Terrorism & The USA

What is it & Who is Involved?• Terrorism- violent acts which are intended to

create fear, are for a religious, political or ideological goals, & deliberately target civilians.

• Over the last 40 years, some of the main areas that have been associated/impacted w/ Terrorism has been the USA & the Middle East.

Where is the Middle East?• Peninsula: the main Peninsula in the ME is

the Arabian Peninsula (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Yemen, Oman, & United Arab Emirates)

• Also Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, & Pakistan

What are the Beliefs?• Islam- a monotheistic religion based on the

teaching of the founder, Muhammad.• Qur’an is the text that is believed to be word

4 word what Allah said.• After Muhammad’s death Muslims divided

into 2 main branches, Sunni & Shi’ite• Bout 83% of all Muslims are Sunni

What are the Beliefs?• 5 pillars of Islam– 1. Creed-This is the foundation for all other beliefs &

practices in Islam. Muslims must repeat the creed in prayer.• "I testify that there is none worthy of worship except God

and I testify that Muhammad is the Messenger of God." 2. Dailey prayers- must face Mecca 5 times a day &

pray.3. Charity- Muslims believe that the have to support

the less fortunate by giving them money.4. Fasting- No eating or drinking all day to remind

Muslims that there are things in life more important than eating, like teaching self control & humility.

5. Pilgrimage- all Muslims go to Mecca 1 in their life.

What Got this thing Started?• 1979 was a bad year for US/ME relations.• 1. War in Afghanistan- During December 1979, around

75,000 Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan in order to support the Communist gov.

• 2. The Iran hostage crisis- was a diplomatic crisis b/t Iran & the US where 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days from November 4, 1979 to January 20, 1981, after a group of Islamist students & militants took over the American Embassy in support of the Iranian Revolution.

• The episode reached a climax when, after failed attempts to negotiate a release, the US military attempted a rescue operation, Operation Eagle Claw on April 24, 1980, which failed, & caused the destruction of 2 planes & the deaths of 8 American servicemen.

Black Gold• For a Modern World: Oil is

the ME’s major resource. ½ of the world’s oil reserves are found here.

• Oil: Most abundant resource found in ME. Bulk of it is located in the Arabian Penin, Iran, & Iraq.

• Oil (Transporting): Use pipelines to get the oil to & from refineries

• Oil (Risk of Transporting): Oil spills on land & water.

OPEC• Oil is the main resource for the A.P.• W/ the increase in oil prices, the $$$ coming into

the area allows the growth of other areas of the economy like H2O development.

• OPEC- Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries – Saudi Arabia– Kuwait– Iraq– Iran– UAE– Qatar

OPEC• It was developed to help control world wide oil prices.• It looks for ways of making sure that oil prices are stable in

international oil markets.• Try to eliminate unnecessary fluctuations; while @ the same

time looking out for the interests of the producing nations, and maintaining an efficient & regular supply of oil to consuming nations.

• OPEC's influence on the market has been widely criticized, since it became effective in determining production & prices.

• OPEC's ability to control the price of oil has gone down a little, due to the discovery & development of large oil reserves in Alaska, the North Sea, Canada, & the Gulf of Mexico.

• As of November 2010, OPEC members collectively hold 79% of world crude oil reserves and 44% of the world’s crude oil production, allowing them considerable control over the global market.

Things Unravel– There were

disagreements over homelands by certain ethnic groups & there were also disagreements over oil fields after WWI

– Main conflict was control over oil fields.

– B/T 1980-1990 Iraq & Iran fought over control. Then in 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait starting the Persian Gulf War.

– The US & 32 other nations fought to keep Kuwait’s oil fields open.

World Trade Center• The original World Trade

Center was a complex of 7 buildings featuring landmark twin towers in New York City.

• The complex opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the 9-11 attacks.

• 9-11 was not the 1st time the towers were attacked.

World Trade Center• On February 26, 1993,

truck filled with 1,500 pounds of explosives, detonated in the underground garage of the N Tower.

• 6 people were killed & 50,000 other workers & visitors were left gasping for air w/in the 110 story towers.

• Many people inside the N Tower were forced to walk down darkened stairwells that contained no emergency lighting, some taking two hours or more to reach safety.

World Trade Center…THAT day • On 9-11-01, there were a

series of 4 coordinated suicide attacks against targets in New York & Washington, D.C.

• 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked 4 passenger jets. The hijackers intentionally crashed 2 planes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.\

• Al-Qaeda- is a global Sunni Islamist militant group founded by Osama bin Laden in the late 80’s.

