Osama bin Laden was a Saudi Arabian-born Islamist dissident and militant leader who was the founder and first general emir of al-Qaeda. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, he participated in the Afghan jihad against the Soviet Union and supported the activities of the Bosnian mujahideen during the Yugoslav Wars. After issuing his declaration of war against the Americans in 1996, Bin Laden began advocating attacks targeting U.S. assets in several countries, and supervised al-Qaeda's execution of the September 11 attacks in the United States in 2001.
Anti-Americanism is a term that can describe several sentiments and positions including opposition to, fear of, distrust of, prejudice against or hatred toward the United States, its government, its foreign policy, or Americans in general. Anti-Americanism can be contrasted with pro-Americanism, which refers to support, love, or admiration for the United States.
Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi is a Pakistani politician and former cricketer who served as the 22nd prime minister of Pakistan from August 2018 until April 2022. He is the founder and former chairman of the political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) from 1996 to 2023. He was the captain of the Pakistan national cricket team throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.
Operation Infinite Reach was the codename for American cruise missile strikes on al-Qaeda bases that were launched concurrently across two continents on 20 August 1998. Launched by the U.S. Navy, the strikes hit the al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, Sudan, and a camp in Khost Province, Afghanistan, in retaliation for al-Qaeda's August 7 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people and injured over 4,000 others. Operation Infinite Reach was the first time the United States acknowledged a preemptive strike against a violent non-state actor.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf is a political party in Pakistan established in 1996 by Pakistani cricketer and politician Imran Khan, who served as the country's prime minister from 2018 to 2022. The PTI ranks among the three major Pakistani political parties alongside the Pakistan Muslim League–Nawaz (PML–N) and the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), and it is the largest party in terms of representation in the National Assembly of Pakistan since the 2018 general election. With over 10 million members in Pakistan and abroad, it claims to be the country's largest political party by primary membership, as well as one of the largest political parties in the world.
Anatol Lieven is a British author, journalist, and policy analyst. He is currently a visiting professor at King's College London and senior fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
Beginning at 12:00 p.m. on 21 November 1979, a large mob of Pakistani citizens violently stormed the Embassy of the United States in Islamabad and subsequently burned it down in a coordinated attack. The riot was led by local Islamists aligned with the right-wing Pakistani political party Jamaat-i-Islami, and the mob primarily comprised students from Quaid-i-Azam University. Lasting for almost 24 hours, the riot had been incited by Iranian religious cleric Ruhollah Khomeini, who was leading the Islamic Revolution at the time, after he falsely claimed in a widespread Iranian radio broadcast that the then-ongoing Grand Mosque seizure in Saudi Arabia had been orchestrated by the United States and Israel, prompting many anti-American riots throughout the Muslim world. During the attack, the Pakistani rioters took several American diplomats as hostages with the intent of carrying out sham trials and public executions. In addition to Islamabad, there were similarly large riots in Karachi, Lahore, and Rawalpindi, where a number of American cultural centers were attacked and burned down.
Pakistan and the United States established relations on 15 August 1947, a day after the independence of Pakistan, when the United States became one of the first nations to recognize the country.
This is a list of activities ostensibly carried out by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) within Pakistan. It has been alleged by such authors as Ahmed Rashid that the CIA and ISI have been waging a clandestine war. The Afghan Taliban—with whom the United States was officially in conflict—was headquartered in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas during the war and according to some reports is largely funded by the ISI. The Pakistani government denies this.
Anti-American sentiment in Korea began with the earliest contact between the two nations and continued after the division of Korea and Korean War. Despite this, as of 2011, 74% of South Koreans have a favorable view of the U.S., making it one of the most pro-American countries in the world.
