 | The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject.(May 2013) |
Urban terrorism is the targeted use of terrorism in urban populations in order to cause the most harm, injury, death, or property damage. Since urban areas have significantly higher population densities than rural areas, targeting those areas can maximize the effect of the terrorist attack.
A variety of methods for committing urban terrorism have been employed in recent history including car bombs, explosive vests, and in the case of the September 11 attacks, hijacked airplanes.
On February 26, 1993, at 12:17 p.m., a Ryder truck filled with 1,500 pounds (680 kg) of explosives, planted by Ramzi Yousef, detonated in the underground garage of the North Tower in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. [1] The blast opened a 100-foot (30 m) hole through five sublevels with the greatest damage occurring on levels B1 and B2 and significant structural damage on level B3. [2] Six people were killed, over 1,000 were injured and 50,000 other workers and visitors were left gasping for air within the 110 story towers. Many people inside the North Tower were forced to walk down darkened stairwells that contained no emergency lighting, some taking two hours or more to reach safety. [3] [4]
Yousef fled to Pakistan after the bombing but was arrested in Islamabad in February 1995, and was extradited back to the United States to face trial. [5] Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman was convicted in 1996 for involvement in the bombing and other plots. [6] Yousef and Eyad Ismoil were convicted in November 1997 for their carrying out the bombing. [7] Four others had been convicted in May 1994 for their involvement in the 1993 bombing. [8] According to a presiding judge, the conspirators' chief aim at the time of the attack was to destabilize the north tower and send it crashing into the south tower, toppling both landmarks. [9]
The September 11 attacks (often referred to as September 11th or 9/11) were a series of coordinated suicide attacks by al-Qaeda. On that morning, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners. [10] [11] The hijackers intentionally crashed two of the airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing everyone on board and many others working in the buildings. Both buildings collapsed within two hours, destroying nearby buildings and damaging others. The hijackers crashed a third airliner into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. The fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville in rural Pennsylvania after some of its passengers and flight crew attempted to retake control of the plane, which the hijackers had redirected toward Washington, D.C., in an attempted attack on the United States Capitol. There were no survivors from any of the flights.
The death toll of the attacks was 2,973, including the 19 hijackers. [12] The overwhelming majority of casualties were civilians, including nationals of over 70 countries. [13] In addition, there is at least one secondary death – one person was ruled by a medical examiner to have died from lung disease due to exposure to dust from the World Trade Center's collapse. [14]
On April 15, 2013, two pressure cooker bombs planted by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev were detonated near the crowded finish line of the Boston Marathon, which was held on Boston’s 238th annual Patriots' Day. Two explosions took place at the 4:09 mark of the race, approximately ten seconds apart. Three people were killed, including an 8 year old child. 264 people were injured, and according to reports at the time, seventeen of them critically. "At this time there are no claims of responsibility," FBI officials initially said in a press conference on April 16. "The range of suspects and motives remains wide open." [15] On April 19, 2013, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was arrested, and convicted on April 8, 2015.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)The Security Council today, following what it called yesterday's "horrifying terrorist attacks" in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, unequivocally condemned those acts, and expressed its deepest sympathy and condolences to the victims and their families and to the people and Government of the United States.
al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden appeared in a new message aired on an Arabic TV station Friday night, for the first time claiming direct responsibility for the 2001 attacks against the United States.
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The USS Cole bombing was a suicide attack by al-Qaeda against USS Cole, a guided missile destroyer of the United States Navy, on 12 October 2000, while she was being refueled in Yemen's Aden harbor.
John Patrick O'Neill was an American counter-terrorism expert who worked as a special agent and eventually a special agent in charge in the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In 1995, O'Neill began to intensely study the roots of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing after he assisted in the capture of Ramzi Yousef, who was the leader of that plot.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, often known by his initials KSM, is a Pakistani terrorist, mechanical engineer and the former Head of Propaganda for al-Qaeda. He is currently held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp under terrorism-related charges. He was named as "the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks" in the 2004 9/11 Commission Report.
Ramzi Ahmed Yousef is a convicted terrorist who was one of the main perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the bombing of Philippine Airlines Flight 434; he was also a co-conspirator in the Bojinka plot. In 1995, he was arrested by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and U.S. Diplomatic Security Service at a guest house in Islamabad, Pakistan, while trying to set a bomb in a doll, then extradited to the United States.
The Bojinka plot was a large-scale, three-phase terrorist attack planned by Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for January 1995. They planned to assassinate Pope John Paul II; blow up 11 airliners in flight from Asia to the United States, with the goal of killing approximately 4,000 passengers and shutting down air travel around the world; and crash a plane into the headquarters of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Langley, Virginia.
