The Scourge of Terrorism Grips the USA

If the statistical data provided by news agencies are correct, the terrorist attack that almost took place on Saturday evening (Sunday morning in Europe) in New York’s landmark Times Square would mark the 11th attack prevented by the U.S. police forces after 9/11.

Consequently, the number of terrorist threats has in fact not diminished, in spite of the large-scale anti-terrorism programs and radical measures that the authorities have adopted since 2001. Moreover, experts on terrorism have repeatedly expressed their concern over the fact that the 11 attempted acts were in fact stand-alone plots. In 2002 and 2003, the authorities discovered two separate and successive projects involving hijacked planes and targeting locations on both the west and the east coast of the U.S.

To a certain extent, the plans resembled 9/11. However, the impact of these new attacks would have been even greater.

Although the two extensive operations were thwarted very early on, terrorists were obviously not deterred, as proven by a terrorist attack discovered in August 2006. The foiled plot, which had presumably reached the final stage of planning, involved the simultaneous bombing of 10 airliners flying from the United Kingdom to the U.S.

Furthermore, shortly before 9/11, the news that Islamic fundamentalists associated with al-Qaeda planned to blow up tens of planes flying over the ocean made a brief headline appearance in the media. The terrorist act was said to have been prevented at the very last moment, when an Islamic leader closely involved in the operation was captured in Indonesia, the nation with the largest Islamic population in the world. It is easy to understand why this piece of news did not garner more attention in the media.

Coming back to the United States and the terrorist plots that have been derailed over the years, one should remember that the authorities arrested six American citizens and a legal alien who were planning attacks against the U.S. and Israel in July 2009. The group included an Islamic convert, who was also the leader of the group, and his two sons. Generally, Muslim individuals seem to be the most involved in planning terrorist actions, a fact confirmed on September 19 2009, when three men of Afghan origin were arrested for an alleged plot to attack New York’s metro system. Finally, on Christmas day last year, a 23-year old Nigerian who carried a makeshift bomb tried to blow up an airplane flying from Amsterdam to Detroit. Fortunately, the explosive device malfunctioned and the man was restrained by the passengers of the plane.

Terrorists generally target commercial airlines. However, the attacks planned against the New York metro system or Times Square prove that terrorists also target busy locations and landmarks, which would guarantee them wide media coverage if the attacks succeeded. The car bomb prevented on Saturday evening targeted Manhattan, a theatre area very popular among tourists, especially during the weekend.

Another aspect of the attempted terrorist acts and foiled plots is that of religious views. As mentioned previously, the most common religion among terrorists is Islam. Although some terrorists are not members of al-Qaeda and have no connection to the group, many terrorists were, and still are, inspired by it. For instance, the 23-year old Nigerian man who tried to blow up an airplane in December 2009 had been trained by al-Qaeda, a fact publicly acknowledged afterwards by the leaders of the terrorist group.

One could infer the same thing from the attack prevented on Saturday, which the Pakistani Taliban have claimed on two occasions. It is interesting that, at first, experts expressed doubt over the credibility of the 71-second message in which the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) group claimed the attempted car bomb in New York. Nevertheless, after the second tape, which lasted 9 minutes, surfaced, InterCenter experts deemed the message credible. Another intriguing fact is that the video showed Hakimullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, who had reportedly been killed by an American missile in January.

Mehsud became the leader of the Pakistani Taliban in August 2009, and was considered to be “the new nightmare” of the Islamabad authorities, who feared he would favor the criminal actions of TTP. Strangely, in their first message, the Taliban claimed that the New York attack had been meant to avenge Mehsud’s death, as well as the deaths of al-Qaeda members Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Al-Masri in Baghdad. However, Mehsud himself appeared in the second video, which had supposedly been recorded on April 4, and threatened to orchestrate new attacks against American cities “within some days or weeks.”

However, he made no reference to the Times Square attack. On the other hand, experts on terrorism argue that the TTP lack the international infrastructure necessary in order to carry out such attacks.

What is more, they cannot rule out the possibility that the far right was involved in the attempted car bomb, as the election of Barack Obama as the first black president angered extremist groups. One should not forget that the deadliest act of terrorism before 9/11 took place in Oklahoma City, when Timothy McVeigh, an Army veteran associated with the far right, detonated a truck bomb and killed 165 people.