war on terror

US-led international campaign against terrorist organizations, declared in response to the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, DC, on September 11th, 2001 that killed around 3,000 people. The attacks were carried out by al-Qaeda, an international terrorist network then being run from Afghanistan by Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden. US president George W Bush rapidly assembled an international coalition to support a crackdown on all terrorist groups. After the US-led Afghanistan War to oust the Taliban regime, President Bush in 2002 declared North Korea, Iraq, and Iran ‘an axis of evil’ and pressed the United Nations (UN) to act against Iraq in particular. In March 2003, US forces supported by UK troops launched the Iraq War, and Saddam Hussein's regime collapsed the following month. Despite such major campaigns, violent terrorist incidents continued around the world, many attributable to a weakened but still active al-Qaeda. Osama bin Laden also remained at large, as of 2005.

Attack on the USA On 11 September 2001, a hijacked Boeing 767 was flown into the north tower of the 110-storey World Trade Center in New York City. Minutes later, a second commercial airliner was crashed into the south tower. Weakened by the initial impacts and the ensuing fires, both towers eventually collapsed, killing over 2,000 office workers and hundreds of rescue workers. Another hijacked plane was flown into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the US Department of Defense, in Washington, DC. A fourth plane crashed 130 km/80 mi southeast of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, after passengers fought with the hijackers. The worst terrorist attack on record, the victims included citizens of over 80 nations.

Economic effects On 17 September, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) reopened. However, the switch by investors to bonds, gold, and other commodities led to sharp falls in share values, tipping an already faltering US economy towards recession. US airlines cut some 20% of flights, anticipating a severe drop in business, and 100,000 jobs were lost in the aviation sector worldwide, including 30,000 at the Boeing Company. The insurance sector also suffered, with the worldwide insurance bill for the 11 September attacks estimated at US$70 billion.

Al-Qaeda's role No terrorist group claimed responsibility for the 11 September attacks, but suspicion quickly fell on bin Laden and al-Qaeda, which had active cells in over 60 countries across the world. Bin Laden was already on the US Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) ‘Ten Most-Wanted’ list for his alleged organization of a series of attacks on US interests since the 1990s, including the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen. Over succeeding weeks, evidence was accumulated by US and worldwide intelligence agencies linking him to the 11 September attacks.

Anti-terrorist coalition US president Bush called the attack ‘an act of war’, and put US armed forces on high alert. He was supported by NATO, which invoked Article 5 of its founding charter for the first time in its history, declaring that the atrocities were an attack on all members of the alliance. The UN passed resolutions condemning the attacks, and politicians around the world promised the USA help in finding the perpetrators. On 16 September, Bush declared a comprehensive and open-ended war against both al-Qaeda and any state that sponsored or harboured terrorists. Recognizing that the campaign would be protracted, the Bush administration worked hard to build an international coalition of forces, including Western and Islamic countries. The alliance included Russia – which had recent experience of bin Laden-backed terrorism in Chechnya – and Pakistan, despite pressure from radical Islamic fundamentalists at home. The war on terror has since been perceived by some groups as an attack on Islam and has at times threatened to polarize the international community.

Other terrorist attacks Further attacks carried out by militant Islamists linked to al-Qaeda occurred in the wake of 11 September. On 22 December, Richard Reid, a UK Muslim, was caught attempting to detonate explosives hidden in his shoes while on a flight from Paris, France, to Miami, Florida. On 12 October 2002, a massive car bomb exploded at a nightclub in the tourist centre of Kuta on Bali in Indonesia, killing about 200 people and injuring some 300, mostly Australians. The Indonesian authorities blamed Islamic extremists belonging to Jemaah Islamiah, thought to be part of the al-Qaeda network. On 28 November terrorist action was launched against Israeli targets in the Kenyan city of Mombasa – an Israeli-owned tourist hotel was destroyed by a car bomb, killing some 15 Israelis and Kenyans, while an Israeli charter airliner narrowly escaped being shot down by ground-launched missiles after taking off from the city's airport.

Several incidents during 2003 were believed to have been planned and executed by al-Qaeda. On 12 May, suicide bombers in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh targeted three compounds housing Western expatriate workers and their families, killing at least 34 people, including themselves, and injuring about 190. Four days later in Casablanca, Morocco, 12 suicide bombers killed about 30 other people and injured many more in five coordinated explosions at a hotel, a nightclub, a Jewish community centre and cemetery, and the Belgian consulate. On 8 November, terrorists struck again in Saudi Arabia as suicide bombings killed at least 18 people and injured 120, mainly Arab expatriates, in attacks on a residential compound in Riyadh. In Istanbul, Turkey, suicide bombers targeted two synagogues on 15 November, killing at least 25 people and injuring over 300, and then the British consulate and the local headquarters of the UK-based bank HSBC five days later. Thirty people died in the second attack, including the British consul, and some 450 were injured.

On 11 March 2004, terrorist bomb attacks on the railway system in Madrid, Spain, left about 200 people dead. The Spanish government initially accused the Basque separatist organization Euskadi ta Askatasuna (ETA), although later evidence suggested that Islamic extremists were responsible. The following month several terrorists suspected of carrying out the Madrid bombings blew themselves up as police besieged their flat in a suburb of the Spanish capital. The incident followed the discovery the previous day of another bomb intended to disrupt the high-speed rail link from Madrid to the southern city of Seville. Subsequent serious incidents during 2004 focused on Saudi Arabia and Chechnya. On 21 April, a suicide bomber in a car packed with explosives blew up the front of the Riyadh headquarters of the Saudi domestic security services, killing at least four people and injuring around 150. Then, at the start of May, Islamic extremists killed five foreign workers in a terrorist raid through the Saudi port of Yanbu. In a further attack against Western interests at the end of the month, suspected al-Qaeda militants took about 50 foreign hostages in a residential compound after a violent rampage through the city of Khobar. Saudi commandos stormed the compound and freed the hostages, but three of the four assailants escaped. At least 22 civilians were killed in the two-day stand-off. Suspected al-Qaeda terrorists also launched an attack on the US consulate in Jeddah in December. Four of the terrorists were killed, as were five other people.

Detention and human rights The treatment by US and UK forces of prisoners and suspected terrorists detained without trial since the military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, particularly at the US naval base at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba and at the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq, led to international protests. Sweeping and controversial anti-terrorist measures in the UK have also been challenged in the courts.