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Kuwait has experienced various terror attacks, including those carried out by ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and other acts of Islamic terrorism. Various terror attacks in Kuwait were associated with the Iran-Iraq War, Gulf War, and the subsequent American military support in Kuwait.
Kuwait currently has the largest US military presence in the entire Middle East region. [1] There are over 14,000 US military personnel stationed in the country. [1]
Several terror attacks associated with the Gulf War and an assassination attempt on actor Abdulhussain Abdulredha for an anti-Iraq theatrical play. [8]
The Abu Nidal Organization, officially Fatah – Revolutionary Council, was a Palestinian militant group founded by Abu Nidal in 1974. It broke away from Fatah, a faction within the Palestine Liberation Organization, following the emergence of a rift between Abu Nidal and Yasser Arafat. The ANO was designated as a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, the European Union and Japan. However, a number of Arab countries supported the group's activities; it was backed by Iraq from 1974 to 1983, by Syria from 1983 to 1987, and by Libya from 1987 to 1997. It briefly cooperated with Egypt from 1997 to 1998, but ultimately returned to Iraq in December 1998, where it continued to have the state's backing until Abu Nidal's death in August 2002.
Sabri Khalil al-Banna, known by his nom de guerreAbu Nidal, was a Palestinian militant. He was the founder of Fatah: The Revolutionary Council, a militant Palestinian splinter group more commonly known as the Abu Nidal Organization (ANO). Abu Nidal formed the ANO in October 1974 after a split from Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction within the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
Terrorism in Saudi Arabia has mainly been attributed to Islamic extremists. Their targets included foreign civilians—Westerners affiliated with its oil-based economy—as well as Saudi Arabian civilians and security forces. Anti-Western attacks have occurred in Saudi Arabia dating back to 1995. Saudi Arabia itself has been accused of funding terrorism in other countries, including Syria.
Numerous civilians, including men, women, children, government officials, activists, secular intellectuals and clerics have been victims of assassination, terrorism, or violence against non-combatants, over the course of modern Iranian history. Among the most notable acts of terrorism in Iran in the 20th century have been the 1978 Cinema Rex fire and the 1990s chain murders of Iran.
The following is a list of attacks which have been carried out by Al-Qaeda.
The 1983–1988 Kuwait terror attacks were various pro-Iran terror attacks during the Iran–Iraq War. 25 people were killed and more than 175 people were wounded. Following the attacks, Kuwait's economy significantly suffered.
Since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has been accused by several countries of training, financing, and providing weapons and safe havens for non-state militant actors, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and other Palestinian groups such as the Islamic Jihad (IJ) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). These groups are designated terrorist groups by a number of countries and international bodies such as the EU, UN, and NATO; however, Iran considers such groups to be "national liberation movements" with a right to self-defense against Israeli military occupation. These proxies are used by Iran across the Middle East and Europe to foment instability, expand the scope of the Islamic Revolution, and carry out terrorist attacks against Western targets in the regions. Its special operations unit, the Quds Force, is known to provide arms, training, and financial support to militias and political movements across the Middle East, including Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Yemen.
An Islamist insurgency is taking place in the Maghreb region of North Africa, followed on from the end of the Algerian Civil War in 2002. The Algerian militant group Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) allied itself with al-Qaeda to eventually become al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The Algerian and other Maghreb governments fighting the militants have worked with the United States and the United Kingdom since 2007, when Operation Enduring Freedom – Trans Sahara began.
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 and is the most recent global conflict spanning multiple wars. Some researchers and political scientists have argued that it replaced the Cold War.
On October 8, 2002, two Kuwaiti citizens with ties to Al-Qaeda jihadists in Afghanistan attacked a group of unarmed United States Marines conducting a training exercise on a Kuwaiti island, killing one before being killed themselves. The attackers were reported to have served as volunteers with the Taliban in Afghanistan, prior to the U.S. invasion of that country in response to the September 11 attacks of 2001.
Pakistan's role in the War on Terror is a widely discussed topic among policy-makers of various countries, political analysts and international delegates around the world. Pakistan has simultaneously received allegations of harbouring and aiding terrorists and commendation for its anti-terror efforts. Since 2001, the country has also hosted millions of Afghan refugees who fled the war in Afghanistan.
Ahmed Abel Aziz Al-Jarallah is a Kuwaiti journalist, author, and the editor-in-chief of the Kuwaiti newspapers Arab Times and Al-Seyassah and owner of the weekly magazine Al-Hadaf.
The fight against terrorisminAzerbaijan is one of Azerbaijan's declared priorities. International organizations banned as terrorist include Al Qaeda, Al-Nusra Front, Jamaat, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Islamic International Brigade, ISIS, Jeyshullah, and PKK. According to the Global Terrorism Database, seven people have been killed and over 20 injured in terrorist attacks from 2000 to 2015.
On 18 March 2015, two militants attacked the Bardo National Museum in the Tunisian capital city of Tunis, and took hostages. Twenty-one people, mostly European tourists, were killed at the scene, and an additional victim died ten days later. Around fifty others were injured. The two gunmen, Tunisian citizens Yassine Labidi and Saber Khachnaoui, were killed by police. Police treated the event as a terrorist attack.
A suicide bombing took place on 26 June 2015 at a Shia mosque in Kuwait. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claimed responsibility for the attack. Sabah al-Sabah, the Emir at the time, arrived at the location of the incident after a short period of time. Twenty-seven people were killed and 227 people were wounded.
On 26 June 2015, attacks occurred in France, Kuwait, and Tunisia, one day following a deadly massacre in Syria. The day of the attacks was dubbed "Bloody Friday" by Anglophone media and "Black Friday" among Francophone media in Europe and North Africa.
The Islamic State Insurgency in Tunisia referred to the low–level militant and terror activity of the Islamic State branch in Tunisia from 2015 to 2022. The activity of the Islamic State (IS) in Tunisia began in June 2015, with the Sousse attacks, though an earlier terror incident in Bardo Museum in March 2015 was claimed by ISIL, while the Tunisian government blamed Okba Ibn Nafaa Brigade for the attack. Following massive border clashes near Ben Guerdane in March 2016, the activity of the IS group was described as an armed insurgency, switching from previous tactics of sporadic suicide attacks to attempts to gain territorial control. The armed insurgency was suppressed in 2022.
On 11 July 1985, two bombs exploded in two cafés in Kuwait City, Kuwait, killing 11 people and wounding 89 others. A group affiliated with the Palestinian Abu Nidal Organization claimed responsibility for the attack, along with the Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Jihad Organization.