I.

Introduction

Al-Qaeda, international terrorist network, founded by Osama bin Laden. Al-Qaeda seeks to purge Muslim countries of Western—and especially United States—influence and install fundamentalist Islamic rule. Al-Qaeda, also spelled al-Qaida, is the Arabic word for “the base” or “the camp”—meaning the base or camp from which worldwide Islamic revolution will be fought.

Al-Qaeda was responsible for the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and on the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, across the Potomac River from the capital of the United States, Washington, D.C. That day, 19 terrorists hijacked four passenger aircraft soon after they took off from airports in Boston, Massachusetts; Newark, New Jersey; and Washington, D.C. Two of the planes were deliberately flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Both structures collapsed shortly afterward. A third aircraft was flown into the Pentagon, where the U.S. Department of Defense is located, severely damaging the southwest portion of that building. Meanwhile, passengers on board the fourth aircraft learned of the other attacks and struggled to subdue the hijackers. In the ensuing melee, the plane crashed into a field in rural Pennsylvania. The death toll in all four incidents totaled about 3,000 people.

Other significant al-Qaeda operations include the 1998 suicide bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania; the maritime suicide attack in 2000 on an American warship, the USS Cole, anchored in Aden, Yemen; and the commuter train bombings in Madrid, Spain, in March 2004 that killed more than 190 people and wounded more than 1,400.