• Terrorists took control of four commercial airliners en route to San Francisco & L.A.

World Trade Center…THAT day • @ 8:46 a.m., 5 hijackers

crashed American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Center's N. Tower & collapsed at 10:28 a.m. after burning for 102 mins

• @ 9:03 a.m., another five hijackers crashed United Airlines Flight 175 into the S. Tower & collapsed at 9:59 a.m. after burning for 56 mins.

Effects• All aircraft within the continental

U.S. were grounded, & aircraft already in flight were told to land immediately.

• All international civilian aircraft were either turned back or redirected to airports in Canada or Mexico, & all international flights were banned from landing on U.S. soil for 3 days.

• There were a total of 2,996 deaths.

• Over 90% of the workers & visitors who died in the towers had been at or above the points of impact.

• A total of 411 emergency workers who responded to the scene died as they tried to rescue people & fight fires.

Pentagon• The flight was hijacked between

8:51 & 8:54, just mins after the 1st plane struck the WTC.

• It was descending through 2,200 ft pointed toward the Pentagon & downtown D.C.

• While level above the ground & seconds from the crash, the airplane's wings knocked over light poles & its right engine smashed into a power generator, creating a smoke trail seconds before smashing into the Pentagon flying at 530 MPH.

• In all, there were 189 deaths at the Pentagon site.

Flight 93• The hijacking on Flight 93 began at

9:28.• After the hijackers took control of

the plane, several passengers & flight attendants were able to make calls & learn that attacks had been made.

• Some of the passengers then made an attempt to regain control of the aircraft.

• The plane crashed into a field in near Shanksville Pennsylvania.

• Analysis of the flight recorders recovered from the crash site revealed how the actions taken by the passengers prevented the aircraft from reaching the hijackers' intended target.

The Guy• The founder of Al-Qaeda, the

jihadist organization responsible for the 9-11 attacks on the United States & other attacks against civilian & military targets.

• From 2001-2011, bin Laden was a major target of the War on Terror, w/ a 25 million reward by the FBI.

• The bin Laden family made $5 billion in the construction industry, of which Osama inherited bout $25–30 million.

• Motivated by a belief that U.S. foreign policy has oppressed, killed, or otherwise harmed Muslims in the Middle East

The Guy’s Beliefs• Bin Laden believed that

Afghanistan, under the rule of the Taliban, was "the only Islamic country" in the Muslim world.

• Bin Laden consistently focused on the need for violent jihad to right what he believed were injustices against Muslims committed by the U.S. & sometimes by other non-Muslim states, the need to eliminate the state of Israel, & the necessity of forcing the U.S. to w/draw from the ME.

The Guy’s a target!!!• After his denial, Osama bin Laden

finally admitted to 9-11 in 2004.• In response to the attacks, the U.S.

launched a War on Terror against the Taliban & capture al-Qaeda operatives.

• In April 2011, intelligence outlets were able to pinpoint bin Laden's suspected location near Abbottabad, Pakistan.

• The CIA used surveillance photos & intelligence reports to determine the identities of the inhabitants of the Abbottabad compound.

• In September 2010, the CIA concluded that the compound was custom-built to hide someone of significance

The Guy’s a target!!!• The U.S. Central

Intelligence Agency rented a home in Abbottabad from which a team staked out & observed the compound over a number of months.

• The CIA team used informants & other techniques to gather intelligence on the compound.

• The design of bin Laden's compound may have led to his discovery.

The Guy’s a target!!!• Planners believed the SEALs could get to

Abbottabad & back without being challenged by the Pakistani military.

• The helicopters to be used in the raid were designed to be quieter & less visible on radar.

• Since the U.S. had helped equip & train the Pakistanis, their defensive capabilities were known.

• The U.S. had supplied F-16’s to Pakistan on the condition they were kept at a Pakistani military base under 24-hour U.S. surveillance.The U.S. would know immediately if the Pakistanis scrambled their jets.

The Guy’s a target!!!• When the Security Council met

on April 19, President Obama gave provisional approval for the helicopter raid.

• The SEALs left for Afghanistan to practice at a 1 acre full-scale replica of the compound built on a restricted area.

• On April 29 at 8:20 a.m., Obama gave the final go-ahead.

• The raid would take place the following day. That evening the president was informed that the operation would be delayed one day due to cloudy weather.

• Shortly after 3 p.m., the president joined national security officials in the Situation Room to monitor the raid. They watched night-vision images taken from a drone.