Osama bin Laden was a Saudi Arabian–born Islamist dissident and militant leader who was the founder and first general emir of al-Qaeda, a militant terrorist organization espousing Islamism, pan-Islamism and jihadism. Bin Laden participated in the Afghan mujahideen's jihad against the Soviet Union during the Soviet–Afghan War, and supported the Bosnian mujahideen during the Yugoslav Wars. Opposed to the United States' foreign policy in the Middle East, Bin Laden declared war on the U.S. in 1996. He supervised international terrorist attacks against Americans, including the September 11 attacks inside the U.S. in 2001.
Dominic Robertson is the international diplomatic editor of CNN.
Jamie Doran is an Irish-Scottish independent documentary filmmaker and former BBC producer. He founded the award-winning company Clover Films, based in Windsor, in 2008. He is also president of Datchet Village Football Club, which he founded in 1986. Doran's films have been shown worldwide, and on series such as BBC's Panorama, Channel 4's Dispatches, Channel 4's True Stories, PBS's Frontline, Al Jazeera, ABC's Four Corners, Japan's NHK, Germany's ZDF NDR/ARD and Denmark's DR.
Jane Perlez is an American journalist. She was a long-time foreign correspondent for The New York Times. She served as Beijing Bureau Chief in China until 2019, where she wrote about China's role in the world, and the competition between the United States and China, particularly in Asia. Perlez arrived in Beijing in February 2012, and left in 2019.
There have been several video and audio recordings featuring former Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri between 2003 until his death in 2022.
The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is a global military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks in 2001, and is the most recent global conflict spanning multiple wars. Some researchers and political scientists have argued that it replaced the Cold War.
Osama bin Laden, a militant Islamist and co-founder of al-Qaeda, in conjunction with several other Islamic militant leaders, issued two fatawa – in 1996 and then again in 1998—that military personnel from the United States and allied countries until they withdraw support for Israel and withdraw military forces from Islamic countries. He was indicted in United States federal court for his alleged involvement in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, and was on the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list until his death.
Pepe Escobar is a Brazilian journalist and geopolitical analyst. His column "The Roving Eye" for Asia Times regularly discusses the multi-national "competition for dominance over the Middle East and Central Asia." He has reported from Afghanistan and Pakistan, writing about Osama bin Laden before 9/11 and interviewing Afghan leader Ahmad Shah Massoud.
The War in Afghanistan was an armed conflict that took place from 2001 to 2021. Launched as a direct response to the September 11 attacks, the war began when an international military coalition led by the United States invaded Afghanistan, declaring Operation Enduring Freedom as part of the earlier-declared war on terror, toppling the Taliban-ruled Islamic Emirate, and establishing the Islamic Republic three years later. The Taliban and its allies were expelled from major population centers by US-led forces supporting the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance; Osama bin Laden, meanwhile, relocated to neighboring Pakistan. The conflict officially ended with the 2021 Taliban offensive, which overthrew the Islamic Republic, and re-established the Islamic Emirate. It was the longest war in the military history of the United States, surpassing the length of the Vietnam War (1955–1975) by approximately six months.
Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, fell in November 2001 to the Northern Alliance forces during the War in Afghanistan. Northern Alliance forces began their attack on the city on 13 November and made swift progress against Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces that were heavily weakened by American and British air strikes. The advance moved ahead of plans, and the next day the Northern Alliance forces entered Kabul and met no resistance inside the city. Taliban forces retreated to Kandahar in the south.
Martin Smith is an American producer, writer, director and correspondent. Smith has produced dozens of nationally broadcast documentaries for CBS News, ABC News and PBS Frontline. His films range in topic from war in the Middle East to the 2008 financial crisis. He is a member of the Overseas Press Club and the Council on Foreign Relations.
The War on Terror is the campaign launched by the United States of America in response to the September 11 attacks against organizations designated with terrorism. The campaign, whose stated objective was eliminating international terrorism, began in 2001. The following is a timeline of events linked to the War on Terror.
Nick Paton Walsh is a British journalist who is CNN's International Security Editor. He has been CNN's Kabul Correspondent, an Asia and foreign affairs correspondent for the UK's Channel 4 News, and Moscow correspondent for The Guardian newspaper.
The April 2012 Afghanistan attacks took place on Sunday, 15 April 2012, at around 13:00 local time when heavily armed Taliban insurgents and suicide bombers launched multiple coordinated attacks throughout Afghanistan. Insurgents launched the 2012 spring offensive on multiple locations, including government buildings, military bases, and embassies. Attacks occurred in four Afghan provinces, including Kabul and Paktia. Different reports attribute responsibility for the attacks to either Taliban or the Haqqani network although the Taliban have claimed responsibility.
The following lists events that happened during 2016 in Afghanistan.
Events in the year 2017 in Afghanistan.
Terrorism in the United Arab Emirates describes the terrorist attacks in the United Arab Emirates, as well as steps taken by the Emirati government to counter the threat of terrorism. Although terrorist attacks are rare, the UAE has been listed as a place used by investors to raise funds to support militants in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the financing of the September 11 attacks. Businesses based in the UAE have been implicated in the funding of the Taliban and the Haqqani network. In the 72nd session of the UN General assembly in New York, UAE foreign minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan affirmed the United Arab Emirates policy of zero tolerance towards terrorism financing.
No Ordinary Assignment: A Memoir, written by Jane Ferguson, chronicles her career as a Middle East and South Asia war correspondent spanning thirteen years. The book was published in July 2023 by Mariner Books of New York.
Al-Qaeda has five distinct phases in its development: its beginnings in the late 1980s, a "wilderness" period in 1990–1996, its "heyday" in 1996–2001, a network period from 2001 to 2005, and a period of fragmentation from 2005 to 2009.
