allies, to protect the business interests of
the US and allies at home and abroad, break up
terrorist cells in the US, and disrupt the
activities of the international network of terrorist organizations
made up of a number of groups under the umbrella of
al-Qaeda.
Both the term and the policies it denotes have been a source of
ongoing controversy, as critics argue it has been used to justify
unilateral
preemptive war,
human rights abuses and other violations
of
international law.
In March 2009, the
Obama administration
requested that Pentagon
staff
members avoid use of the term, instead using "Overseas Contingency
Operation". The administration has re-focused US
involvement in the conflict on the withdrawal of its troops from
Iraq, the closing of Guantanamo Bay
detention camp
, and increasing the number of troops in Afghanistan.
War on Terrorism
Led by Osama Bin Laden, a radical Islamist trained by the US during the 1980s to conduct guerilla attacks against the Soviet Army in Afghanistan , Al-Qaeda formed a large base of operations in Afghanistan, which had been ruled by the Islamist extremist regime of the Taliban since 1996.
Following the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania,
U.S. President Bill Clinton launched Operation Infinite Reach, a bombing
campaign in Sudan
and
Afghanistan against targets the U.S. asserted were associated with
al-Qaeda. Although others have questioned the Sudan plant's
use as a chemical warfare plant The strikes failed to kill
al-Qaeda'a leaders or their Taliban supporters (targets included a
civilian pharmaceutical plant in Sudan that produced much of the
region's
malaria drugs and around 50% of
Sudan's pharmaceutical needs ).
Next came
the 2000 millennium attack
plots which included an attempted bombing of Los Angeles
International Airport
. In October 2000 the USS Cole
bombing
occurred, followed in 2001 by the September 11 attacks.
By 2003, 12 major conventions and protocols were designed to combat
terrorism. These were as well, adopted and ratified by a number of
states to become
international
law. These conventions require states to co-operate on
principal issues regarding unlawful seizure of aircraft for
example, the physical protection of nuclear materials and freezing
assets of militant networks.
In 2005 the Security Council also adopted resolution 1624
concerning incitement to commit acts of terrorism and the
obligations of countries to comply with international
human rights laws.
Although both
resolutions require mandatory annual reports on counterterrorism activities by adopting
nations, the United States and Israel
have both
declined to submit reports.
Terminology
The conflict has also been referred to by other names other than
the War on Terrorism. It has also been known as:
Historical usage of phrase
The phrase "War on Terrorism" was first widely used by the
Western press to refer to
the attempts by
European governments, and
eventually the US government, to stop attacks by
anarchists against leaders and officials. (See,
for example,
The New York Times, April 2, 1881.) For
example, on 24 January 1878, Russian
Marxist
Vera Zasulich shot and wounded a
Russian police commander who was known to
torture suspects. She threw down her weapon without
killing him, announcing;
"I am a terrorist, not a
killer."
The phrase "war on terrorism" gained currency when it was used to
describe the efforts by the British colonial government to end
a spate of attacks by
Zionist Jews in the
British Mandate of
Palestine in the late 1940s. The British proclaimed a "War on
Terrorism" against Zionist groups such as
Irgun and
Lehi, and anyone
perceived to be cooperating with them.
The Zionist attacks, Arab attacks and revolts, and the subsequent
British crackdown hastened the British evacuation from
Palestine.
The phrase was also used frequently by US
President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s,
to describe his campaigns against Libya
and Nicaragua
.
On September 20, 2001, during a televised address to a joint
session of congress, President George W. Bush launched the war on
terror when he said,
"Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda,
but it does not end there. It will not end until every
terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and
defeated." Bush did not say when he expected this would be
achieved. (Previous to this usage, after stepping off the
presidential helicopter on Sunday, September 16, 2001, Bush stated
in an unscripted and controversial comment: "This crusade, this war
on terrorism is going to take a while." Bush later apologized for
this remark due to the negative connotations the word crusade has
to people of
Muslim faith. The word crusade
was not used again).
US President
Barack Obama has rarely
used the term, but in his inaugural address on January 20, 2009, he
stated "Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of
violence and hatred."It is likely that the phrase will fall into
disuse, as one referring to concepts and strategies of his
predecessor. In March 2009 the Defense Department officially
changed the name of operations from "Global War on Terror" to
"
Overseas Contingency
Operation" (OCO).
British objections to the phrase "war on terrorism"
The
Director of Public
Prosecutions and head of the Crown Prosecution Service in the
United
Kingdom
, Ken McDonald—Britain
's most senior criminal prosecutor—has stated that
those responsible for acts of terror such as the 7 July 2005 London bombings are
not "soldiers" in a war, but "inadequates" who should be dealt with
by the criminal justice
system. He added that a "culture of legislative
restraint" was needed in passing anti-terrorism laws, and that a
"primary purpose" of the violent attacks was to tempt countries
such as Britain to "abandon our values." He stated that in the eyes
of the
British criminal justice system,
the response to terrorism had to be "
proportionate, and grounded in
due process and the rule of law":
In January 2009, the British
Foreign
Secretary,
David Miliband, wrote
"ultimately, the notion is misleading and mistaken" and later said
"Historians will judge whether [the notion] has done more harm than
good".
US objectives
The
George W. Bush administration defined
the following objectives in the War on Terrorism:
- Defeat terrorists such as Osama Bin
Laden, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and
destroy their organizations
- Identify, locate and destroy terrorists along with their
organizations
- Deny sponsorship, support and sanctuary to terrorists
- End the state
sponsorship of terrorism
- Establish and maintain an international standard of
accountability with regard to combating terrorism
- Strengthen and sustain the international effort to fight
terrorism
- Work with willing and able states
- Enable weak states
- Persuade reluctant states
- Compel unwilling states
- Interdict and disrupt material support for terrorists
- Eliminate terrorist sanctuaries and havens
- Diminish the underlying conditions that terrorists seek to
exploit
- Partner with the international community to strengthen weak
states and prevent (re)emergence of terrorism
- Win the war of ideals
- Defend US citizens and interests at home and abroad
- Implement the National Strategy for
Homeland Security
- Attain domain awareness
- Enhance measures to ensure the integrity, reliability, and
availability of critical physical and information-based
infrastructures at home and abroad
- Integrate measures to protect US citizens abroad
- Ensure an integrated incident management capability
Timeline
Campaigns and theaters of operation
Africa
Horn of Africa
This extension of "
Operation
Enduring Freedom" was titled OEF-HOA . Unlike other operations
contained in Operation Enduring Freedom, OEF-HOA does not have a
specific organization as a target.
OEF-HOA instead focuses its efforts to disrupt and detect militant
activities in the region and to work with willing governments to
prevent the reemergence of militant cells and activities.
In
October 2002, the Combined Joint Task
Force - Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) was established in Djibouti
at Camp Le
Monier
. It contains approximately 2,000 personnel
including US military and special operations forces (SOF) and
coalition force members,
Combined Task Force 150
(CTF-150).
Task
Force 150 consists of ships from a shifting group of nations,
including Australia, Canada
, France
, Germany
, Italy
, Netherlands
, Pakistan
, New
Zealand
, Spain
and the
United Kingdom. The primary goal of the coalition forces is
to monitor, inspect, board and stop suspected shipments from
entering the Horn of Africa region and affecting the US' "
Operation Iraqi Freedom".
CRS Report for Congress
Included
in the operation is the training of selected armed forces units of
the countries of Djibouti, Kenya
and Ethiopia
in "counterterrorism" and counterinsurgency tactics.
Humanitarian efforts conducted by CJTF-HOA include rebuilding of
schools and medical clinics as well as providing medical services
to those countries whose forces are being trained.
The
program expands as part of the Trans-Saharan Counter
Terrorism Initiative as CJTF personnel also assist in training
the armed forces of Chad
, Niger
, Mauritania
and Mali
.
However,
the War on Terror does not include Sudan
, where over
400,000 have died in an-ongoing civil war.
On July 1, 2006, a Web-posted message purportedly written by Osama
bin Laden urged
Somalis to build an
Islamic state in the country and warned
western governments that the al-Qaeda network would fight against
them if they intervened there.
