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The causes of religious violence have attracted numerous explanations in the years since the 9/11 attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Towers. However, most forms of religious extremism do not result in violence (e.g., the Amish, Hasidim, Jains) and religious groups have not cornered the market on egregious violence. Nevertheless, religious violence does occur, and this paper examines the interplay of social networks and religious violence. It builds on Cass Sunstein’s “law of group polarization,” which predicts that when like-minded people deliberate as an organized group, the general opinion shifts toward extreme versions of their common belief. It argues that internally dense religious groups that maintain few ties to the wider society are more likely to embrace extreme views and behavior than are those that are not as dense and/or remain tied to the wider society. The argument is then tested using social network analysis methodologies to examine the evolution of the Hamburg Cell, which played a critical role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It concludes with a series of policy recommendations that can limit but not eliminate religious extremism and violent behavior in the future.

This essay sets forth a research agenda to begin filling some key gaps in terrorism studies. Since the September 2001 Al Qaeda attacks against the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon that claimed over 3000 lives, interest in terrorism research has increased. After these attacks, the United States and other governments prioritized the scientific study of the causes of and responses to terrorism. Importantly though, our review of the terrorism literature demonstrates that despite this progress, intriguing questions remain underexplored or altogether unexplored. This essay identifies four gaps in terrorism studies: (1) employing non-terrorist comparison groups, (2) broadening the dependent variable (focus of study), (3) exploring exceptions/anomalies to “established” findings, and (4) engaging measurement issues. We discuss these issues and outline a research agenda that could begin to fill these gaps.

Since the 2001 attacks by Al Qaeda against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that claimed over 3000 lives, public and scholarly interest in the causes and prevention of terrorism have increas...

This paper explores waves of xenophobic violence that have followed terrorist attacks in the United States from a value-added perspective. This work explores the applicability of Smelser's (1962) theory of collective behavior to these incidences of postattack violence, collectively characterizing these events as hostile outbursts. The history of postterrorism violence in the U.S. is detailed in this work, including a review of the first World Trade Center attack (1993), and the Oklahoma City bombing (1995). Special focus is placed on the immediate American response to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. This paper culminates with a discussion of future research directions and the benefits that may result from conceptualizing postterrorism xenophobic violence as a hostile outburst in terms of preventing unnecessary bloodshed in the wake of terrorist activity.

The $1.3-billion renovation of the United States military headquarters, the most complex and challenging reconstruction effort in recent history, spanned 20 years and was interrupted by the catastrophic September 11, 2001, terrorist attack. However, it was completed ahead of schedule and under budget without disrupting operations. The renovation of this national icon stands as an eloquent testament to well-planned and well-executed collaboration involving an extensive field of participants.

Joint Task Force (JTF) Guantánamo, the high-profile US military detention and inter- rogation operation, was established in January 2002 to house the ‘worst of the worst’ of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. It nevertheless became a public spectacle that was essen- tial for constituting the reality of a Global War on Terror. Through evolving media and VIP tours of the facilities coupled with the Bush administration’s military analyst programme (a system of reverse embeds used to promote Pentagon messages within the U.S. media), Guantánamo became a simulation essential for producing the real- ity of the war. It became a key way to convince the public that the war was real and necessary, but also that its conduct was just and humane, and therefore, by exten- sion, that the United States can be understood as ‘good’. Through a triple screen of the tours, the visitors and their mediation, the telegenic spectacle of Guantánamo was transmuted into a reality of Guantánamo as ‘safe, humane, legal and transparent’. The importance of this for producing understandings of the Global War on Terrorism (GWoT) bears closer examination. Without this triple screen, Guantánamo does not exist.

On September 11, 2001, nineteen Islamic terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing three of them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Fifteen of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, the rest from the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Lebanon. The ensuing War on Terrorism not only deposed regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq but also implemented policies that deprived "detainees" of the protection of international law. This article questions the ethical and institutional legitimacy of such decisions.

This study argues that the strategic planning process of the Long War on Terror has been conducted in a manner that did not pay sufficient attention to the tenets of classical strategic theory. The article shows that the strategy encapsulated in the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism and the Pentagon's initial responses to the challenges of irregular warfare departed from important principles associated with Clausewitz and other strategic theorists, undermining the prospects for successful counterterrorism. The reasons are partly the fault of the Bush administration, and partly a consequence of the American strategic culture and the preferred model of American civil–military relations. By turning back to strategic fundamentals, important improvements in strategic performance have been accomplished since 2006. The Obama administration can build upon the later successes of its predecessor in Iraq and in reshaping the US armed forces. In addition, the new president can refine and improve the Bush admi...

