“The hunt for KSM: Inside the Pursuit and Takedown of the Real 9/11 Mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed” by analytical reporters Terry McDermont and Josh Meyer, is an attention-grabbing account of how one of Al Qaeda’s most outstanding terrorist, KSM, took part in one of the deadliest terrorist operations in history. The book includes an intense description of the decade-long determination of the CIA and FBI investigators to the successful capture of KSM and his acquaintances. However, as portrayed by the authors, it took a long time in their pursuit to identify KSM and take him into custody. Although KSM had been involved in terrorist attacks against the United States, with the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 conducted by his nephew, Ramzi Yousef, the U.S. authorities had a slight knowledge about him. The FBI was tracking KSM since 1993 but he was never labeled as part of the Al Qaeda’s group, instead he was thought to be a terrorist for hire. When he escaped to Manila, he planned a series of attacks that included the plans to assassinate Pope John Paul II and president Clinton during their visits to the Philippines, known as the Bojinka Operation. Their plans for operation Bojinka were destroyed in January 1995 because of Youssef’s carelessness …show more content…
When Zubaydah (part of Al Qaeda) was captured, several intense interrogations took place. During one of the interrogations, the agents decided to pull up some pictures for him to identify some people and the first image that appeared was accidentally a picture of KSM. Zubaydah identified KSM as being Mukhtar, which means “the head.” This is when they realized that KSM was the mastermind behind the attacks. The awareness of KSM’s connection to Al Qaeda did not occur until 2002, which led to a moment of panic and as soon as president Clinton was informed of this information, a manhunt for KSM
In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the United States was incredibly eager to strike back at the nations thought to be responsible for this horrific tragedy. These attacks were quickly attributed to the terrorist group al-Qa’ida, led by Osama bin Laden, and to the Taliban-run government of Afghanistan, which had provided sanctuary to al-Qa’ida. In response, Washington approved a covert plan led by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to directly attack those responsible in their Middle East safe haven. Initiated on 26 September 2001 with the approval of the warlords of the Afghan Northern Alliance, with whom the CIA had formed an intelligence liaison relationship, Operation Jawbreaker resulted in the fall of the Taliban regime, the killing and capture of a significant amount of al-Qa’ida leadership, and elimination of a terrorist safe haven by early December 2001. Moreover, the Taliban’s collapse denied al-Qa’ida a pseudo-nation-state partner, serving to reduce the organization’s sanctuary to areas residing along the Pakistani border. Operation Jawbreaker, one of the first post-9/11 covert operations carried out by the United States in support of its national security interests, had proved successful. Word of the operation’s swift success astounded those back in Washington; dubbed the CIA’s “finest hour,” it signified the first of many victories by deposing the Taliban’s control of Northern Afghanistan.
This historical study will compare and contrast the depiction of the “War on Terror” in a pro-government and anti-government plot structures found in Zero Dark Thirty (2012) by Kathryn Bigelow and The Siege (1998) by Edward Zwick. The pro-government view of Zero Dark Thirty defines the use of CIA agents and military operatives to track down Osama Bin Laden in the 2000s. Bigelow appears to validate the use of torture and interrogation as a means in which to extract information in the hunt for Bin Laden. In contrast this depiction of terrorism, Zwick’s film The Siege exposes the damage that torture, kidnapping, and
Who could possibly inflict such a horrendous, despicable attack? Khalid used open source intelligence resources to compiled data from various Western aviation magazines, telephone directories for U.S. cities, airline timetables, and conducted Internet searches on U.S. flight schools, flight simulator software and information gleaned from movies depicting hijackings. He also wanted to understand the western culture better as well, that way his operatives could better blend in with the surroundings. There were numerous failures on America’s intelligence agencies that led up to this event occurring.
In this book, Friedman presents a coherent picture of forces in the Middle East that have led to the Israeli- Palestinian confrontation and to bin Laden and his group of terrorists. Friedman’s articles describe meetings, discussions, and arguments he had with people at all levels of society through out the Middle East. From his extensive travels and through dynamic interactions with the people he derived intense insights into how 9/11 came about, why, and what should be done about it.