Bin Laden releases Web message on Iraq, Somalia
USA Today
Somalia has been considered a "
failed
state" because its official central government was weak,
dominated by warlords and unable to exert effective control over
the country. Beginning in mid-2006, the
Islamic Courts Union , an Islamist
faction campaigning on a restoration of "law and order" through
Sharia Law, had rapidly taken control of
much of southern Somalia.
On December 14, 2006, the US Assistant Secretary of State
Jendayi Frazer claimed al-Qaeda cell
operatives were controlling the Islamic Courts Union, a claim
denied by the ICU.
U.S. says al Qaeda behind Somali Islamists
Reuters
By late
2006, the UN-backed Transitional Federal
Government (TFG) of Somalia had seen its power effectively
limited to Baidoa
, while the
Islamic Courts Union controlled
the majority of Southern Somalia, including the capital Mogadishu
. On December 20, the Islamic Courts Union
launched an offensive on the
government stronghold of Baidoa, and saw early gains before
Ethiopia
intervened in favor of the government.
By December 26, the Islamic Courts Union went into a "tactical
retreat" towards Mogadishu, before again retreating as
TFG/Ethiopian troops neared, leading them to take Mogadishu with
no resistance.
The ICU then fled to
Kismayo
, where they fought Ethiopian/TFG forces in the
Battle of Jilib.
The Prime Minister of Somalia claimed that three "terror suspects"
from the
1998 United
States embassy bombings are being sheltered in Kismayo. On 30
December 2006, al-Qaeda deputy leader
Ayman al-Zawahiri called upon Muslims
worldwide to fight against Ethiopia and the TFG in Somalia.
Somali, Ethiopian troops take Islamist
stronghold CNN
On
January 8, 2007, the US launched the Battle of Ras Kamboni by bombing
Ras
Kamboni
using AC-130
gunships.
On September 14, 2009, US Special Forces killed two men and wounded
and captured two others near the Somali village of
Baarawe. Witnesses claim that helicopters used
for the operation launched from French-flagged warships, but that
could not be confirmed. A Somali based al-Qaida affiliated group,
the
Al-Shabab, has confirmed
the death of "sheik commander"
Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan along with an
unspecified number of militants. Nabhan, a Kenyan, was wanted in
connection with the
2002 Mombasa
attacks.
Europe
Beginning in October 2001, Operation Active Endeavour is a
naval operation of NATO started in response to the 2001
US attacks.
It operates in the Mediterranean Sea
and is designed to prevent the movement of
militants or weapons of mass
destruction as well as to enhance the security of shipping in general. The operation has
also assisted Greece
with its
prevention of illegal
immigration. Ongoing operations in the Balkans have also
been redesignated as part of the War on Terrorism.
Italy
26 US
citizens, believed to have been mostly working for the CIA, are
facing trial, with Italian
spies, on charges of abducting terrorism suspect Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr from a
street in Milan
in 2003, and
flying him to Egypt
where he was
held for years without charge, and where he claims to have been
tortured. Robert Seldon
Lady, Milan CIA station chief at the time, was quoted by
Il Giornale newspaper"I'm not guilty.
I'm only responsible for carrying out orders that I received from
my superiors,"He denied criminal responsibility because it was a
"state matter." "I console myself by reminding myself that I was a
soldier, that I was in a war against terrorism, that I couldn't
discuss orders given to me." Lady's retirement villa has been
seized by magistrates to cover court costs.
Middle East
Iraq
Iraq
had been
listed as a state
sponsor of international terrorism by the United States since
it fell out of US favour in 1990 . The regime of
Saddam Hussein proved a continuing
problem for the UN and Iraq’s neighbors in its use of chemical weapons against Iranians
and Kurds.
After the
Gulf War, the US, French and
British militaries instituted and began patrolling
Iraqi no-fly zones, ostensibly to protect
Iraq’s Kurdish minority and
Shi’a
Arab population—both of which suffered attacks
from the Hussein regime before and after the Gulf War—in Iraq’s
northern and southern regions, respectively. US forces continued in
combat zone deployments through November 1995 and launched
Operation Desert Fox against Iraq in
1998 after it failed to meet US demands of "unconditional
cooperation" in weapons inspections.
Prior to Operation Desert Fox,
US
president William Clinton
predicted "And mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass
destruction. He will deploy them, and he will use them." Clinton
also declared a desire to remove Hussein from power and in the same
speech said, "The hard fact is that so long as Saddam remains in
power, he threatens the well-being of his people, the peace of his
region, the security of the world." In the aftermath of Operation
Desert Fox, during December 1998, Iraq announced that it would no
longer respect the no-fly zones and resumed its attempts to shoot
down Coalition aircraft.
Air strikes by the British and US against
Iraqi anti-aircraft and military targets continued over the next
few years. Also in 1998, Clinton signed the
Iraq Liberation Act, which called for
regime change in Iraq on the basis of its supposed possession of
weapons of mass
destruction, oppression of Iraqi citizens and attacks on other
Middle Eastern countries.
After the 2001 US attacks, the US government claimed that Iraq was
an actual threat to the United States because Iraq could use its
previously known chemical weapons to aid terrorist groups.
The
George W. Bush administration called for the
United Nations Security
Council to again send weapons inspectors to Iraq (previous
inspectors had been expelled after being caught spying for the US)
to find and destroy the alleged weapons of mass destruction and for
a UNSC resolution.
UNSC Resolution
1441 was passed unanimously, which offered Iraq
"a final
opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations" or
face "serious consequences."
Resolution 1441 did not authorize the use of force by member
states. The Iraqi government subsequently allowed UN inspectors to
access Iraqi sites, while the US government continued to assert
that Iraq was being obstructionist.
[556569]
In October 2002, a large bipartisan majority in the
United States Congress authorized the
president to use force if necessary to disarm Iraq in order to
"prosecute the war on terrorism." After failing to
overcome opposition from France
, Russia
, and
China
against a UNSC resolution that would sanction the
use of force against Iraq, and before the UN weapons inspectors had
completed their inspections (which were claimed to be fruitless by
the US because of Iraq's alleged deception), the United States
assembled a "Coalition of the
Willing" composed of nations who pledged support for its policy
of regime change in Iraq.
On March 19, 2003, the
Iraq War began and
the
invasion of Iraq was
launched the next day on March 20, 2003. The Bush administration
insisted the invasion was the "serious consequences" spoken of in
UNSC Resolution 1441.
Iraq's government was quickly toppled and on May 1, 2003, Bush
stated that major combat operations in Iraq had ended. However, an
insurgency arose against the US-led
coalition and the newly developing Iraqi military and post-Saddam
government. This insurgency led to far more coalition casualties
than the invasion.
Elements of the insurgency were led by fugitive members of
President Hussein's
Ba'ath regime, which
included
Iraqi nationalists and
pan-Arabists. Many insurgency leaders
are
Islamists and claim to be fighting a
religious war to reestablish the
Islamic Caliphate of centuries past.
After months of brutal violence against Iraqi civilians, in January
2007 President Bush presented a new strategy for
Operation Iraqi Freedom based upon
counter-insurgency theories and
tactics developed by General
David
Petraeus. The
Iraq War
troop surge of 2007 was part of this "new way forward" and,
along with US backing of
Sunni groups it had
previously sought to defeat, has been credited with a widely
recognized dramatic decrease in violence by up to 80%, and a more
controversial possible increase in political and communal
reconciliation in Iraq.
Lebanon
In 2007,
a conflict began in northern
Lebanon after fighting broke out between Fatah al-Islam, an Islamist militant
organization, and the Lebanese
Armed Forces on May 20, 2007 in Nahr al-Bared
, a Palestinian
refugee camp near
Tripoli
. The conflict evolved mostly around the Siege
of Nahr el-Bared, but minor clashes also occurred in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp in southern Lebanon
and several bombings took place in and around Lebanon's capital
Beirut
.
Fatah-al-Islam has been described as a militant
jihadist movement that draws inspiration from
al-Qaeda. The US provided
military aid
to the Lebanese government during the conflict. On September 7,
2007 Lebanese government forces captured the camp and declared
victory.
Saudi Arabia
The latest wave of attacks in Saudi Arabia started with the
bombing in Riyadh on 12 May
2003 by
al-Qaeda militants. The attacks
targeted the
Saudi security
forces, foreign workers, and tourists (mostly Western).