During every national emergency, the system of checks and balances designed, as James Madison wrote in Federalist 51, to prevent a power grab by any of the three branches by giving each “the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others,” comes under great pressure.1 After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks upon the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the public looked to the President to take extraordinary measures. Congress quickly moved to expand executive powers to meet the emergency, confirming the view of a leading textbook on the presidency that “it has become the dominant institution in a system designed for balanced government.”2

Thinking back on the globally televised images of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, in which two airplanes flew into the World Trade Center, one aircraft hit the Pentagon in Washington, and another one crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, the questions “whose suicide?” and “the collapse of what?” appear unmistakably straightforward. Nineteen Islamic suicide bombers turned their deaths into weapons, causing the collapse of the World Trade Center. However, taking a broader perspective, it is much less clear who committed suicide and what collapsed on September 11, 2001. This article addresses the question of whether the attacks were a sign of strength, or rather a symptom of ultimate despair. The article first engages with and develops a critique of Baudrillard’s contention that the dominant Western order, which is based on the extrapolation of Good and the fostering of life, cannot survive an attack by radicals who utilize death as a weapon and turn Western globalization against itself. Secondly, the idea that the September 11 attacks are, conversely, a desperate attempt to escape structural crisis, signaling the prelude of Islamic neofundamentalist violence, will be assessed. It will be argued that, rather than the self-inflicted death of the global liberal order by means of irrational destructive terrorism, or the imminent collapse of Islamic fundamentalism, the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the subsequent war on terror exhibit the tensions between a global order characterized by “destructive construction” and the “constructive destruction” that mark contemporary terrorist violence. Their mutual complex interrelations, their reciprocal fascination for one another and the intricate interconnections with processes of globalization – that prevent the death of either one – present a conflict that is of, against, within, and eluding the grasp of the dominant order in a continuous play of antagonism, destruction, mixture, tension, translation, and fissure.

In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the Pentagon came up with the Global Defense Posture Review in an effort to effectively deal with the terrorist threats. The U.S. Defense Department's strong commitment to the military transformation stems from America's successful wars in Kosovo and Afghanistan. The idea of network-centric warfare for speed-oriented effect-based operations necessitated the Pentagon to change America's global footprints toward reshaping its military to be able to rapidly respond to the elusive and transnational threats. The U.S. Forces in Korea (USFK) accordingly proceeded to relocate the heavily armed division-strong ground forces (2nd Infantry Division) near the DMZ to south of the Han River where expeditionary airlift or sealift would be readily provided. Facing growing concerns among senior Koreans over decreased readiness against North Korea's surprise attack, the USFK promised to introduce 140 new items of highly lethal and effective ISR PGMs assets to Korea. At...

The White House and the Pentagon have designated the military's Special Operations Command as the lead organization in the ‘war on terror’. As the military has become more involved in fighting terrorism since 9/11, special operations forces have become increasingly active in the covert, or unacknowledged, operations that have traditionally been the CIA's bailiwick. This article examines the turf battles caused by the Pentagon's new covert profile, as well as its ramifications for congressional oversight.

A human rights lawyer travels to hot zones around the globe, before and after the September 11 attacks, to document abuses committed by warlords, terrorist groups, and government counterterrorism forces. Whether reporting on al Qaeda safe houses, the mechanics of the Pentagon s smartest bombs, his interviews with politicians and ordinary civilians, or his own brush with death outside Kabul, John Sifton wants to help us understand violence what it is, and how we think and speak about it.For the human rights community, the global war on terror brought unprecedented challenges. Of special concern were the secret detention centers operated by the CIA as it expanded into a paramilitary force, and the harsh treatment of prisoners throughout Iraq and Afghanistan. In drafting legal memoranda that made domestic prosecution for these crimes impossible, Sifton argues, the United States possessed not only the detainees but the law itself. Sifton recounts his efforts to locate secret prisons and reflects on the historical development of sanctioned military or police violence from hand-to-hand combat to the use of drones and the likelihood that technology will soon enable completely automated killing.Sifton is equally concerned to examine what people have meant by nonviolent social change, and he asks whether pure nonviolence is ever possible. To invoke rights is to invoke the force to uphold them, he reminds us. Ultimately, advocates for human rights can only shame the world into better behavior, and their work may involve advocating the very violence they deplore."