Osama bin Laden was an adversary of the West for years and it was known to the whole world. Unfortunately, he took it a little further by having two planes fly into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon and another plane possibly for the White House. As we all know, this is the unforgettable day of September 11, 2001. Thousands of Americans were innocently murdered that day and in our own country by a terrorist organization. The United States of America would not stand for this and rapidly sought out Osama Bin Laden for what he had done to us. This is the day that caused the United States to accelerate the search and destruction efforts of bin Laden. Soon after September 11th, the United States was very involved in Afghanistan in trying to find him.
When a giant explosion ripped through Alfred P. Murrah federal building April 19,1995, killing 168 and wounding hundreds, the United States of America jumped to a conclusion we would all learn to regret. The initial response to the devastation was all focused of middle-eastern terrorists. “The West is under attack,”(Posner 89), reported the USA Today. Every news and television station had the latest expert on the middle east telling the nation that we were victims of jihad, holy war. It only took a few quick days to realize that we were wrong and the problem, the terrorist, was strictly domestic. But it was too late. The damage had been done. Because America jumped to conclusions then, America was later blind to see the impending attack of 9/11. The responsibility, however, is not to be placed on the America people. The public couldn’t stand to hear any talk of terrorism, so in turn the White House irresponsibly took a similar attitude. They concentrated on high public opinion and issues that were relevant to Americans everyday. The government didn’t want to deal with another public blunder like the one in Oklahoma City. A former FBI analyst recalls, “when I went to headquarters (Washington, D.C.) later that year no one was interested in hearing anything about Arab money connections unless it had something to do with funding domestic groups. We stumbled so badly on pinpointing the Middle East right off the bat on the Murrah bombing. No one wanted to get caught like that again,”(Posner 90). The result saw changes in the counter terrorism efforts; under funding, under manning, poor cooperation between agencies, half-hearted and incompetent agency official appointees and the list goes on. All of these decisions, made at the hands of the faint-hearted, opened the doors wide open, and practically begged for a terrorist attack. So who’s fault is it? The public’s for being
In “Biographies of Hegemony” by Karen Ho, she emphasizes that it is “only through the small and the everyday that we can understand the criteria of hegemony in all its particularity and contextuality” (168). To fully understand and evaluate someone or a group, people must look at the small and everyday stories each person possesses. Smallness can be defined as certain experiences and individual qualities that are overlooked by big corporations such as Wall Street. By reviewing the small stories and individual experiences, people can begin to unravel and fully understand hegemony and how it came to be. Through smallness, the major corporations on Wall Street have stereotyped, deindividualized, and set unequal standards
The two victims said that they were not involved in terrorist groups, but during the investigation they had visited some Al- Qaeda websites to plan out the bombing. Al- Qaeda is an Islamist group that was found by Osama bin Laden in the 1980s. Al- Qaeda is the same group that did the terroist attacks on September 11, 2001. Al- Qaeda means "the base". In 2010, the Al- Qaeda's magazine had a step by step to make a pressure cooker bomb. The brothers were planning to do some of the same acts in New York City.
The attacks that occurred on 9/11 took place on September 11th, 2001. In this devastating event, four different attacks had taken place. Each of the attacks were carried out by terrorists. The group responsible for the attack was Al-Qaeda, a militant Islamist organization that is known to be global in present day. The group itself has a network consisting of a Sunni Muslim movement that aims to make global Jihad happen. Furthermore, a stateless, multinational army that is ready to move at any given time. This terrorist group focuses on attacking non-Sunni Muslims, those who are not Muslim, and individuals who the group deems to be kafir. Ever since the late 1980s, Al-Qaeda has been wreaking havoc all around the world. The leader of the group once being Osama bin Laden. Three planes were bound for New York City while another plane headed towards Washington, D.C. which was supposed to take out the U.S. Capitol. Two of the airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center. One plane hitting the North Tower and the other hitting the South Tower. The third plane had crashed into the Pentagon taking out the western side of the building. The last and final plane was focused solely on taking out the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C. but failed due to passengers of the plane coming hijacking it from the hijackers. The passengers attempted to take out the hijackers but sadly failed, crashing it into a field in Pennsylvania. Throughout the content of this paper, we will be focusing on the role of media when it comes to 9/11; more specifically: how the media's coverage of 9/11 manipulated our feelings towards 9/11, how it affected Islamophobia in America, and the lasting effects of 9/11.