Yemen
There had been a number of attacks against foreign targets in Yemen
since the start of the WOT. Yemen has a weak central government and
a powerful tribal system that leaves large lawless areas open for
militant training and operations. Al-Qaida has a strong presence in
the country.
Central Asia/South Asia
India
There has been a steady rise in
Islamist
terrorism over the course of the 1980s and the 21st century.
The
recent rise in prominence of several Pakistan and Kashmir
-based terror groups, such as Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Hizbul Mujahideen and others in Kashmir
has created grave problems for the
country.
Major
terrorist incidents in India carried out by Islamic groups include
the 1993 Mumbai bombings, as
well as terrorism in Kashmir
such as Wandhama
massacre
, Kaluchak
massacre, Chittisinghpura
massacre and others.
Other deadly terrorist attacks in the rest of the country include:
In the aftermath of the 2001 Indian Parliament attack, tensions
between India and Pakistan increased as India blamed Pakistan for
not doing enough to contain anti-India terrorist groups based
there. This resulted in massive
troop build-ups along the
Indo-Pakistani international border by both India and Pakistan
resulting in fears of a
nuclear
war.
However, international diplomacy helped reduce tensions between the
two
nuclear weapons-armed states.
Pakistan was also suspected to be behind the
2008 Indian embassy bombing
in Kabul.
Kashmiri insurgents, who initially started their movement as a
pro-Kashmiri independence movement, have gone through a radical
change in their ideology. They now portray their struggle as a
religious one. Morever millions of Kashmiri Hindus have been
displaced from their traditional homeland for centuries by constant
threats of Islamic militia in Kashmir valley.
Research and Analysis
Wing, India's premier external intelligence agency, observed
the growing link between Islamic terrorist groups based in
Afghanistan and Kashmiri insurgents.
Al-Qaeda also lends ideological and financial
support to terrorism in Kashmir, with
Osama bin Laden constantly demanding that
jihad be waged against India and
Islamic fundamentalist groups
disseminating propaganda in many countries against India with
rhetoric like "idol worshipers and
Hindus"
who "occupy Kashmir".
The
government and
military of India have taken numerous
counter-terrorist measures to combat rising terrorism in the
country. Some of these measures have been criticized by human
rights groups as being too draconian, particularly in
Kashmir.
However, increased vigilance by Indian security forces has had a
positive impact with the number of terrorist attacks declining
sharply in 2007.
India is considered to be one of main allies
in the war on terrorism and has worked closely on counter-terrorism
activities and training with several countries such as United States
, Japan
,China
, Australia, Israel
, United Kingdom
, and Russia
.
India has
been criticized over its anti-terrorist operations in Jammu and
Kashmir
, the heavy-handed response to unrest in which 40
people—the vast majority unarmed civilian protesters—were killed by
Indian armed forces could lead to the "Talibanisation of the Kashmiri separatist
struggle."
Afghanistan

US soldiers in southeastern
Afghanistan check their coordinates during a combat patrol
On
September 20, 2001, in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the United States
, George W. Bush delivered an ultimatum to the
Taliban government of Afghanistan
to turn over Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda leaders
operating in the country or face attack. The Taliban
demanded evidence of bin Laden's link to the September 11 attacks
and, if such evidence warranted a trial, they offered to handle
such a trial in an Islamic Court. The US refused to provide any
evidence.
In October 2001, in the wake of the
September 11 attacks on the United
States, US forces (with some coalition allies)
invaded Afghanistan to oust the
Taliban regime which had control of the
country. On October 7, 2001 the official invasion began with
British and US forces conducting
aerial
bombing campaigns.
Waging war in Afghanistan had been of a lower priority for the US
government than the war in Iraq. Admiral
Mike Mullen, Staff Chairman the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, said that while the situation in Afghanistan is "precarious
and urgent," the 10,000 additional troops needed there would be
unavailable "in any significant manner" unless withdrawals from
Iraq are made. Mullen stated that "my priorities . . . given to me
by the commander in chief are: Focus on Iraq first. It's been that
way for some time. Focus on Afghanistan second."
Pakistan
The
Saudi
born
Zayn al-Abidn Muhammed Hasayn Abu
Zubaydah was arrested by Pakistani officials during a series of
joint U.S. and Pakistan raids during the week of March 23,
2002. During the raid the suspect was shot three times while
trying to escape capture by military personnel.
Zubaydah is said to be a high-ranking al-Qaeda official with the
title of operations chief and in charge of running al-Qaeda
training camps.
[556570] Later that year on September 14, 2002,
Ramzi Binalshibh was arrested in
Pakistan after a three-hour gunfight with police forces.
Binalshibh is known to have shared a room
with Mohammad Atta in Hamburg
, Germany
and to be a financial backer of al-Qaeda
operations. It is said Binalshibh was supposed to be another
hijacker, however the
U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services rejected his visa application three times,
leaving him to the role of financier. The trail of money
transferred by Binalshibh from Germany to the United States links
both Mohammad Atta and
Zacarias
Moussaoui.
[556571]
On March
1, 2003, Khalid Shaikh
Mohammed was arrested during CIA-led raids
on the suburb of Rawalpindi
, nine miles outside of the Pakistani capital of
Islamabad
. Mohammed at the time of his capture was the
third highest ranking official in al-Qaeda and had been directly in
charge of the planning for the September 11 attacks.
Escaping capture the week before during a previous raid, the
Pakistani government was able to use information gathered from
other suspects captured to locate and detain Mohammed. Mohammed was
indicted in 1996 by the United States government for links to the
Oplan Bojinka, a plot to bomb a series
of U.S. civilian airliners.
Other
events Mohammed has been linked to include: ordering the killing of
Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel
Pearl, the USS Cole
bombing
, Richard
Reid's attempt to blow up a civilian airliner with a shoe bomb,
and the terrorist attack at the El Ghriba synagogue in Djerba
, Tunisia
. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has described
himself as the head of the al-Qaeda military committee.
[556572]
Amidst all this, in 2006, Pakistan was accused by NATO commanding
officers of aiding and abetting the Taliban in Afghanistan; but
NATO later admitted that there was no known evidence against the
ISI or Pakistani government of sponsoring terrorism. However in
2007, allegations of ISI secretly making bounty payments up to CDN$
1,900 (
Pakistani rupees. 1
lakh) for each NATO personnel killed surfaced.
The Afghan government also accuses the ISI of providing help to
militants including protection to the recently killed Mullah
Dadullah, Taliban's senior military commander, a charge denied by
the Pakistani government. India, meanwhile continues to accuse
Pakistan's
Inter-Services
Intelligence of planning several terrorist attacks in Kashmir
and elsewhere in the Indian republic, including the
11 July 2006 Mumbai train
bombings, which Pakistan attributes it to "homegrown"
insurgencies.
Many other countries like Afghanistan and the UK have also accused
Pakistan of
State-sponsored terrorism and
financing terrorism.
The upswing in
American military activity in Pakistan
and neighboring Afghanistan
corresponded with a drastic increase in American
military aid to the Pakistan government.
In the three years before the attacks of September 11, Pakistan
received approximately $9 million in American military aid. In the
three years after, the number increased to $4.2 billion, making it
the country with the maximum funding post 9/11.
Such a
huge inflow of funds has raised concerns that these funds were
given without any accountability, as the end uses not being
documented, and that large portions were used to suppress
civilians' human rights and to purchase weapons to contain domestic
problems like the Balochistan
unrest Pakistan has stated that India has been
supporting terror groups within FATA and Balochistan with the aim
of creating unrest within the country which has also been blamed
for the diversion of funds.
Waziristan
In 2004
the Pakistani Army launched a
campaign in the Federally Administered Tribal
Areas
of Pakistan's Waziristan
region, sending in 80,000 troops. The goal of the conflict
was to remove the al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in the region.
After the fall of the Taliban regime many members of the Taliban
resistance fled to the Northern border region of Afghanistan and
Pakistan where the Pakistani army had previously little control.
With the logistics and air support of the United States, the
Pakistani Army captured or killed numerous al-Qaeda operatives such
as
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed,
wanted for his involvement in the USS Cole bombing,
Oplan Bojinka plot and the killing of
Wall Street Journal reporter
Daniel Pearl.
However, the Taliban resistance still operates in the Federally
Administered Tribal Areas under the control of
Haji Omar.
