Al-Qaeda- Acts of Terrorism

What is terrorism, you may ask yourself. Most people think it is random acts of violence of one country against another. When really, it is political violence. There are many reasons why there are terrorist attacks, which can be related to many different things, , and in some cases they justify as a holy duty. But a lot of it has to do with whose point of view is being represented. Al-Qaeda feels that their mission is correct but, from our view, they have been terrorizing us for several decades and is completely unjust.. This is an obvious issue as killing innocent cililians is not right, on either side. Rarely does a week go by without an act of terrorism taking place somewhere in the world. One of the most well-known terrorist attacks killed about 2,996 people. The terrorism group behind this was Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda has been noted to be the largest terrorist group in the world. Al-Qaeda’s roots go back a couple of decades. Many people from Arab countries had gone to Afghanistan during the 1980’s. They wanted to help the Afghans fight the invading Russian army. The Arabs supported the Afghans as they were also followers of Islam (Muslim). For the Arabs, the battle was a Jihad or holy war. When the Russian army was defeated, Al-Qaeda was set up to continue the Jihad against people the Arabs thought were enemies of Islam. Al-Qaeda was established in 1989, when the Russian Army left Afghanistan, by Osama bin Laden. Al- Quada’s goal is to drive Americans and American influence out of all Muslim nations, especially Saudi Arabia and destroy Israel. Osama bin Laden said that he wanted to unite all Muslims by force if necessary.
Terrorists are still attempting to destroy landmarks in the United States and airliners bound for the United States. The latest attempt was based in Yemen, when an Al-Qaeda affiliate tried to destroy a US bound airliner. The bomb they tried to use was an improvement of the underwear bomb that nearly exploded on a plane Christmas Day 2009. The bomb did not contain any metal so it was able to pass through airport security, according to the FBI. The affiliate planned this bombing for the one year anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death. According to Robert Windrem from NBC News, the Al-Qaeda suicide bomber was a British national. Many people live in fear that Al-Qaeda could commit an act of terrorism against our nation again. Terrorism