Abdul Rahman Al-Amoudi, better known as Abdurahman Alamoudi, is a former American Muslim activist known for founding the American Muslim Council. He pleaded guilty to financial and conspiracy charges in 2004, which resulted in a 23-year prison sentence.
On September 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists took control of four commercial aircraft and used them as suicide weapons in a series of four coordinated acts of terrorism to strike the World Trade Center in New York City, The Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and an additional target in Washington, D.C. Two aircraft hit the World Trade Center while the third hit the Pentagon. A fourth plane did not arrive at its target, but crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after a passenger revolt. The intended target is believed to have been the United States Capitol. As a result, 2,977 victims were killed, making it the deadliest foreign attack on U.S. soil, exceeding Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, which killed 2,335 members of the United States Armed Forces and 68 civilians. The effort was carefully planned by al-Qaeda, which sent 19 terrorists to take over Boeing 757 and Boeing 767 aircraft, operated by American Airlines and United Airlines.
PENTTBOM is the codename for the Federal Bureau of Investigation's probe into the September 11 attacks of 2001, the largest criminal inquiry in the FBI's history. Its name stands for "Pentagon/Twin Towers Bombing Investigation". The investigation was launched on September 11, 2001, and involved 4,000 special agents and 3,000 professional employees.
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. On that morning, 19 terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners scheduled to travel from the East Coast to California. The hijackers crashed the first two planes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and aimed the next two flights toward targets in or near Washington, D.C., in an attack on the nation's capital. The third team succeeded in striking the Pentagon, the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense in Arlington County, Virginia, while the fourth plane crashed in rural Pennsylvania during a passenger revolt. The September 11 attacks killed 2,977 people, making it the deadliest terrorist attack in history. In response to the attacks, the United States waged the multi-decade global war on terror to eliminate hostile groups deemed terrorist organizations, as well as the foreign governments purported to support them, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and several other countries.
The following is a list of attacks which have been carried out by Al-Qaeda.
Various conspiracy theories allege that certain institutions or individuals had foreknowledge of the September 11 attacks in the United States in 2001. Some of the primary debates include whether the Bush administration or the United States Armed Forces had awareness of the planned attack methods, the precise volume of intelligence that American agencies had regarding al-Qaeda activities inside the United States, whether the put options placed on United Airlines and American Airlines and other trades indicated foreknowledge, and why the identities of the traders have never been made public.
At around 9:30 pm on September 11, 2001, George Tenet, director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), told President George W. Bush and U.S. senior officials that the CIA's Counterterrorism Center had determined that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda were responsible for the September 11 attacks. Two weeks after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the Federal Bureau of Investigation connected the hijackers to al-Qaeda, a militant Salafist Islamist multi-national organization. In a number of video, audio, interview and printed statements, senior members of al-Qaeda have also asserted responsibility for organizing the September 11 attacks.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the September 11 attacks and their consequences:
The Boston Marathon bombing, sometimes referred to as just simply the Boston bombing, was an Islamist domestic terrorist attack that took place during the annual Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. Brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev planted two homemade pressure cooker bombs that detonated near the finish line of the race 14 seconds and 210 yards (190 m) apart. Three people were killed and hundreds injured, including 17 who lost their limbs.
A pressure cooker bomb is an improvised explosive device (IED) created by inserting explosive material into a pressure cooker and attaching a blasting cap into the cover of the cooker.
Dzhokhar "Jahar" Anzorovich Tsarnaev is an American terrorist of Chechen and Avar descent who perpetrated the Boston Marathon bombing. On April 15, 2013, Tsarnaev and his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, planted pressure cooker bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. The bombs detonated, killing three people and injuring 264 others.
Tamerlan Anzorovich Tsarnaev was a Russian-born terrorist of Chechen and Avar descent who, with his younger brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, planted pressure cooker bombs at the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. The bombings killed three spectators and injured 264 others.
The trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev for the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15, 2013, began on March 4, 2015, in front of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts, nearly two years after the pre-trial hearings. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's attorney, Judy Clarke, opened by telling the jurors that her client and his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, planted a bomb killing three and injuring hundreds, as well as murdering an MIT police officer days later. In her 20-minute opening statement, Clarke said: "There's little that occurred the week of April the 15th ... that we dispute." Tsarnaev was found guilty on all 30 counts and has been sentenced to death by lethal injection for his crimes.
The 1993 World Trade Center bombing was a terrorist attack carried out by Al-Qaeda against the United States on February 26, 1993, when a van bomb detonated below the North Tower of the World Trade Center complex in New York City. The 1,336 lb (606 kg) urea nitrate–hydrogen gas enhanced device was intended to make the North Tower collapse onto the South Tower, taking down both skyscrapers and killing tens of thousands of people. While it failed to do so, it killed six people, including a pregnant woman, and caused over a thousand injuries. About 50,000 people were evacuated from the buildings that day.