United States has carried out a campaign of
Drone
attacks on targets all over Federally
Administered Tribal Areas
Southeast Asia
Indonesia
In 2002
and again in 2005, the Indonesian island of Bali
has been
struck by suicide and car bombings that killed over 200 people and
injured over 300. The 2002 attack consisted of a bomb hidden
in a backpack exploding inside of "Paddy's Bar", a remote
controlled car bomb exploding in front of the "Sari Club" and a
third explosion in front of the American consulate in Bali.
The 2005
attack consisted of 2 suicide bombings, the first near a food court
in Jimbaran
, the second in the main square of Kuta
.
The group Jemaah Islamiyah is suspected by Indonesian authorities
of carrying out both attacks.
On
September 9, 2004, a car bomb exploded outside of the Australian
embassy in Jakarta
, killing 10 Indonesians and injuring over 140
others; despite conflicting initial reports there were no
Australian casualties. Foreign Minister
Alexander Downer reported that a mobile
phone
text message was sent to
Indonesian authorities before the bombing warning of attacks if
Abu Bakar Bashir was not released
from prison.
Abu Bakar Ba'asyir was imprisoned on charged of
treason for his support of the 2002 and 2005 Bali
bombings.
On
November 9 2005, bomb-making expert and influential figure in
Indonesian terrorist organization, Azahari
Husin was killed in a raid at Malang
, East Java. However, Azahari's protege,
Noordin M. Top, who was also in the raided safehouse,
managed to escape. Top is a recruiter, bomb maker, and explosions
expert for Jemaah Islamiyah.
On July
17 2009, 2009
Jakarta bombings
happened, two top hotels in the city, JW Marriott
and Ritz-Carlton, were the targets. Nine were killed
including two suicide bombers, and injuring 50. Following the
attacks, the country's anti-terrorist unit,
Detachment 88 succeeded to arrest and kill
several active terrorists in the country including
Ibrohim, the recruiter and field coordinator of the
attack, and
Noordin M. Top, the mastermind and the most wanted
Islamic militant in
South East Asia.
Top was killed in Indonesian police raid in 17 September
2009.
Top's death was "a huge blow for the extremist organizations in
Indonesia and the region" according to South East Asian terrorism
expert, and director of South East Asia
International Crisis Group,
Sidney Jones. With
Azahari Husin and
Noordin Top out of the picture, the
country's terrorist organization practically had no charismatic and
consistent leader although several, especially Noordin's cell, were
still hunted down by
Detachment
88.
Philippines
In January 2002 the
United States Special
Operations Command, Pacific deployed to the Philippines to
advise and assist the
Armed Forces of the
Philippines in combating Filipino Islamist groups.
The operations were
mainly focused on removing the Abu
Sayyaf Group (ASG) and Jemaah
Islamiyah (JI) from their stronghold on the island of Basilan
.
The United States military has reported that they have removed over
80% of the Abu Sayyaf Group members from the region. The second
portion of the operation was conducted as a humanitarian program
called "Operation Smiles". The goal of the program was to provide
medical care and services to the region of Basilan as part of a
"Hearts and Minds" program.
Thailand
The South
Thailand insurgency is a separatist
campaign, which is taking place in the predominantly Malay Pattani
region
, made up of the three southernmost provinces of
Thailand
, with violence increasingly spilling over into
other provinces. Although separatist violence has occurred
for decades in the region, the campaign escalated in 2004. In July
2005 the
Prime
Minister of Thailand,
Thaksin
Shinawatra, assumed wide-ranging emergency powers to deal with
the insurgency. In September 2006, Army Commander
Sonthi Boonyaratkalin was granted an
extraordinary increase in executive powers to combat the unrest.
Soon afterwards, on 19 September 2006, Sonthi and
a military junta ousted Thaksin in a
coup. Despite reconciliatory gestures from the junta, the
insurgency continued and intensified. The death toll, 1,400 at the
time of the coup, increased to 2,579 by mid-September 2007. Despite
little progress in curbing the violence, the junta declared that
security was improving and that peace would come to the region in
2008. The death toll surpassed 3,000 in March 2008.
Northeast Asia
Korean Peninsula
The effort to compel supporters of terrorism to cease and desist
was stated as a central focus of the war by former
United States President
George W. Bush.
The Democratic People's Republic of
Korea
was described as part of an "Axis of Evil" alongside Iran
and
Iraq
by the former President in his State of the Union Address
on January 29, 2002. The term "Axis of Evil" was used by
Bush in order to describe governments that he accused of supporting
terrorism and seeking weapons of mass destruction.
The U.S. Military has maintained a presence on the
Korean Peninsula since the signing of the
Korean
Armistice, which abruptly ended the
Korean War in a
stalemate.
There is a current mandated strength of over
28,000 U.S. troops on the peninsula as part of United States Forces Korea to
assist in defending the South from invasion, as well as over 37,000
troops ashore and 13,000 troops afloat in and around Japan
as part of
United States Forces
Japan (heavily situated on the island of Okinawa
) to provide as an immediate theater force multiplier.
The North
was, up until October 11, 2008, on the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism,
which is maintained by the United
States Department of State
. The country was initially added to the list
in
1988 becase they had sold weapons to
terrorist groups and gave asylum to Japanese Communist League-Red
Army Faction members. The country is also responsible for the
Rangoon bombing and the bombing of Korean Air Flight 858. Past
sponsorship of terrorist organizations, specifically supplying
terrorist organizations with weapons, made North Korea an immediate
concern for Western Allies in the War on Terrorism.
Pyongyang's
ongoing nuclear weapons program only increased this
concern.
Negotiations with Pyongyang led to
the North being notified that they would be removed from the list
in exchange for dismantling their nuclear weapons program. On June
26, 2008, Then-President Bush announced that he would remove North
Korea from the list. On October 11, the country was officially
removed from the list for meeting all nuclear inspection
requirements.
The North has since resumed their nuclear weapons program, and
withdrew from the Korean Armistice on May 27, 2009.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has since stated she is
considering taking measures to once again add North Korea to the
List of State Sponsors of Terrorism.
North America
United States of America

United States Customs and Border
Protection officers.
A $40 billion emergency spending bill was passed by the
United States Congress, and an
additional $20 billion bail-out of the airline industry was also
passed.
The Justice Department launched a
Special Registration procedure for
certain male non-citizens in the U.S., requiring them to register
in person at offices of the Immigration and Naturalization
Service.
In addition to military efforts abroad, in the aftermath of 9/11
the Bush Administration increased domestic efforts to prevent
future attacks.
A new cabinet level agency called the
United States Department of Homeland
Security
was created to lead and coordinate federal
counterterrorism activities.
The
USA PATRIOT Act removed legal
restrictions on information sharing between federal law enforcement
and intelligence services and allowed for the investigation of
suspected terrorists using means similar to those in place for
other types of criminals. A new
Terrorist Finance Tracking
Program monitored the movements of terrorists' financial
resources (discontinued after being revealed by
The New York Times newspaper).
Telecommunication usage by known and suspected terrorists was
studied through the
NSA electronic surveillance
program.
Political interest groups have alleged that these laws remove
important restrictions on governmental authority, and are a
dangerous encroachment on civil liberties, possible
unconstitutional violations of the
Fourth
Amendment. On July 30, 2003, the ACLU filed the first legal
challenge against Section 215 of the
Patriot Act, claiming that it allows the FBI
to violate a citizen's 1st Amendment rights, 4th Amendment Rights,
and right to due process, by having the ability to search business,
bookstore, and library records in a terrorist investigation—without
disclosing to the individual that records were being searched.
Also, governing bodies in a number of communities have passed
symbolic resolutions against the act.
In a speech on June 9, 2005, Bush said that the USA PATRIOT Act had
been used to bring charges against more than 400 suspects, more
than half of whom had been convicted. Meanwhile the
American Civil Liberties
Union (ACLU) quoted Justice Department figures showing that
7,000 people have complained of abuse of the Act.
DARPA began an initiative in early 2002 with
the creation of the
Total
Information Awareness program, designed to promote information
technologies that could be used in counterterrorism. This program,
facing criticism, has since been defunded by Congress.
Various government bureaucracies which handled security and
military functions were reorganized.
Most notably, the
Department of Homeland
Security
was created to coordinate "homeland security"
efforts in the largest reorganization of the U.S. federal
government since the consolidation of the armed forces into the
Department of Defense.
