Any observer of al-Qaeda's terrorist-holy war cannot help but notice that the US-backed Israeli war against Gaza last January and the current US-backed Pakistani government war against Swat Valley will not pass without devastating punishment.
After the war on Gaza and Swat Valley, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has already picked himself up to the right time to win hearts and minds of the furious Muslim World in an attempt to justify new upcoming 9/11 strikes with – maybe next time – anticipatory, unconventional weapons against America.
I hope that I'm just exaggerating, however, the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States, the 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings, the 2005 Bali bombings, and the 7 July 2005 London bombings say that those facts have not proven to be exaggerated.
"I have also few words to America and may the wise hear," al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden said in a videotape On June 3rd, orienting his message towards President Barack Obama and the American people and warning that the United States will face renewed attacks because the reasons for mounting the 9/11 strikes still existed.
The message was broadcast on pan-Arab Al-Jazeera TV around the same time Obama touched down in Saudi Arabia at the start of a Mideast visit. The US President was trying repair relations with the Muslim world, frayed under the previous Bush administration, by addressing the Islamic world from Cairo.
In the message, bin Laden also said, "I will disclose the reasons why people are eager to fight America and why the hatred always increases, I say that the freemen who conducted the 9/11 attacks weren't displaced by the US army and haven't tasted the unjust of America but they heard what had happened to people in Palestine that's why they left their universities and homes and went toward America to fight and punish it, you can imagine what would the freemen (al-Qaeda's members) do if they were touched by the unjust of America."
All bin Laden demands from the United States is that it stop supporting wars against Muslims in Palestine and Pakistan and that it take US military bases out of Muslim lands… out of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan in return for no more attacks against American people on the US soil and abroad.
But, in fact, the American administration and its government don't pay much attention to the real warriors, however, counterterrorism experts know that when Bin Laden sings, that means sooner or later, we will see Osama's shy smile turn into calm and beautiful God-is-Great grin…another 9/11 strikes.
In the aftermath of the Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, some have - including Michael Scheuer, the chief of the CIA's Osama bin Laden Unit from 1996 to 1999 - speculated that a future strike on the US by Osama bin Laden would be more devastating, involving perhaps a nuclear, or chemical or biological weapon.
Let's be realistic. Almost eight years have passed since 9/11 without great disasters on the US soil except the economic crisis that maybe caused by high expenditures on the US military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. And that may lull some into a state of calm satisfaction.
The fact remains that Americans have really lived in peace during the eight years. However, could the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan be why Al-Qaeda's warriors have not launched a third attack on the US soil? Could it be that fighting there might mean America did not have to fight al-Qaeda in the homeland?
Well, in assessing the possibility of future al-Qaeda strikes in the United States, it is useful to look back at an earlier conspiracy that predated 9/11. On February 26th, 1993, a small jihadist cell linked directly to Osama bin Laden detonated 1,500 pounds of explosive material, consisting of oil and nitrates, in the underground parking garage at the World Trade Center.
The resulting explosion killed six and injured more than 1,000, but it did not bring down one of the Twin Towers as attackers were plotting. It also did not fulfill the tactical and strategic objectives of Bin Laden, according to many counter-terrorism experts.
Only more than eight years after 1993, al-Qaeda struck again on Sep. 11, 2001, with vastly more devastating results than before.
Despite dozens of repeated and successful al-Qaeda attacks directed at American targets overseas since 9/11, - this figure does not include Iraq and Afghanistan - the American government, during Bush administration, failed to recognize that al-Qaeda was a transnational terrorist organization unlike any other.
Furthermore, policymakers during both Clinton and subsequent Bush administrations ignored clear threats by the leadership of al-Qaeda to attack the American soil. Several of these warning were issued personally by Osama bin Laden to international media and journalists.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
2
1
1