On September 11th, 2001 a group of hijackers took control of four commercial jetliners in the United States with the intent of crashing them into strategic U.S. targets thereby furthering the aims of a war against America that had been declared by Osama Bin Laden, leader of the stateless terrorist organization al-Qaeda, several years earlier. By 10:03 a.m., all four of the jetliners had been crashed by their hijackers: one each into the North and South towers of the World Trade Center in New York City; a third into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia; and the last in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, short of its final destination because of the efforts of the passengers and crew to retake the plane. In all 2,977 people were killed in the attacks of September 11th.

On September 11, 2001, nineteen men associated with the al Qaeda terrorist network flew jet airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing 2,976 persons. In response, President Geo...

In January 2000, alQaida operatives gathered secretly in Malaysia for a planning meeting. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was watching. Among the participants was Khalid al-Mihdhar, one of the hijackers who would later help to crash American Airlines flight 77 into the Pentagon. By the time the meeting disbanded, the CIA had taken a photograph of al-Mihdhar, learned his full name, obtained his passport number, and uncovered one other critical piece of information: alMihdhar held a multiple-entry visa to the United States.' It was twenty months before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. George Tenet, the director of central intelligence (DCI), later admitted that the CIA should have placed al-Mihdhar on the State Department's watch list denying him entry into the United States.2 It did not until August 23, 2001, just nineteen days before the terrorist attacks and months after al-Mihdhar had entered the country, obtained a California motor vehicle photo identification card (using his real name), and started taking flying lessons. The case of Khalid al-Mihdhar provides a chilling example of the subtle yet powerful effects of organization-that is, the routines, structures, and cultures that critically influence what government agencies do and how well they do it. Why did the CIA take so long to put this suspected al-Qaida operative on the State Department's watch list, especially given Director Tenet's earlier declaration that the United States was "at war" with al-Qaida, and when U.S. intelli

The 2003 American attack against Iraq was engineered by two powerful groups within the Bush Administration, the ultra-nationalists and the neo-conservatives. The ultranationalists’ motive was to gain control of the oil reserves in the Middle East and elsewhere in the region in order to gain and sustain American global primacy. While the neo-conservatives shared this objective, they also wanted a radical restructuring of geopolitical relations in the area in order to promote the long-term security of Israel. Supporting the Administration were powerful domestic constituencies, especially evangelical Christians. Opposition to the war was expressed by leaders of three professional services responsible for American security: the American army and marines, the Foreign Service, and Middle East experts in the CIA. Opponents of the war believed that there was no threat posed to the US by Iraq; they also believed that the civilian leadership of the Pentagon was not competent and that planning for securing and pacifying postwar Iraq was inadequate. The opponents of the Iraq War have proved correct.

This essay offers a discussion and critical assessment of how attempted acts of rhetorical heroism presuppose, at least from an ontological perspective, a genuine concern for disclosing "the truth" of matters of importance. The terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, serves as the case study for exploring the relationship between rhetoric, heroism, and truth. The ontological basis of this relationship is associated with what is described as the heroic structure of human existence that presents itself as a primordial form of epideictic speech and that speaks a moral directive heard as a call of conscience. The events of 9/11 worked to disclose the evocative nature of this structure.

Defines “Hawala” as an Arabic word meaning “change” or “transform”. Describes it as a system which goes back to 11th century India and allows money to be transferred around the globe without actual money movement or wire transfers, depending on a system of family, clan or ethnic connections. Outlines the benefits of hawala remittance as its cost effectiveness, reliability, efficiency, speed, and convenience for foreign workers who may be semi‐illiterate and certainly not familiar with formal banking systems. Relates this to actual hawala money changers in Malaysia’s Klang Valley, who provided the information for this article, and to the potential of the hawala system to facilitate money laundering and, ultimately, terrorism. Reports that Malaysia is a country named by the Pentagon as a country in which terrorists launder funds, and that it has implemented focused and wideranging measures to combat this menace.

Shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Congress passed a resolution granting the President sweeping authority to take all action necessary to fight the war on terrorism. The President then issued an order authorizing the use of military tribunals to try alleged terrorists. Some civil libertarians and scholars have expressed concerns that the use of military tribunals provided in the President's order infringes on Sixth Amendment rights to a fair trial. Far less commentary has centered on First Amendment implications of this executive branch initiative. This article considers some possible First Amendment implications of the initiative. Specifically, traditional notions of the right of the public to see and the right of the media to cover trials are placed in the context of wartime.

On 11 September 2001 commercial passenger jets hijacked by suicide commandos were flown into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York. As the Towers imploded and collapsed, the death of several thousand people was witnessed live on television screens throughout the world. Those attacks, together with that on the Pentagon and the failed attempt that ended in Pennsylvania, aroused profound indignation and led to immediate reactions against the perpetrators or their protectors and sponsors, and more generally against international terrorism.

The war on terror, which began with the horrific terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre (WTC) and the Pentagon in the United States (US) on 11 September 2001, has now entered its second year. Much has been happening since. The Taliban regime in Afghanistan, a regime believed to have harboured Al-Qaeda, is now gone. The terrorist organisation Al-Qaeda led by Osama bin Laden is believed to have been disrupted and weakened. The despotic regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, believed by the US as a regime that supported terrorism and posed a threat to international security, has been toppled, and the country is now under American occupation. Despite such significant developments, however, a clear fact remains: terrorism has not been defeated, and in fact, is increasingly more dangerous and more active in perpetrating horrendous terrorist acts against humanity. As long as the world remains threatened by terrorism and terrorists, it seems that “the war on terror” will still go on indefinitely.¶This paper provides a reflection on the world since the “war against terror” initiated by the US, the predicaments of Southeast Asian Muslims in such a war on terror, and the imperative of democracy as an important element in a long-term strategy to counter terrorism.

Mine Okubo would have grimly enjoyed this irony: that I am composing a memorial to her at the same historical moment as the United States is mourning the deaths of around 3,000 Americans and other nationals in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon. For, as numerous commentators have repeated, September 11, 2001 shares parallels with December 7, 1941, a day "that will live in infamy," when the Japanese Airforce attacked Pearl Harbor and pulled the U.S. into the Pacific War.

On September 11th, 2001, 2 hijacked airliners were crashed into the World Trade Center and a third into the Pentagon. The Bush administration's response, both in regard to civil liberties at home and the launching of military action abroad, has been the subject of considerable controversy. As we might expect, the Bush administration's framing of events met with acclaim among many on the American right But here, as elsewhere on the political spectrum, how to understand and react to 9/11 was also the subject of bitter dispute, a dispute that sheds new light on the ongoing arguments among American conservatives in the aftermath of the Cold War.

In the past few years, terrorism has introduced most Americans to trauma on their own soil. However, African-Americans have lived through trauma and terrorism within the U.S. for centuries. African-Americans have very different perceptions of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Historical data reveal that African-Americans have endured various forms of domestic terrorism for hundreds of years. Based on a national survey, most African-Americans have very different perceptions of 9/11 than European-Americans. The authors propose there is a great deal to be learned from African-Americans regarding how to manage terrorism. But, to cull the valuable lessons from African-Americans’ experience of terrorism, there has to be respect for African -American experiences.

Ten days after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon US President George W Bush addressed a joint session of Congress. In an emotional speech he declared war on terrorism and vowed that the US would not rest until all of the perpetrators were brought to justice and A1 Qaeda destroyed. In virtually the next breath he hastened to add that the US-led campaign would not be a war on Islam, a promise Muslims might have found more reassuring had the President not sounded so much like a Baptist preacher. Whatever its propaganda value, the speech distorted the reality of the struggle facing the West while tacitly acknowledging an important truth. Since terror is merely a weapon in a larger struggle, there can be no war on terrorism per se. The West faces a counterinsurgency campaign on a global scale. Winning the hearts and minds of disaffected people in lands where terrorism thrives must be central to conducting this campaign.

The September 11 global crisis prompted by the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon raises major questions concerning the nature and trajectory of terrorism in the post-Cold War global order. Hitherto, terrorism has been largely debated by analysts at the level of nation states. Terrorist and insurgent movements have also been largely anchored in nationalist and ethnic power bases even when they have sought to mobilise a transnational ideological appeal on religious or class grounds. There have been a few exceptions to this pattern such as the alliance between the German Baader-Meinhof group and the Japanese Red Army Faction, but even such international alliances as this did not, until at least the 1980s, presage anything like a global terrorist network necessitating a global strategic response. This study examines terrorism and global strategic responses.