The
Office of Strategic
Influence was secretly created after 9/11 for the purpose of
coordinating propaganda efforts, but was closed soon after being
discovered. The Bush administration implemented the
Continuity of Operations Plan
(or Continuity of Government) to ensure that U.S. government would
be able to continue in catastrophic circumstances.
Since 9/11, Islamic extremists made various attempts to attack the
US homeland, with varying levels of organization and skill.
For
example, in 2001 vigilant passengers aboard a transatlantic flight
to Miami
prevented
Richard Reid from
detonating an explosive device.
Other terrorist plots have been stopped by federal agencies using
new legal powers and investigative tools, sometimes in cooperation
with foreign governments.
Such thwarted attacks include;
To date, no attacks by Islamic terrorists on the US homeland have
been successful since September 11, 2001.
Recently the House of Representatives passed a bill enacting many
of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, something the
Democrats campaigned on as part of their "100 hour plan". The bill
passed in the House 299-128 and is currently still being considered
in the U.S. Senate. So far funding has not been appropriated for
the enactments.
South America
Colombia
Following
the September 11 attacks the United States government increased
military aid to Colombia
. In 2003, 98 million dollars were spent for
new Pentagon training and equipment for the Colombian
military.
The purpose of which was to help the Colombia government fight the
FARC rebel
group which is regarded by the U.S. as a terrorist group. It has
also been alleged that the Communist rebel group has connections to
the drug cartels of
South
America.
International military support
The first wave of attacks were carried out solely by American and
British forces.
Since the initial invasion period, these
forces were augmented by troops and aircraft from Australia, Canada
, Denmark
, France
, Italy
, Netherlands
, New
Zealand
and Norway
amongst
others. In 2006, there were about 33,000 troops in
Afghanistan.
On
September 12, 2001, less than 24 hours after the attacks in New York City
and Washington
, NATO
invoked
Article 5 of the North Atlantic
Treaty and declared the attacks to be an attack against all 19
NATO member countries. Australian Prime Minister
John Howard also declared that Australia would
invoke the
ANZUS Treaty along similar
lines.
In the following months, NATO took a wide range of measures to
respond to the threat of terrorism. On November 22, 2002, the
member states of the
EAPC decided on a
Partnership Action Plan against Terrorism which explicitly states
that "EAPC States are committed to the protection and promotion of
fundamental freedoms and human rights, as well as the rule of law,
in combating terrorism."
NATO started naval operations in the
Mediterranean Sea
designed to prevent the movement of terrorists or
weapons of mass
destruction as well as to enhance the security of shipping in general called Operation Active
Endeavour.
The
invasion of Afghanistan is seen as the first action of this war,
and initially involved forces from the United States
, the United Kingdom
, and the Afghan Northern Alliance.
Support for the United States cooled when America made clear its
determination to invade Iraq in late 2002.
Even so, many of the
"coalition of the willing"
countries that unconditionally supported the U.S.-led military
action have sent troops to Afghanistan
, particular neighbouring Pakistan
, which has disowned its earlier support for the
Taliban and contributed tens of thousands of soldiers to the
conflict. Pakistan was also engaged in the
Waziristan War. Supported by U.S.
intelligence, Pakistan was attempting to remove the Taliban
insurgency and al-Qaeda element from the northern tribal
areas.
The International Security Assistance Force

Current ISAF contributors in dark
green, future in light green, and former in cyan.
December 2001 saw the creation of the NATO-led
International Security
Assistance Force (ISAF) to assist the
Afghan Transitional
Administration and the first post-Taliban elected government.
With a renewed Taliban insurgency, it was announced in 2006 that
ISAF would replace the U.S troops in the province as part of
Operation Enduring Freedom.
The
British
16th Air Assault Brigade
(latter reinforced by Royal Marines) formed the core of the force in
Southern Afghanistan, along with troops and helicopters from
Australia, Canada and the Netherlands. The initial force
consisted of roughly 3,300 British, 2,000 Canadian, 1,400 from the
Netherlands and 240 from Australia, along with special forces from
Denmark and Estonia
(and small contingents from other
nations).
Summary of major troop contributions (over 400, 1 December
2008)
ISAF total:50,700
- : 19,950 (total number of U.S troops in Afghanistan is
48,250 including National Guard.)
- : 8,745
- : 3,600
- : 2,850
- : 2,785
- : 2,750
- : 1,770
- : 1,130
- : 1,090
- : 990
- : 860
- : 820
- : 780
- : 700
- : 460
- : 455
- : 415
Criticisms of U.S. objectives and strategies
The War on Terrorism as indefinite and indeterminate
Policy experts have criticized the "War on Terrorism" as an
irresponsible
metaphor, arguing that "war"
must by definition be waged against nations—not against broad and
controversial categories of activity such as "terrorism".
Cognitive linguist George Lakoff writes:
Dr. David Kilcullen, a
counterinsurgency and
counterterrorism advisor to
Gen. David
Petraeus and
U.S.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, has asserted
that:
Francis Fukuyama, a prominent
former
neoconservative, has made the
similar point that:
The term "terrorism" has been also been characterized as
unacceptably vague.
The United
Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
observes:
In an article published in October 29, French Army officer LTC
Jean-Pierre Steinhofer described war on Terror as a "semantic,
strategic and legal perversion... Terrorism is not an enemy, but a
method of combat."
Further criticism maintains that the War on Terrorism provides a
framework for
perpetual war; that the
announcement of such open-ended goals produces a state of endless
conflict, since "terrorist groups" can continue to arise
indefinitely.Richissin, Todd. "
'War on terror' difficult to define"
The Baltimore Sun, 2 September 2004.
President Bush has pledged that the
War on Terrorism "will not end until every terrorist group of
global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated". During a July
2007 visit to the United States, newly appointed British Prime
Minister
Gordon Brown defined the War
on Terror, specifically the element involving conflict with Al
Qaeda, as "a generational battle".
The War on Terrorism as counterproductive
A number of security experts, politicians, and policy organizations
have claimed that the War on Terrorism has been counterproductive:
that it has consolidated opposition to the U.S., aided terrorist
recruitment, and increased the likelihood of attacks against the
U.S. and its allies. In a 2005 briefing paper, the
Oxford Research Group reported
that:The
South African Mail & Guardian describes
research commissioned by the
British Ministry of Defence
which concluded:
Peter Bergen and
Paul Cruickshank, research fellows at the Center on Law and
Security at the NYU
School of Law
, have argued that the "globalization of martyrdom"
potentiated by the Iraq War:
The 2007
National
Intelligence Estimate issued the following among its "key
judgments":
On September 19, 2008, the
RAND
Corporation presented the results of a comprehensive study for
"Defeating Terrorist Groups" before the United States House Armed
Services Committees. RAND's testimony began with the thesis
statement:Their conclusions included strong proposals for strategic
policy changes: and recommended, "ending the notion of a 'war' on
terrorism" and "Moving away from military references would indicate
that there was no battlefield solution to countering terrorism."In
conclusion, the RAND study advised:
Double standards
Others
have criticized the U.S. for double
standards in its dealings with key allies that are also known
to support terrorist groups, such as Pakistan
. Afghan
President
Hamid Karzai has repeatedly stated that
in the "war against terrorism," “the central front is Pakistan";
Pakistan has also been alleged to provide Taliban operatives with covert support via the
ISI. These
accusations of double dealing regard
civil liberties and human rights as well as
terrorism. According to the
Federation of American
Scientists, "[i]n its haste to strengthen the "frontline"
states' ability to confront transnational terrorist threats on
their soil, and to gain the cooperation of regimes of geostrategic
significance to the next phases of the "War on Terrorism", the
administration is disregarding normative restrictions on U.S. aid
to human rights abusers."
Amnesty
International has argued that the
Patriot Act gives the U.S. government free rein
to violate the constitutional rights of citizens. The Bush
administration's use of torture and alleged use of
extraordinary rendition and
secret prisons have all fueled opposition to
the War on Terrorism.