Schweitzer, Y., & Shay, S. (2003). The globalization of terror: The challenge of al-qaida and the response of the international community. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers.
Pentagon in Washington D.C., the attitude and policies of both the American people and the U.S. government changed. Fear crept out from every corner on the street, and hatred and discrimination ambled out of every store or gas station that was run predominantly by citizens of Middle Eastern descent. In response, President Bush told the American people "We will never forget," meaning the people responsible for the attacks would be found, and payback would be ensured. However, instead of hunting down Osama bin Laden (the leader of the terrorist group al-Qaeda) or Mohammed Atta (mastermind behind the 9/11 events), the U.S. decided to hunt Saddam Hussein.
On April 19, 1995 at exactly 9:02 a.m, a 5,000-pound bomb that was hidden inside a Ryder truck exploded right outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The explosion caused massive destruction killing 168 people (19 of those people being children). The two masterminds behind the Oklahoma City Bombing were by the names of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. On April 19, 1993, the standoff between the FBI and the Branch Davidian cult at the Davidian compound in Waco, Texas ended in a tragedy. The entire compound had combusted into flames and took the lives of 75 people including children. With the death toll being extremely high from the explosion, many people were angry and decided to blame the U.S Government for causing such disaster. Timothy McVeigh was one of those
"You're a human being, not an animal. You have the right to be loved" (262). "Son of the Revolution" by Liang Heng and Judith Shapiro was a book that showed how inhumane many of the aspects of Chinese life were during the Cultural Revolution. The book followed Liang Heng through many of his childhood memories to his departure from China in his twenties. The book applied a real face to the important movements during the Cultural Revolution, the effects that "the cult of Mao" had on society and Heng, and the way the period affected Heng's personal family life.
In Lee Ann Fisher Baron’s “Junk Science,” she claims that the “food industry with the help of federal regulators” sometimes use “[a science that] bypasses [the] system of peer review. Presented directly to the public by…‘experts’ or ‘activists,’ often with little or no supporting evidence, this ‘junk science’ undermines the ability…[for] everyday consumers to make rational decisions” (921). Yet Americans still have a lot of faith in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). According to a 2013 Pew Research study, 65% of Americans are “very favorable” or “mostly favorable” of the FDA. When it comes to what people put in their bodies, the FDA has a moral obligation to be truthful and transparent. The bottom line of the FDA’s myriad of responsibilities is to help protect the health of Americans. Deciding what to eat is a critical part of living healthily, and consumers must be able to trust that this massive government agency is informing them properly of the contents of food. While the FDA does an excellent job in many areas, it has flaws in other areas. One of its flaws is allowing the food industry to print food labels that are deceptive, unclear, or simply not true (known as misbranding). This is quite the hot topic because a Google search for “Should I trust food labels” returns well over 20 million results, many of which are blog posts from online writers begging their readers not to trust food labels. HowStuffWorks, a division of Discovery Communications, published an online article whose author claims that “[the food industry] will put what they want on labels. They know the game….” While the food industry is partially at blame for misbranding, the FDA is allowing it to happen. If a mother tells her children that it is oka...
Osama Bin Laden was on the FBI’s most wanted list for 10 years. He was responsible for the deaths of thousands of American soldiers and American citizens, as well as the 9/11 terrorist attack. The American Special Forces have been trying to track him down for a long time and have not succeeded, until May 1st, 2011. The mission that killed Bin Laden was called “Operation Neptune Spear” and that mission changed American history forever.