Claims by some commentators that "9/11" was an intelligence failure like Pearl Harbor, that the United States was unprepared for "9/11" like she was for the Japanese attack on Hawaii, and that, like Pearl Harbor, the military was not ready to defend against al Qaeda's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon are incorrect. On the contrary, an analysis of the two events reveals that they are more dissimilar than alike.

Terrorists commit lethal acts of violence in order to realize their goals and advance their causes. They have a mixed record of success. This article explores the question whether the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon outside of Washington, D.C. were successful from the perspective of bin Laden and the Al Qaeda group. Although stunningly triumphant in exploiting the news media for their publicity goals and partially successful in advancing some of their short-term political objectives, the architects of the kamikaze attacks of 9-11 did not realize, and perhaps not even further, their ultimate desire to provoke a cataclysmic clash between Muslims and what bin Laden calls the "Zionist-Crusader" alliance. The argument here is nevertheless that from the terrorist perspective the suicide terror of 9-11 was successful in many respects and could well become an attractive model for future terrorism.

Among the most controversial of President George W. Bush's responses to the deadly September 11, 2001 al-Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was his issuance two months later of an order authorizing the trial before military commissions of aliens suspected of membership in that murderous organization or of involvement in terrorist activities.1 Two years after Bush's promulgation of that November 13, 2001 military order, no terrorist has yet stood trial before such a tribunal. That is not a bad thing. The history of American military commissions suggests that this is a legal device vulnerable to abuse that should be used only with the utmost caution.

Recent terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon have accentuated the threat of terrorism. However, it appears that the attackers are popularly thought of as mentally deranged individuals who are evil. This article suggests that such an understanding is a misperception of these people and may interfere with an adequate response to prevent future attacks. The article reviews the extant literature on psychological theories of terrorism and concludes that terrorists are not dysfunctional or pathological; rather, it suggests that terrorism is basically another form of politically motivated violence that is perpetrated by rational, lucid people who have valid motives. The only real difference between terrorism and conventional military action is one of strategy. Terrorists lack the necessary resources to wage war in furtherance of their political goals.

This article addresses the definition of terrorism. It is intended to provide a foundation from which to understand the recent attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Although terrorism appears to be much less dangerous than other forms of violence, it seems to command more attention. In order to respond to terrorism, a clear definition is necessary. Terrorism is defined by Title 22 of the U.S. Code as politically motivated violence perpetrated in a clandestine manner against noncombatants. Experts on terrorism also include another aspect in the definition: the act is committed in order to create a fearful state of mind in an audience different from the victims. Whether or not an act is considered terrorism also depends on whether a legal, moral, or behavioral perspective is used to interpret the act. If a legal or moral perspective is used, the values of the interpreter are the focus rather than the act itself. A behavioral perspective appears to be best suited for interpreting and reacting to terrorism.

Observers of American life have seen a silver lining in the dark clouds that billowed from the Twin Towers and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Along with the horror wrought by the terrorist attacks came an outpouring of solidarity and patriotism—a sudden change of heart for many Americans who, prior to that fateful day, had seemed to be drifting inexorably toward individualism, self-absorption, and cynical disinterest in public affairs. As Stanley Greenberg (2001) aptly puts it, suddenly the “we” mattered more than the “me.” People reached out to family members, neighbors, and friends, while proudly declaring their membership in the American national community.

In January 2002, Zacarias Moussaoui, a French national of Moroccan descent, pleaded not guilty in Virginia federal court to six counts of conspiring to commit acts of international terrorism in connection with the September 11 attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. In other times, it would have seemed unremarkable for someone charged with conspiring to murder American citizens and destroy American property on American soil to be tried in a U.S. civilian court. More than two centuries ago, Article I, Section 8, Clause 10 of the United States Constitution granted Congress the power to "define and punish Piracies, Felonies committed on the High Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations," a power that Congress immediately exercised by criminalizing piracy, the eighteenth-century version of modern terrorism. Since then, Congress has criminalized numerous other international offenses. In recent decades, United States courts have decided criminal cases convicting international hijackers, terrorists, and drug smugglers, as well as a string of well-publicized civil lawsuits adjudicating gross human rights violations. Most pertinent, federal prosecutors have successfully tried and convicted in U.S. courts numerous members of Al Qaeda, the very terrorist group charged with planning the September 11 attacks, for earlier attacks on the World Trade Center and the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.