Decreasing international support
In 2002,
strong majorities supported the U.S.-led War on Terrorism in
Britain
, France
, Germany
, Japan
, India
, and
Russia
. By
2006, supporters of the effort were in the minority in Britain
(49%), France (43%), Germany (47%), and Japan (26%). Although a
majority of Russians still supported the War on Terrorism, that
majority had decreased by 21%. Whereas 63% of the Spanish
population supported the War on Terrorism in 2003, only 19% of the
population indicated support in 2006.
19% of the Chinese
population supports the War on Terrorism, and less than a fifth of
the populations of Turkey
, Egypt
, and
Jordan
support
the effort. Indian support for the War on Terrorism has been
stable. Andrew Kohut, speaking to the
U.S. House Committee on
Foreign Affairs, noted that, according to the
Pew Research Center polls conducted in
2004, "majorities or pluralities in seven of the nine countries
surveyed said the U.S.-led war on terrorism was not really a
sincere effort to reduce international terrorism. This was true not
only in Muslim countries such as Morocco and Turkey, but in France
and Germany as well. The true purpose of the war on terrorism,
according to these skeptics, is American control of Middle East oil
and U.S. domination of the world."
Stella Rimington, former head of the
British intelligence service MI5
has
criticized the war on terror as a "huge overreaction", and had
decried the militarization and politicization of the U.S. efforts
to be the wrong approach to terrorism. David Milliband, UK foreign secretary, has
similarly called the strategy a "mistake".
Abuse of power
The War on Terrorism has been viewed by some as a pretext for
reducing
civil liberties.
The
NSA electronic
surveillance program and DARPA's
Total Information Awareness
were two examples of post-September 11 government monitoring
programs.
A controversy also erupted concerning
National Security Letters, issued
by the federal government and not subject to prior judicial review.
These letters demanded information the government asserted was
relevant to a terrorism investigation, but also contained a
gag order preventing recipients from
revealing the existence of the letter. Critics contend this
prevents public oversight of government investigations, and allows
unreasonable search and
seizure to go unchecked. The American Civil Liberties Union
complained that Section 505 of the
USA
PATRIOT Act removed the need for the government to connect
recipients to a terrorism investigation, widening the possibility
for abuse.
The
Protect America Act of
2007 was also controversial for its lack of judicial
review.
In
October 2008, British PM Gordon Brown
used the Anti-terrorism,
Crime and Security Act 2001 to freeze Icelandic
holdingsin Great Britain during the
Icelandic financial crisis.
Iceland's prime minister
Geir Haarde
protested against what he described "a terrorist law being applied
against us", calling it "a completely unfriendly act". Iceland is a
founding member
of NATO
.
Role of U.S. media
Researchers in the area of communication studies and political
science have found that American understanding of the war on terror
is directly shaped by how the mainstream news media reports events
associated with the war on terror. In
Bush’s War: Media Bias
and Justifications for War in a Terrorist Agepolitical
communication researcher
Jim A.
Kuypers illustrated "how the press
failed America in its coverage on the War on Terror." In each
comparison, Kuypers "detected massive bias on the part of the
press." This researcher called the mainstream news media an
"anti-democratic institution" in his conclusion. "What has
essentially happened since 9/11 has been that Bush has repeated the
same themes, and framed those themes the same whenever discussing
the War on Terror," said Kuypers. "Immediately following 9/11, the
mainstream news media (represented by CBS, ABC, NBC, USA Today, New
York Times, and Washington Post) did echo Bush, but within eight
weeks it began to intentionally ignore certain information the
president was sharing, and instead reframed the president's themes
or intentionally introduced new material to shift the focus."
This goes beyond reporting alternate points of view, which is an
important function of the press. "In short," Kuypers explained, "if
someone were relying only on the mainstream media for information,
they would have no idea what the president actually said. It was as
if the press were reporting on a different speech." The study is
essentially a "comparative framing analysis". Overall, Kuypers
examined themes about 9-11 and the War on Terror that the President
used, and compared them to the themes that the press used when
reporting on what the president said.
"Framing is a process whereby communicators, consciously or
unconsciously, act to construct a point of view that encourages the
facts of a given situation to be interpreted by others in a
particular manner," wrote Kuypers. These findings suggest that the
public is misinformed about government justification and plans
concerning the war on terror.
Others have also suggested that press coverage has contributed to a
public confused and misinformed on both the nature and level of the
threat to the U.S. posed by terrorism. In his book,
Trapped in
the War on Terrorpolitical scientist Ian S. Lustick, claimed,
"The media have given constant attention to possible
terrorist-initiated catastrophes and to the failures and weaknesses
of the government's response." Lustick alleged that the War on
Terror is disconnected from the real but remote threat terrorism
poses, and that the generalized War on Terror began as part of the
justification for invading Iraq, but then took on a life of its
own, fueled by media coverage.
Media researcher Stephen D. Cooper’s analysis of media
criticism
Watching the Watchdog: Bloggers As the Fifth
Estatecontains many examples of controversies concerning
mainstream reporting of the War on Terror. Cooper found that
bloggers' criticisms of factual inaccuracies in news stories or
bloggers’ discovery of the mainstream press’s failure to adequately
check facts before publication caused many news organizations to
retract or change news stories.
Cooper found that bloggers specializing in criticism of media
coverage advanced four key points. Firstly, that mainstream
reporting of the war on terror has frequently contained factual
inaccuracies. In some cases, the errors go uncorrected; moreover,
when corrections are issued they usually are given far less
prominence than the initial coverage containing the errors.
Secondly, they claimed that the mainstream press has sometimes
failed to check the provenance of information or visual images
supplied by Iraqi "stringers" (local Iraqis hired to relay local
news). Next, they argued that story framing is often problematic;
in particular, "man-in-the-street" interviews have often been used
as a representation of public sentiment in Iraq, in place of
methodologically sound survey data; and lastly, that mainstream
reporting has tended to concentrate on the more violent areas of
Iraq, with little or no reporting of the calm areas.
David Barstow won the 2009
Pulitzer Prize for
Investigative Reporting by connecting the Department of Defense
to over 75 retired generals supporting the Iraq War on TV and radio
networks. The Department of Defense recruited the retired generals
to sell the war to the American public. Barstow also discovered
undisclosed links between some retired generals and defense
contractors. Barstow reported "the Bush administration used its
control over access of information in an effort to transform the
analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse"
Commanders
Commanders in the War on Terrorism include:
Lieutenant
General Martin Dempsey ,
General David Petraeus
Admiral Sir Michael Boyce ,
General Sir Michael
Walker ,
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup
Military decorations
Since 2002, the
United States
military, has created several military awards and decorations
related to the "War on Terrorism" including:
The
U.S. Department of
Transportation created two awards related to the "War on
Terrorism" which are authorized to be worn on U.S. military
uniforms:
NATO
has also
created military decorations related to the "War on
Terrorism":
Casualties
There is no widely agreed on figure for the number of people that
have been killed so far in the "War on Terrorism" as it has been
defined by the Bush Administration to include the war in
Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, and operations elsewhere. Some
estimates include the following:
- Iraq: 62,570 to 1,124,000
- *Opinion Research
Business poll conducted August 12-19, 2007 estimated 1,033,000
violent deaths due to the Iraq War. The range given was 946,000 to
1,120,000 deaths. A nationally representative sample of
approximately 2000 Iraqi adults answered whether any members of
their household (living under their roof) were killed due to the
Iraq War. 22% of the respondents had lost one or more household
members. ORB reported that "48% died from a gunshot wound, 20% from
the impact of a car bomb, 9% from aerial bombardment, 6% as a
result of an accident and 6% from another blast/ordnance."
- * Between 392,979 and 942,636 estimated Iraqi (655,000 with a
confidence interval of 95%), civilian and combatant, according to
the second
Lancet survey of mortality."[556573]". The
Lancet.
- * A minimum of 62,570 civilian deaths reported in the mass
media up to 28 April 2007 according to IraqBodyCount.
- * 4000 U.S. military dead (2008 26 March). 22,401 wounded in
action, of which 10,050 were unable to return to duty within 72
hours. 6,640 non-hostile injuries and 18,183 diseases (both
requiring medical air
transport)."http://icasualties.org/oif/". Iraq
Coalition Casualties
- Afghanistan: between 10,960 and 49,600
- *According to Marc W. Herold's extensive database, Dossier
on Civilian Victims of United States' Aerial Bombing, between
3,100 and 3,600 civilians were directly killed by U.S. Operation Enduring Freedom
bombing and Special Forces attacks between October 7, 2001 and June
3, 2003. This estimate counts only "impact deaths"—deaths that
occurred in the immediate aftermath of an explosion or shooting—and
does not count deaths that occurred later as a result of injuries
sustained, or deaths that occurred as an indirect consequence of
the U.S. airstrikes and invasion.
