Approaching the West — Page 85
A pproaching the West—85 Jihad because all the victims were civilians, including several Muslim individuals. In response, the United States immediately decided not only to eliminate the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks, but also punish those who harbored them—the suspect list included Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, and Iran. The War on terrorism started with attacks on Afghanistan—one of the poorest, most remote, and least industrialized countries on earth. The United States and its allies took military action and toppled the Ṭā lib ā n which had given the leaders of al- Q ā ‘idah sanctuary in Afghanistan; destroyed the terrorist infrastructure, killed or captured a majority of al-Q ā ‘idah’s leadership; cut off al-Q ā ‘idah’s funding and seized its effects, thus severely damaged the organization led by the suspect terrorist Osama bin Laden. Over 20,000 al-Q ā ‘idah and its allied Sunn ī militants have been killed so far. More than 3,000 civilians were killed in Afghanistan as a result of U. S. bombing with number of injured estimated to be in the tens of thousands. The al-Q ā ‘idah leader, Osama Bin Laden is still alive. We must realize the fact that killing or capturing Bin Laden would not end terrorism. On the contrary, new generations of terrorists are already creeping up in various parts of the world. Political turbulence in the Middle East has helped a new breed of al-Q ā ‘idah-style militants to gain footholds where they had rarely been active on such a scale. Every day a new movement is born. Dozens of groups that have declared themselves as franchises of al-Q ā ‘idah or modeled themselves on it have appeared in recent years in Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Algeria, Pakistan and Yemen.