Al-Qaeda is a pan-Islamist militant organization led by Sunni Jihadists who self-identify as a vanguard spearheading a global Islamist revolution to unite the Muslim world under a supra-national Islamic state known as the Caliphate. Its membership is mostly composed of Arabs, but also includes people from other ethnic groups. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian, economic and military targets of the US and its allies; such as the 1998 US embassy bombings, the USS Cole bombing and the September 11 attacks. The organization is designated as a terrorist group by NATO, UN Security Council, the European Union, and various countries around the world.
Islamic terrorism refers to terrorist acts with religious motivations carried out by fundamentalist militant Islamists and Islamic extremists.
Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys (English: Hassan Dahir Aweys (Somali: Xasan Daahir Aweys, is a Somali Islamist political figure. During the regime of Siad Barre, Aweys was a colonel in the Somali National Army and served in the 1977 Ogaden War against Ethiopia.
Anwar Nasser Abdulla al-Awlaki was an American-Yemeni Islamic scholar, lecturer, and jihadist who was killed in 2011 in Yemen by a U.S. government drone strike ordered by President Barack Obama. Al-Awlaki became the first U.S. citizen to be targeted and killed by a drone strike from the U.S. government. U.S. government officials have stated that al-Awlaki was a key organizer for the Islamist terrorist group al-Qaeda.
Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, commonly known as al-Shabaab, is a Sunni Islamist military and political organization based in Somalia and active elsewhere in East Africa. It is actively involved in the ongoing Somali Civil War and incorporates elements of Somali nationalism into its Islamist cause. Allegiant to the militant pan-Islamist organization al-Qaeda since 2012, it has also been suspected of forging ties with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Daniel Maldonado, also known as his adopted Muslim name Daniel Aljughaifi, is a U.S. citizen who in February 2007 became the first to face charges in federal court for training with Al-Shabaab, a terrorist organization in Somalia.
Rita Katz is a terrorism analyst and the co-founder of the Search International Terrorist Entities (SITE) Intelligence Group, a private intelligence firm based in Washington, D.C.
Ahmed Abdi Godane, also known as Mukhtar Abu Zubair, was the Emir (leader) of Al-Shabaab, an Islamist Terrorist group based in Somalia. Godane, who received training and fought in Afghanistan, was designated by the United States as a terrorist. The exact date of Godane's rise to al-Shabaab's Emir is debated, although it seems he ascended to this position in December 2007.
Omar Shafik Hammami, also known by the pseudonym Abu Mansoor al-Amriki, was an American citizen who was a member and leader in the Somali Islamist militant group al-Shabaab. A federal warrant for his arrest was issued in 2007. In November 2012, the FBI added Hammami to its Most Wanted Terrorists list.
In United States law, providing material support for terrorism is a crime prohibited by the USA PATRIOT Act and codified in title 18 of the United States Code, sections 2339A and 2339B. It applies primarily to groups designated as terrorists by the State Department. The four types of support described are "training," "expert advice or assistance," "service," and "personnel."
Revolution Muslim (RM) was an organization based in New York City that advocated the establishment of a traditionalist Islamic state through the removal of the current rulers in Muslim-majority nations and an end to what they consider "Western imperialism". It was founded in 2007 by two American Muslim men: Jesse Curtis Morton and Yousef al-Khattab.
Jarret Brachman is an American terrorism expert, the author of Global Jihadism: Theory and Practice and a consultant to several government agencies about terrorism.
A "jihobbyist" is a term coined by Jarret Brachman that denotes a person who is not an active member of a violent jihadist organization such as Al-Qaeda or the Somali Al-Shabaab yet is receptive to jihad and radical Islam.
On June 5, 2010, in a covert American anti-terrorism operation named "Operation Arabian Knight", two American citizens Mohamed Mahmood Alessa and Carlos "Omar" Eduardo Almonte, New Jersey residents, were arrested at Kennedy International Airport in New York City. The men were in the process of boarding booked, separate flights to Egypt. According to the affidavit filed in support of the federal criminal complaint, they planned to travel to Somalia to join Al-Shabab, an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group recruiting foreigners for its civil war. They intended to join them in killing American troops in Somalia, although few Americans are stationed there. The two men were charged with conspiring to kill, maim, and kidnap people outside the U.S.
Anwar al-Awlaki was an American-Yemeni cleric killed in late 2011, who was identified in 2009 by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as a known, important "senior recruiter for al Qaeda", and a spiritual motivator.
Inspire is an English-language online magazine published by the organization al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The magazine is one of the many ways AQAP uses the Internet to reach its audience. Numerous international and domestic extremists motivated by radical interpretations of Islam have been influenced by the magazine and, in some cases, used its bomb-making instructions in their attempts to carry out attacks. The magazine is an important brand-building tool, not just of AQAP, but of all al-Qaeda branches, franchises and affiliates.
On 11 July 2010, suicide bombings were carried out against crowds watching a screening of the 2010 FIFA World Cup Final at two locations in Kampala, the capital city of Uganda. The attacks left 74 dead and 85 injured. Al-Shabaab, an Islamist militia based in Somalia that has ties to al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the blasts as retaliation for Ugandan support for AMISOM. In March 2015, the trial of 13 Kenyan, Ugandan and Tanzanian alleged perpetrators of the bombings began at the High Court of Uganda.
Islamic extremism in the United States comprises all forms of Islamic extremism occurring within the United States. Islamic extremism is an adherence to fundamentalist interpretations of Islam, potentially including the promotion of violence to achieve political goals. In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, Islamic extremism became a prioritized national security concern of the U.S. government and a focus of many subsidiary security and law enforcement entities. Initially, the focus of concern was on foreign Islamic terrorist organizations, particularly al-Qaeda, but in the course of the years since the September 11 terror attacks, the focus has shifted more towards Islamic extremist and jihadist networks within the United States.
Domestic terrorism or homegrown terrorism is a form of terrorism in which victims "within a country are targeted by a perpetrator with the same citizenship" as the victims. There are various different definitions of terrorism, with no universal agreement about it.