- *In an opinion article published in August 2002 in the
neoconservative magazine The Weekly
Standard, Joshua Muravchik of
the American Enterprise
Institute, a self-described neoconservative, questioned
Professor Herold's study entirely on the basis of one single
incident that involved 25-93 deaths. He did not provide any
estimate his own.
- *In a pair of January 2002 studies, Carl Conetta of the
Project on Defense
Alternatives estimates that, at least 4,200-4,500
civilians were killed by mid-January 2002 as a result of the U.S.
war and airstrikes, both directly as casualties of the aerial
bombing campaign, and indirectly in the humanitarian crisis that
the war and airstrikes contributed to.
- *His first study, "Operation
Enduring Freedom: Why a Higher Rate of Civilian Bombing
Casualties?", released January 18, 2002, estimates that, at the
low end, at least 1,000-1,300 civilians were directly
killed in the aerial bombing campaign in just the 3 months between
October 7, 2001 to January 1, 2002. The author found it impossible
to provide an upper-end estimate to direct civilian casualties from
the Operation Enduring
Freedom bombing campaign that he noted as having an increased
use of cluster bombs. In this
lower-end estimate, only Western press sources were used for hard
numbers, while heavy "reduction factors" were applied to Afghan
government reports so that their estimates were reduced by as much
as 75%.
- *In his companion study, "Strange Victory: A critical appraisal of Operation
Enduring Freedom and the Afghanistan war", released January 30,
2002, Conetta estimates that at least 3,200 more Afghans
died by mid-January 2002, of "starvation, exposure, associated
illnesses, or injury sustained while in flight from war zones", as
a result of the U.S. war and airstrikes.
- *In similar numbers, a Los Angeles
Times review of U.S., British, and Pakistani newspapers and
international wire services found that between 1,067 and 1,201
direct civilian deaths were reported by those news organizations
during the five months from October 7, 2001 to February 28, 2002.
This review excluded all civilian deaths in Afghanistan that did
not get reported by U.S., British, or Pakistani news, excluded 497
deaths that did get reported in U.S., British, and Pakistani news
but that were not specifically identified as civilian or military,
and excluded 754 civilian deaths that were reported by the Taliban
but not independently confirmed.
- * According to Jonathan Steele
of The Guardian between 20,000
and 49,600 people may have died of the consequences of the invasion
by the spring of
2002."http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/comment/story/0,11447,718647,00.html".
The Guardian
- *In December 2007, The Elman Peace and Human Rights
Organisation said it had verified 6,500 civilian deaths, 8,516
people wounded, and 1.5 million displaced from homes in Mogadishu
alone during the year 2007.
- * June 01 2009, Pvt. William Andrew Long was shot and murdered
by Abdulhakim Muhammad, while standing, unarmed outside a
recruiting facility in Little Rock AR; marking the first U.S.
casualty on U.S. soil, (as well as), the first attack on U.S. soil,
since the War on Terror began.
-->Casuality coalition in Iraq, Afganistan and out of
country
: 5161*
: 395
: 131*
: 102
: 54
: 39
: 36
: 35
: 34
: 23
: 18
: 14
: 13
: 13
: 8
: 6
: 5
: 5
: 4
: 4
: 4
: 3
: 3
: 2
: 2
: 2
: 2
: 1
: 1
: 1
: 1
: 1
: 1
TOTAL: 6,125
See also
- Islam related
- Tactics
- Military
- U.S. related
- UK anti-terror legislation
- Concepts
- Other
References
- BBC News | AMERICAS |War on terror 'curbing human
rights'
- Civil Rights
- Preemptive War and International Law
- The Program for Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research,
"Targeted Killings" Accessed at
http://ihl.ihlresearch.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=page.viewpage&pageid=1646
-
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/1/3/214858.shtml
-
http://partners.nytimes.com/library/world/africa/082798attack-us.html
- http://www.newstatesman.com/200003200023
- http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/npr/vol06/61/barlet61.pdf
- Cindy C Combs (2003), Terrorism in the Twenty First Century,
(3rd Edition, New Jersey: Pearsons Educ. Inc.)
- U.N.
Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee
- Bush likens 'war on terror' to WWIII. 06/05/2006. ABC News
Online
-
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1868367,00.html
-
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/22/AR2009012203929.html
-
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/28/terror/main3757858.shtml
- Jonathan Lyons, "Bush enters Mideast's rhetorical minefield "
(Reuters: September 21, 2001).
.http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=006SM3
- Inaugural Address
- President Bush Releases National Strategy for
Combating Terrorism, February 14, 2003, The White House
- AP report on Sudan
- [1]
- [2]
-
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE55T3H420090630
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http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101040705-658290,00.html
- Le Figaro (April 16, 2007). "Fatah Al-Islam: the new terrorist threat hanging
over Lebanon". Retrieved May 20, 2007.
- http://www.argentinanews.net/story/379630
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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c122796c-4c88-11dd-96bb-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1
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http://www.jammu-kashmir.com/insights/insight20010301a.html
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- http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/07/news/air.php
- http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3454.htm
-
http://www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/koizumispeech/2001/1210india_e.html
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http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90785/6328784.html
-
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/news/stories/200806/s2283403.htm
- http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/swamy300806.html
-
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/UK-wants-more-India-cooperation-on-terrorism/263568/
-
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/2003/09/18/stories/2003091803921200.htm
- Non-violent protest in Kashmir BBC World
Service 14 October 2008
- Washington Post, July 23, 2008,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/22/AR2008072202942_2.html?nav=hcmodule&sid=ST2008072203343&pos=
citing PBS Newshour interview of July 22, 2008
- NATO faces defeat in Afghanistan
- Pakistan accused of placing bounty on NATO
soldiers April 05, 2007, The Vancouver Sun
- Taliban military leader killed by Nato forces
Belfast
Telegraph, May 14, 2007
- Billions in Aid, With No Accountability
Center for Public Integrity
Posted: 5/31/2007
- An alliance of convenience By Burhanuddin Hasan
The News International, Pakistan
- India Today Bureau. "Tackling Pakistan". India Today, January 9,
2009. Accessed 12 June 2009.
-
http://www.redorbit.com/news/international/300377/indonesian_police_say_terror_suspect_azahari_killed__japanese_agency/
-
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/09/17/indonesia.terror.raid/index.html
-
http://thejakartaglobe.com/home/indonesian-police-chief-reportedly-says-noordin-m-top-killed/330413
-
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsMaps/idUSTRE58G2OR20090917
- International Herald Tribune, "Police say bomb at soccer match in southern
Thailand wounds 14 officers", 14 June 2007
- Army commander's powers to rise: Thai Deputy PM
China Economic Net
- Jane's, Mid-November 2007 update on the insurgency
- AP, Thai Military Says Security Improving, 4
January 2007
- AFP Bloodshed part of daily life in Thailand's Muslim
south, 19 March 2008
-
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/02/counter_terrorism/goals.pdf
-
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/01/print/20020129-11.html
- http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2800.htm
- http://www.usfj.mil/
-
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/11/AR2008101100261_pf.html
- http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2006/82736.htm
- http://www.stormingmedia.us/67/6778/A677864.html
-
http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=7685825&page=1
-
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2009/06/08/us_considering_putting_north_korea_back_on_terror_list/
-
http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/currentnews/newsarchive/2003/august2003/firstpatriot.cfm
- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16549599/
- http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2002/0202colombia.html
- http://www.colombiajournal.org/colombia229.htm
- http://www.cpusa.org/article/articleview/316/1/3/
- http://www.worldpress.org/americas/0102colombia.htm
-
http://www.nato.int/isaf/docu/epub/pdf/isaf_placemat_081201.pdf
- Jean-Pierre Steinhofer, "The Nameless Enemy" in Revue
Defense Nationale et Securite Collective, October 2008
- "CNN: Britain's Brown: Al Qaeda fight a
'generation-long' battle"
- ‘Pakistan must not harbour Taliban’ By Khalid
Hasan
- "Democracy Hypocrisy"; The New Yorker 8
Dec 2001
- "The War on Terrorism" and Human Rights: Aid to
Abusers
- Amnesty International
- Washington Post
- NPR
- Guardian
- Washington Post
- Pew Global Attitudes Project: America’s Image in
the World: Findings from the Pew Global Attitudes Project
- www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/congress/koh111005.pdf
- The Fifth Estate episode,
CBC Newsworld
- American Civil Liberties Union : 30,000 National
Security Letters Issued Annually Demanding Information about
Americans: Patriot Act Removed Need for FBI to Connect Records to
Suspected Terrorists
- Iceland to Britain: 'We're No Terrorists',
TIME, November 3, 2008
- Who are you calling terrorists, Mr Brown?, The
Independent, October 24, 2008
- Relations in deep freeze as Iceland denounces UK’s
‘unfriendly’ action, The Times, October 10, 2008
- Eirikur Bergmann Einarsson: Britain has betrayed
Iceland, and we're angry, The Guardian, October 13, 2008
- "More than 1,000,000 Iraqis murdered". September 2007.
