Terrorism & The USA

1. Terrorism & The USA

2. 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.

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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.

13. 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.

14. 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.

15. 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.

16. 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.

17. 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.

18. 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

19. 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.

20. 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

21. 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.

22. 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.

23. 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.