This year marks 20 years since the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington D.C. that changed global geopolitics in a matter of hours. The terror strikes against the US marked the beginning of a new era, led by a political ideation now known as the ‘War against Terror’, which saw the largest mobilisation of Western military strength, arguably since World War II, as military campaigns were launched in Afghanistan and later in Iraq, followed by covert wars against terror groups across the world.
Over these 20 years, removal of Islamist terror group al-Qaeda, the masterminds behind 9/11, was seen as the one-stop solution to ‘win’ this US-led war against terrorism. Much of this thinking concluded in 2011, after an 11-year long search, when the US found and neutralised al-Qaeda Chief Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, which was at the heart of Pakistan’s military establishment.
20 years since 9/11: Transnational jihadist threat remains constant | ORF (orfonline.org)