The September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were a watershed in strategic development and international relations, marking the end of the post–Cold War era. It was an era in which there was only one superpower and much uncertainty about the direction of global developments because the superpower had no agenda. A Global Coalition against International Ter orism

On Sept. 11, 2001, Americans were brutalized by an undeniable statement of hatred that made an indelible impression on not just its thousands of victims, but on the consciousness of the whole world. The terrorist attacks that toppled the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, and destroyed part of the Pentagon Building in Washington D.C., defiled symbols of American enterprise and military might, and robbed us of any complacency we felt as a nation immune to attack.

Marc Holzer, Iryna Illiash

What 12/7 Has to Teach about 9/11: Race MattersThe terrorist attacks on 9-11 have frequently been analogized to Pearl Harbor. In many ways, the analogy is apt. Just as that attack launched us into World War II, the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have launched us into a new kind of war, against terrorism. But waging this sort of borderless war poses great risks, not only to the soldiers commanded to fight but also to core American values. In this way, Pearl Harbor raises other disturbing memories, those of the internment.

Since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in the United States, many measures have been taken to prevent similar attacks from happening against iconic targets from the land, air, or sea. However, most of the efforts have so far focussed only on the prevention of terrorist attacks. The APEC Trade Recovery Programme (TRP) was developed to increase the speed of post-incident recovery amongst the APEC economies and the US to facilitate a resumption of trade after a terrorist incident.

(By Yekaterina Markhulia and Polina Khimshiashvili. RBC Daily, April 26, 2016, p. 2. Condensed text:). .. At a Feb. 25 [sic; April 25] press conference in Moscow, [Russian] Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called Washington’s proposal to divide Syria into zones of authorized military action "simplistic." According to the State Department’s plan, which US Secretary of State John Kerry presented to New York Times reporters on April 23, Russia would fight terrorists in one part of Syria, and the US would fight them in the other; meanwhile, both countries would jointly monitor the ceasefire. ... "John Kerry’s recent statement that we need to come to an agreement on where our respective troops are and what zones can and cannot be bombed***is a rather simplistic approach. Still, fighting terrorists is the main thing," RIA Novosti quotes Lavrov as saying. ... Kerry’s proposal followed the de facto failure of the latest round of intra-Syrian talks in Geneva. On Thursday, April 21, the High Negotiations Committee (HNC), a delegation formed in Riyadh and supported by the West, suspended its participation in the consultations and left the city. It reportedly did so because Damascus refused to adhere to the initially stated goals of the talks and because of violations of the ceasefire that has been in effect since Feb. 27 [see Current Digest, Vol. 68, No. 8, pp. 3 - 6].. . . ... The fate of the [Syrian] president remains a stumbling block in the negotiations. The HNC is demanding [Syrian President Bashar] Assad’s resignation. Damascus categorically rejects this scenario: Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad told the Associated Press on April 13 that such a scenario could lead to a coup d’etat, and so the opposition will have to abandon its "dream" of a transitional government. Omar Osi, a member of the [Syrian] government’s delegation, accused the oppositionists of not having their own opinions, and [said that] in reality the negotiations will be conducted "with the British, French and Americans.". . . ... A Russian official familiar with the course of the Syrian negotiations told RBC that Moscow does not see substantial progress in the intra-Syrian talks: "The irreconcilable opposition has failed to dissociate itself from terrorist groups," RBC’s interlocutor said. ... Moscow, too, sees no progress in negotiations with the US on enhancing coordination in Syria: The parties continue to share information, but not intelligence; the US military is not agreeing to coordinate with the Russian military. ... "We are not going to sit there and let [Putin] do his thing supporting the regime and hammer at the opposition and say ‘This is working.’ Obviously, we’re not stupid about it," Kerry said in an interview with the New York Times. [US] President Barack Obama announced on Monday in Hamburg that he will increase the number of special operations forces posted in Syria to fight ISIS from 50 to 300 people. ... The US is clearly concerned by the actions of Russian troops in Syria. In mid-March, President Vladimir Putin ordered the withdrawal of the bulk of [Russia’s] military contingent [see Current Digest, Vol. 68, No. 11, pp. 3 - 6], but Washington does not believe that Moscow has left there for good. Wall Street Journal sources in the US administration claim that Russia is moving artillery units to areas in northern Syria where government troops are concentrated, and they assume that Moscow and Damascus are prepared to resume full-scale fighting based on the tense situation at the negotiations in Geneva. ... The administration itself would prefer not to aggravate the Syrian issue: Back in October 2015, when the Russian operation in Syria had just begun, Obama said that he would not allow the situation to slowly turn into a "proxy war" with Moscow. But Washington has serious misgivings about the intentions of Moscow and its allies. Wall Street Journal sources at the Pentagon claim that the intensity of Russia’s air strikes against Assad’s opponents has increased in recent days, although they still number less than before the ceasefire was announced: about 10 strikes per day, instead of 100. ... It can’t be ruled out that by entering into confrontation, the Assad regime is forcing its ally Russia to take its side.. . . ... Following Lavrov’s lead, Russian parliamentarians from relevant committees rejected Kerry’s ideas about divvying up areas of responsibility. ... Leonid Kalashnikov, first deputy head of the State Duma’s international affairs committee, generally likened the division of areas of responsibility in Syria to the occupation and partition of postwar Germany, and this when the authorities in Damascus "have not invited the US to fight" on its territory. Such a division would inevitably lead to the disintegration of the country, believes former State Duma deputy Semyon Bagdasarov, director of the Center for the Study of the Middle East and Central Asia.