Opinion Research Business. PDF report: [7]
- "Poll: Civilian Death Toll in Iraq May Top 1
Million". By Tina Susman. Sept. 14, 2007. Los Angeles
Times.
- "Greenspan Admits Iraq was About Oil, As Deaths Put
at 1.2 Million". By Peter Beaumont and Joanna Walters. Sept.
16, 2007. The
Observer .
- "The Media Ignore Credible Poll Revealing 1.2
Million Violent Deaths In Iraq". Sept. 18, 2007.
MediaLens.
- [8]
- [9]
- Operation Enduring Freedom: Why a Higher Rate of Civilian
Bombing Casualties - Bombers and cluster bombs
- Operation Enduring Freedom: Why a Higher Rate of
Civilian Bombing Casualties - Appendix 1. Estimation of Civilian
Bombing Casualties: Method and Sources
- [10]
- Mogadishu violence kills 6,500 in past year: rights
group
-
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/33843_RIP_Pvt._William_Andrew_Long
Further reading
- Müller, Sebastian R. Hawala. An Informal Payment
System and Its Use to Finance Terrorism, Dec. 2006, ISBN
3-8655-0656-9
- Kuypers, Jim A. Bush’s War: Media Bias and Justifications
for War in a Terrorist Age, ISBN 0-7425-3653-X
- Brian Michael Jenkins,
Unconquerable Nation,
RAND Corporation, Fall 2006, ISBN
0-8330-3893-1 and ISBN 0-8330-3891-5
- Igmade (Stephan Trüby et al., eds.),
5 Codes: Architecture, Paranoia and Risk in Times of
Terror, Birkhäuser; 2006, ISBN 3-7643-7598-1
- Richard Clarke, Against
All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror, Free Press; 2004,
ISBN 0-7432-6024-4
- Ira Chernus. Monsters To Destroy: The Neoconservative War
on Terror and Sin. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2006 ISBN
1-59451-276-0
- Michael Scheuer, Imperial
Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, ISBN
1-57488-849-8
- Michelle Malkin, In Defense
Of Internment: The Case for Racial Profiling in World War II and
the War on terror, September, 2004, National Book Network,
hardcover, 416 pages, ISBN 0-89526-051-4
- Steven Emerson (2002),
American Jihad:
The Terrorists Living Among Us, Free Press; 2003 paperback
edition, ISBN 0-7432-3435-9
- Lyal S. Sunga, (2002) US Anti-Terrorism Policy and
Asia’s Options, in Johannen, Smith and Gomez, (eds.) September
11 & Political Freedoms: Asian Perspectives (Select) 242–264,
ISBN 981-4022-24-1
- Marina Ottoway, et al., Democratic Mirage in the Middle
East, Carnegie Endowment for Ethics and International Peace,
Policy Brief 20, (October 20, 2002). Available online
- Marina Ottoway and Thomas Carothers, Think Again: Middle
East Democracy,Foreign Policy (Nov./Dec. 2004). Available online
- Chris Zambelis, The Strategic Implications of Political
Liberalization and Democratization in the Middle East,
Parameters, (Autumn 2005). Available online
- Adnan M. Hayajneh, The U.S. Strategy: Democracy
and Internal Stability in the Arab World,Alternatives (Volume
3, No. 2 & 3, Summer/Fall 2004). Available online
- Gary Gambill, Jumpstarting Arab Reform: The Bush
Administration's Greater Middle East Initiative, Middle East
Intelligence Bulletin (Vol. 6, No. 6–7, June/July 2004). Available online
- Remarks by the President at the 20th Anniversary of the
National Endowment for Democracy, United States Chamber of
Commerce, Washington, D.C., President Bush Discusses Freedom in
Iraq and Middle East, (November 6, 2003). Available online
- Hans Köchler, Terrorism
and National Liberation. Proceedings of the International
Conference on the Question of Terrorism. Frankfurt a.
M:/Bern/New York: Peter Lang, 1988, ISBN 3-8204-1217-4
- Hans Köchler, Manila
Lectures 2002. Terrorism and the Quest for a Just World
Order. Quezon City (Manila): FSJ Book World, 2002, ISBN
3-211-83091-X
- Hans Köchler, The War on Terror, its Impact on the
Sovereignty of Nations, and its Implications on Human Rights and
Civil Liberties, Manila, September 2002
- Hans Köchler, The United Nations and International Terrorism
: Challenges to Collective Security, Shanghai, November
2002
- Hans Köchler (ed.), The
'Global War on Terror' and the Question of World Order.
Vienna: International Progress Organization, 2008. ISBN
9783900704247
- Robert Blecher, Free People Will Set the Course of History:
Intellectuals, Democracy and American Empire, Middle East
Report (March 2003). Available online
- Robert Fisk, What Does Democracy Really Mean In The Middle
East? Whatever The West Decides, The London
Independent (August 8, 2005). Available online
- Fawaz Gergez, Is Democracy in the Middle East a
Pipedream?,Yale Global Online (April 25, 2005). Available online
- Donald Rumsfeld, Bureaucracy to Battlefield Speech,
(September 10, 2001) Available online
- Leon Hadar, The Green Peril: Creating the Islamic
Fundamentalist Threat, (August 27, 1992) Available online
- George W. Bush, A Period of Consequences, (September
23, 1999) Available online
- George W. Bush, A Distinctly American
Internationalism, (November 19, 1999) Available online
- Nicholas Lemann, Dreaming About War, (July 16, 2001)
The New Yorker. Available
online
- James Der Derian, The Illusion of a Grand Strategy,
(May 25, 2001) The New York Times Available online
- Paul Wolfowitz, Briefing on the Defense Planning
Guidance, (August 16, 2001). Available online
- Henry Shelton, Change, Troops and Transformation,
(August 28, 2001). Available online
- Project for the New American Century, Rebuilding America's
Defenses, (September 2000). Available online
- Foreign Policy in Focus, The Bush Administration's
Strategic Defense Review, (May 2001). Available online
- Col. Daniel Smith and others, Reforging the Sword: Forces
for the 21st Century Security Strategy, Center for Defense
Information, (September 2001), Available online
- BBC News, Stumbling towards Pentagon reform: Ambitious
agenda, (August 16, 2001). Available online
- Philip Gold, Savaging Donald Rumsfeld, The Washington
Times, (August 28, 2001). Available online
- Condoleezza Rice, Life after the Cold War, Council on
Foreign Relations, (September 2000). web.archive.org
- Ashton Carter and William Perry, Preventive Defense, A New
Security Strategy for America, Brooking Institution, (1999).
Available online
- Steven Metz, Asymmetry and U.S. Military Strategy:
Definition, Background, and Strategic Concepts, U.S. Army War
College, (January 2001). web.archive.org
- Kenneth McKenzie, The Revenge of the Melians: Asymmetric
Threats and the next QDR, National Defense University,
(November 2000). Available online
- L. Ali Khan, "A Theory of International Terrorism" (2006) and
The Essentialist Terrorist (2006)
- Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant
Fundamentalist; 2007, ISBN 978-0241143650
External links
- Official sites by governments and international
organizations
- General war on terrorism news
- Primary legal documents
- Specific articles
- Other
- Video
- Recent events