WAl-Qaeda is a militant Sunni Islamist multinational network of Islamic extremists and Salafist jihadists. It was founded in 1988 by Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam, and several other Arab volunteers during the Soviet–Afghan War.
WThe Afghanistan fighting season refers to the cyclical restarting of fighting every spring during the War in Afghanistan due to weather and economic factors. It generally runs from April to October.
WIt is believed that members of Al-Qaeda are hiding along the border of Afghanistan and northwest sections of Pakistan. In Iraq, elements loosely associated with al-Qaeda, in the Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad organization commanded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, have played a key role in the War in Iraq.
WIt is believed that members of Al-Qaeda are hiding along the border of Afghanistan and northwest sections of Pakistan. In Iraq, elements loosely associated with al-Qaeda, in the Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad organization commanded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, have played a key role in the War in Iraq.
WAl-Qaeda is understood to have operated a number of safe houses, some of which were used as training centres.
WAllegations of a support system in Pakistan for Osama bin Laden have been made both before and after Osama bin Laden was found living in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan and was killed by a team of United States Navy SEALs on 2 May 2011. The compound itself was located just half a mile from Pakistan's premier military training academy Kakul Military Academy (PMA) in Abbottabad. In the aftermath of bin Laden's death, US-President Barack Obama asked Pakistan to investigate the network that sustained bin Laden. "We think that there had to be some sort of support network for bin Laden inside of Pakistan," Obama said in a 60 Minutes interview with CBS News. He also added that the United States was not sure "who or what that support network was." In addition to this, in an interview with Time magazine, CIA Director Leon Panetta stated that US-officials did not alert Pakistani counterparts to the raid because they feared the terrorist leader would be warned. However, the documents recovered from bin Laden’s compound 'contained nothing to support the idea that bin Laden was protected or supported by the Pakistani officials'. Instead, the documents contained criticism of Pakistani military and future plans for attack against the Pakistani military installations.
WAnsar Ghazwat-ul-Hind is a Militant Islamist Kashmiri wing of Al-Qaeda active in the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. It was founded by Zakir Rashid Bhat and he claimed his objective is imposing Sharia in Jammu & Kashmir & fight against India.
WOn October 29, 2004, at 21:00 UTC, Al Jazeera broadcast excerpts allegedly from a videotape of Osama bin Laden addressing the people of the United States; in this video, he accepts responsibility for the September 11 attacks, condemns the Bush government's response to those attacks, and presents those attacks as part of a campaign of revenge and deterrence motivated by his witnessing of the destruction in the Lebanese Civil War in 1982. News analysts speculated that the release of the video was timed to influence the 2004 U.S. presidential election, which would take place four days later.
WThe following addresses the events in Northern Afghanistan between April 2009 and 2014. While this part of the country had long been relatively peaceful compared to the all-out war zones of the south and east, tensions would flare up again in 2008 when the German soldiers deployed to the area came under attack more often, leading to the deaths of the several soldiers. Previously hindered by national caveats, the deteroriating security situation prompted the German-led Regional Command North to launch a series of operations to take on the rising insurgency. Concerted operations began after an insurgent attack on PRT Kunduz within minutes of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's departure from a visit. Within two years, the German presence would be doubled and additional reinforcements from the American ISAF contingent were called in, including heavy German armoured vehicles and US aviation assets, allowing for a more aggressive approach towards the insurgency.
WThe FBI Seeking Terror Information list is the third major "wanted" list to have been created by the United States Department of Justice's Federal Bureau of Investigation to be used as a primary tool for publicly identifying and tracking down suspected terrorists operating against United States nationals at home and abroad. The first preceding list for this purpose was the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. In 2001, after the September 11 attacks, that list was supplanted by the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list, for the purpose of listing fugitives who are specifically wanted for acts of terrorism.