The phenomenon of terrorism is not new: any authoritative history of terrorism (e.g., Laqueur 1977) would include, for example, references to anti-state terrorism of groups such as the Narodniki (Populists) in nineteenth-century Russia (e.g., assassination attempts on the tsars), the state terrorism of the Committees of Public Safety and General Security during the so-called Reign of Terror in the late eighteenth-century French Revolution, and anti-colonialist terrorism in Africa (e.g., Algeria) and elsewhere in the post-World War II period (Whittaker 2003). Moreover, counterterrorism, including police and military counterterrorism strategies, is a well-developed field of study (Hewitt 1984). However, the idea of a war against terrorism is quite recent. It has come into vogue primarily, it seems, as a consequence of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, DC by al-Qaeda operatives. The person most famously associated with prosecuting what he called a “war against terrorism” was US President George Bush in the aftermath of 9/11 (Coady and O'Keefe 2002). The idea brings together two prior notions, that of war and that of terrorism, both of which are somewhat vague and subject to ideological manipulation. Keywords: crime; ethics; terrorism; violence; war

The Global War on Terror is a poor and misleading choice of words. Notwithstanding the gradual drift towards the term “the long war,” which is slightly more enlightening,1 it remains the description of choice for America’s counterpunch to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in 2001. To date, two nations (one of which—Iraq—had no involvement in 9/11) have been assaulted by the United States and its coalition partners with the subsequent occupations of these lands by Western military forces. It is estimated in Iraq alone (not forgetting the almost 3000 casualties on 9/11)2 that around 600,000 people may have lost their lives and continue to do so on a daily basis,3 as a consequence of this military intervention and the emergence of the insurgency. In terms of cold analysis, the Global War on Terror appears to be an extraordinarily disproportionate counterterrorism response.

During the Cold War period most European armed forces were structured on the same broad principle of defence against a common enemy within a bipolar structure premised on nuclear deterrence (Von Bredow, 2000: 51). The removal of the strategic certainties of the Cold War created huge pressures for reform of military structures and organisation, and these pressures have been both augmented and confused by the World Trade Centre and Pentagon attacks of September 2001 which introduced what has been described as a new Postmodern age, dominated above all by the ‘war on terrorism’ (Heyman, 2001; Posen, 2001; Cronin, 2002).1

