The New Terrorism

After the fall of the Soviet Union, American military might seemed unassailable. Military dictators who had been kept afloat by the Soviets or the Americans—and often from both simultaneously—now were obliged

The gaping hole in the destroyer USS Cole, in the port of Aden, Yemen, was caused by suicide bombers on October 12, 2000. The attack was linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network, based in Afghanistan.

To seek the support of the people they had long ruled. This further destabilized the Middle East. The military leaders of Egypt and hereditary rulers of Saudi Arabia, for example, sought to retain the support of Islamic clerics while refraining from accepting an Islamic theocracy—direct rule by Islamic rulers. Arab leaders cultivated popular support by denouncing Israel, which refused to return land seized in the 1967 war. The United States encouraged Israel to trade that land for peace. But few Israelis believed the promises of Arab leaders who had steadfastly called for the annihilation of Israel and had funded terrorism. Insofar as Israel relied ultimately on American support, Arab rage was increasingly directed at the United States.

During these years, Islamist terrorists emerged throughout the Middle East, usually in response to the repression of radical Islamic clerics. In 1998 a new figure surfaced from among such groups: Osama bin Laden, son of a Saudi oil billionaire. In 1998, bin Laden published a fatwa—a religious edict—to Islamic peoples throughout the world: “To kill Americans and their allies, both civil and military, is an individual duty of every Muslim who is able. . .” By now, bin Laden was protected by an extremist Islamic group, the Taliban, that ruled Afghanistan. (The United States had provided military assistance to the Taliban in its ultimately successful campaign to drive the Soviet Union out of the country a decade earlier. See Chapter 30.) Six months later, bin Laden’s terrorist organization— al-Qaeda—had planned and ordered the bombings of the U. S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in Africa, which killed hundreds of people. Worse was to follow.