Osama Bin Laden: The Impact Of Global War On Terrorism

The operations, of AQ, target those people (and their property) it considers being kafir (non-Muslims and/or Muslims who are not true to their religion). These targets have been attacked in multiple ways, including the use of suicide bombers. Most of the attacks are conducted simultaneously, possibly to maximise the impact and cause widespread fear among the targeted people (Atran, 2010). Other than the 9/11 attacks, AQ, and its affiliates, have also been known for conducting other spectacular attacks, such as the US embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya in August 1998, the 2002 Bali bombings, the 2004 Madrid train bombings and the London bombings in July 2005, resulting in all cases, in high numbers of casualties. The majority of attacks conducted by AQ have been against ‘soft targets’, consisting predominantly civilians and unarmed individuals. However, the group has also attacked military installations and other targets it deems ideal to cause massive casualties (Moghadam, 2008).

After many years of waging this war, the US succeeded in tracking down and killing its leader, Osama Bin Laden in May 2011. He was, until then, the leader of the organisation. Osama Bin Laden has since been succeeded by Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, who had been al-Qaeda's Deputy Operations Chief before the death of Bin Laden. He in turn succeeded or replaced Saif al-Adel who had acted as the interim commander of the organisation (Geltzer,