Between 2004 and 2018, the United States government attacked thousands of targets in northwest Pakistan using unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) operated by the United States Air Force under the operational control of the Central Intelligence Agency's Special Activities Division. Most of these attacks were on targets in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas along the Afghan border in northwest Pakistan. These strikes began during the administration of United States President George W. Bush, and increased substantially under his successor Barack Obama. Some in the media referred to the attacks as a "drone war". The George W. Bush administration officially denied the extent of its policy; in May 2013, the Obama administration acknowledged for the first time that four US citizens had been killed in the strikes. In December 2013, the National Assembly of Pakistan unanimously approved a resolution against US drone strikes in Pakistan, calling them a violation of "the charter of the United Nations, international laws and humanitarian norms."
Anti-Pakistan sentiment, also known as Pakistan-phobia, Pakophobia or Pakistanophobia, refers to hatred, fear, hostility or irrational fixation toward Pakistan, Pakistanis and Pakistani culture. The opposite is pro-Pakistan sentiment.
Anti-American sentiment in Afghanistan has been encouraged by the Quran burning incident and the leaking online of a video of US troops urinating on Taliban fighters. Drone strikes have also led to growing anti-Americanism in and beyond Afghanistan.
Pervez Khan Khattak is a Pakistani politician who served as the Minister of Defence from August 2018 until April 2022. He had been a member of the National Assembly of Pakistan from August 2018 till January 2023. Prior to that, he served as the 22nd Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from 2013 to 2018, elected to the Provincial Assembly from Nowshera District. He was a senior member of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf until July 2023, when he formed his breakaway faction, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Parliamentarians (PTI-P). On 12 February 2024, he left the chairmanship of the PTI-P and took a break from politics tenders resignation as PTI-P chairman due to ‘health issues’.
The Inter–Services Intelligence has been alleged or previously documented by various authors of running an active military intelligence program in the United States, as well as operational activities related to America outside the country.
There is a history of anti-Americanism in China, beginning with the general disdain for foreigners in the early 19th century that culminated in the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, which the United States Marine Corps participated with other powers in suppressing. The 1905 Chinese boycott of American goods to protest discrimination against the Chinese living in America had a major negative impact on Chinese attitudes. After the Chinese Civil War, the United States and China fought an undeclared war during the Korean War, in which 148,000 Chinese soldiers died, that left bitter feelings on both sides. Relations warmed up after 1970, but large-scale anti-American sentiments significantly increased since US President Donald Trump launched a trade war against China in the late 2010s.
America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism is a 2012 book by the British author and academic Anatol Lieven. A separate, earlier version was published in 2004.
Anti-American sentiment in Germany is the dislike of the American government or people present in Germany. Anti-Americanism has been present in Germany throughout history with several notable incidents. Anti-Americanism was advanced by local leaders under the influence of the former Soviet Union, during the Cold War in East Germany, with dissenters being punished. In West Germany, this sentiment was generally limited to left wing politicians.
Pro-Americanism describes support, love, or admiration for the United States, its government and economic system, its foreign policy, the American people, and/or American culture, typically on the part of people who are not American citizens or otherwise living outside of the United States. In this sense, it differs from Americanism, which can generally only be adhered to by American citizens or residents, although adherents of any of these may subscribe to overlapping concepts, such as American exceptionalism. Pro-Americanism is contrasted with Anti-Americanism, which is the fear or hatred of things American.
Lettergate is an American-Pakistani political affair set off by a conversation at a farewell lunch for Asad Majeed Khan, then-Pakistani ambassador to the United States, on 7 March 2022 at Khan's official residence known as the Pakistan House. A diplomatic telegram was sent by Ambassador Khan to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs based on the notes taken by a note-taker from the embassy of Pakistan based in Washington, D.C. The telegram allegedly stated that in the course of the meeting, the United States had expressed a desire to the government of Pakistan for prime minister Imran Khan to be removed from office because of his neutral stance on the war between Russia and Ukraine and refusal to back the Ukrainians, promising warmer relations if Pakistan agrees while threatening isolation if it does not. The lunch was attended by US officials including then US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu and Deputy Assistant Secretary Lesslie Viguerie. The Pakistani diplomats attending the lunch meeting included Deputy Chief of Mission Syed Naveed Bokhari and the defence attaché.