When the United States went to war in Iraq in March 2003, the professed goals were to end the repressive rule of Saddam Husayn's regime, uncover the long-hidden weapons of mass destruction that had eluded a decade of UN-led inspections, and prevent further cooperation between Baghdad and the Islamist extremists responsible for the attacks on September 11, 2001. Less mentioned but by no means absent was the intention of introducing real democratic values and institutions to Iraq and making the fledgling successor government a beacon for the region to emulate. Advisers to George W. Bush's Administration dubbed the neoconservatives or neocons quickly became known for their claims that the war would be quick, that the Iraqis would welcome the Americans as liberators and not conquerors and shower them with rose petals and rice, and that the Iraqis as the region s staunchest democrats would quickly turn the New Iraq into a democratic showplace that was the envy of the region. In the Pentagon, the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, was equally determined to make the war in Iraq the showcase of what a transformed military force could accomplish with smaller deployments and greater mission integration. The war of shock and awe was to usher in 21st century warfare against the new asymmetric kind of warfare of the future the war on terrorism.

It's late November 2002 on a drizzly, cold day in Washington, D.C., a little more than a year after four hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsyl vania killing more than 3,000 people. In one of the bewildering number of Starbucks ofFDupont Circle, Jeff Bezos, iconoclast lead er of the mega online e-tailer Amazon.com, and John Poindexter, then director of the Pentagon's Office of Information Awareness, meet. Bezos orders a low-fat latte. Poindexter, ex-Regan national security advisor and a convicted felon charged with lying to Con gress and obstruction of justice, takes an Americano (of course). Poindexter gets right to the point. Poindexter: "Jeff, we have a problem. The world has changed dramatically. During the years I was in the White House it was relatively simple to identify our intelligence collection targets. Today, the most serious asymmetric threat facing the United States is terrorism, a threat characterized by collections of people loose ly organized in shadowy networks that are difficult to identify and define and whose goals are the destruction of our way of life. The intelligence collection targets are thousands of people whose iden tities and whereabouts we do not always know. It is somewhat analogous to the antisubmarine warfare problem of finding sub marines in an ocean of noise—we must find the terrorists in a world of noise, to understand what they are planning, and develop options for preventing their attacks. I think the solution is largely associated with information technology. We must become much

The world was stunned by the September ii bombings of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. What is perhaps even more shocking is that this bombing was not that unusual. In 1995, Timothy McVeigh blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City. During the past few years, American authorities have identified and foiled other terrorist plots hatched by United States citizens. A Florida militia planned to destroy a nuclear power plant, while Michigan militia members made arrangements to bomb two federal buildings. A group in Missouri plotted to kill thousands at the opening of a military base in Fort Hood, Texas. Meanwhile, militia in northern Montana amassed machine guns and pipe bombs to be used to murder a score of local officials. Anticipating that the National Guard would be summoned to restore order, the militia planned a second attack on the rescuers. They apparently hoped that other right-wing militants would join them in a revolution to overthrow the United States government and establish a new regime controlled by white Christians.1

The ugly phenomenon of terrorism has a long history, it hit the world like a thunderstorm in the 1970s, especially with the 1972 Black Septembist kidnapping of Jewish athletes during the Munich Olympic, and the plane hijacking that led to the Israeli raid on Entebbe airport in 1976 to free Jewish hostages, however, it was the September 11, 2001 attacks by suicide bombers against the United States that transformed terrorism into a new kind of warfare: they hijacked three separate civil aircraft and turned them into instruments of mass destruction by crashing them into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, the July 7, 2005 multiple bombing of London confirms to a great extent this new thinking of about terrorism.In this article, Dr. Nwolise examines the terrorist phenomenon, providing a useful theoretical insight for understanding the concept in its various forms, including the politics surrounding the interpretation of the concept – what he refers to as the politics of nomenclature, the article perceives post-September 11 terrorism as a new kind of warfare, and a deadly threat to democracy, good governance, national development, and international peace and security.In addition to its informative exploration of the goals and consequences of terrorism, the paper presents a new timely and interesting insight into how corporate organizations can manage and combat terrorism, the data on the evolution of terrorism in Nigeria since the 1960s show that the phenomenon is not new in Nigeria, but, in the words of the author, has only graduated to a professional crescendo in contemporary times, they will be very useful for researchers interested in the evolution of terrorism in Nigeria.

President George Bush last week signed into law Project BioShield to protect Americans against biological, chemical, radiological, or nuclear attack. He did this a day before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States delivered its final report. The commission found missed opportunities to intercept one or more of the hijackers who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001. President Bush first proposed the project in his state of the union address in February 2003. Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson, said, “With the signing of the BioShield legislation, President Bush has improved our nation's …