Terrorism-Around The World

US objectives
 
US soldier of the 10th Mountain Division in NuristanThe 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 of the War on Terrorism



Horn of Africa
 
US soldiers and French LegionnairesThis 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".
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.

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 (ICU), 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.

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.

On January 8, 2007, the US launched the Battle of Ras Kamboni by bombing Ras Kamboni using AC-130 gunships.


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.


United Kingdom
 
7/7 Bombings, Central LondonSeveral terrorism attacks and plots have occurred in the UK. These include the 7/7 and 21/7 bombings of London in 2005 which killed 57 people and injured about 700.
The worst terrorist incident in the United Kingdom is the Pam Am flight from London Heathrow to the USA. It is called the Lockerbie Bombing and was over Scotland, UK in 1988 which killed over 200 US and UK citizens.

In 2005 on July 7 several British Muslim men from Leeds, England traveled to London and detonated several bombs in the London Underground System killing 57 people. The men of the 7/7 attacks left a video warning the UK government and people that more attacks were to come.
Exactly 2 weeks later on the 21st of July 2005, more British Muslim terrorists traveled to London and tried to detonate more bombs on the London Underground.

In August 2006, a major plot involving the bombings of several U.S. and U.K. airliners flying transatlantic from several UK airports to the U.S. was foiled by US and UK intelligence.
Several men were arrested in cities across the United Kingdom and have since been sentenced in the UK. This plot has caused mass security changes on airports all round the EU and US, such as limiting the amount of liquids that are allowed to carry on a plane.

In July 2007, just as former Prime Minister Tony Blair resigned and Gordon Brown was appointed as Prime Minister, several car bombs were planted in Central London, one by the Tiger Tiger nightclub in the West End which was found by an ambulance crew. The same men then drove several hundred miles to Glasgow, Scotland and the next day, drove a jeep full of gas bottles into the main terminal entrance of Glasgow International Airport and set it on fire. One of the terrorist's had a bomb wrapped around his waist, he was tackled to the ground and arrested. Another man exited the car and ran into the terminal building while he was on fire, he was set upon and restrained by members of the public including John Smeaton QGM.
He later died in hospital from severe burns caused by setting the jeep on fire. The other man was sentenced to life in prison after being tried in the UK. No member of the public was seriously hurt in the attacks.2007 Glasgow International Airport attack

Italy


Imam Rapito affair
26 Americans, 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 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.

War On Terrorism

The War on Terrorism (also referred to as the Global War on Terror, Global War on Terrorism, or Overseas Contingency Operation) is the common term for the military, political, legal and ideological conflict against what the effort's leaders describe as Islamic terrorism and Islamic militants, and was specifically used in reference to operations by the United States and its allies since the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The stated objectives of the war in the US are to protect US citizens and business interests in the US 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.

The Real Cause Of Blood Shed 


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 in Kenya and Tanzania, U.S. President Bill Clinton launched Operation Infinite Reach, a bombing campaign in Sudan and Afghanistan against targets the US 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 seisure 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.

  War on Terrorism 

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 off

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 his 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 failed 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":

“ London is not a battlefield. Those innocents who were murdered...were not victims of war. And the men who killed them were not, as in their vanity they claimed on their ludicrous videos, 'soldiers'. They were deluded, narcissistic inadequates. They were criminals. They were fantasists. We need to be very clear about this. On the streets of London there is no such thing as a war on terror. The fight against terrorism on the streets of Britain is not a war. It is the prevention of crime, the enforcement of our laws, and the winning of justice for those damaged by their infringement.” 

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".