WThe occupation of Iraq is characterized by a large United States military deployment on Iraqi territory, beginning with the U.S.-led invasion of the country in March 2003 which overthrew the Ba'ath Party government of Saddam Hussein and ending with the departure of US troops from the country in 2011. Troops for the invasion came primarily from the United States, the United Kingdom and Poland, but 29 other nations also provided some troops, and there were varying levels of assistance from Japan and other countries.
WThe insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, also known as the War in North-West Pakistan, is an ongoing armed conflict involving Pakistan, and Islamist militant groups such as the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Jundallah, Lashkar-e-Islam (LeI), TNSM, al-Qaeda, and their Central Asian allies such as the ISIL–Khorasan (ISIL), Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, East Turkistan Movement, Emirate of Caucasus, and elements of organized crime.
WThe Kunduz airlift, also called the Airlift of Evil, refers to the evacuation of hundreds of top commanders and members of the Taliban and their Pakistani advisers including Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agents and army personnel, and other Jihadi volunteers and sympathizers, from the city of Kunduz, Afghanistan, in November 2001 just before its capture by U.S. and United Front of Afghanistan forces during the War in Afghanistan. The Taliban and Al-Qaeda combatants were allegedly evacuated from Kunduz and airlifted by Pakistan Air Force cargo aircraft to Pakistan Air Force bases in Chitral and Gilgit in Pakistan-administered Kashmir's Northern Areas. The United States and Pakistan denied that the airlift took place. General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff, said that the Kunduz airfield had been disabled by United States attacks. Donald Rumsfeld, US defense secretary, said on December 2 that "neither Pakistan nor any other country flew any planes into Afghanistan to evacuate anybody".
WMohmand Offensive also known as Operation Brekhna is a Pakistani military operation against the Tehrik-i-Taliban in the Mohmand Agency area of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas that began in 2009. It is part of the ongoing War in North-West Pakistan.
WAbd al-Rahman Bin Khalil Bin Abdallah Nur is a citizen of Saudi Arabia, who is named on a "most wanted" poster issued by the Defense Intelligence Agency of the United States.
WOperation Cyclone was the code name for the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) program to arm and finance the Afghan mujahideen in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, prior to and during the military intervention by the USSR in support of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. The mujahideen were also supported by Britain's MI6, who conducted separate covert actions. The program leaned heavily towards supporting militant Islamic groups, including groups with jihadist ties, that were favored by the regime of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in neighboring Pakistan, rather than other, less ideological Afghan resistance groups that had also been fighting the Soviet-oriented Democratic Republic of Afghanistan administration since before the Soviet intervention.
WOperation Herrick was the codename under which all British operations in the War in Afghanistan were conducted from 2002 to the end of combat operations in 2014. It consisted of the British contribution to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), and support to the American-led Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), within the central Asian country.
WOperation Infinite Reach was the codename for American cruise missile strikes on Al-Qaeda bases in Khost Province, Afghanistan, and the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, Sudan, on August 20, 1998. The attacks, launched by the U.S. Navy, were ordered by President Bill Clinton in retaliation for al-Qaeda's August 7 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people and injured over 4,000 others. Operation Infinite Reach was the first time the United States acknowledged a preemptive strike against a violent non-state actor.
WThe Orakzai and Kurram offensive also known as Operation Khwakh Ba De Sham is a Pakistani military operation against the Tehrik-i-Taliban in the Orakzai Agency and Kurram Agency area of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas that began on 23 March 2010. It is part of the ongoing War in North-West Pakistan.
WQaeda al-Jihad is the official name of al-Qaeda. Statements were first issued under that name on 9 April 2002.
WThe Operation Rah-e-Nijat was a strategic offensive military operation by the unified command of Pakistan Armed Forces against the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and their extremist allies in the South Waziristan area of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas that began on June 19, 2009; a major ground-air offensive was subsequently launched on October 17. It became the integral part of the war in Western fronts which led to the encirclement and destruction of Taliban forces in the region, although the Taliban leadership escaped to lawless areas of neighboring Afghanistan.
WAhmed Omar Saeed Sheikh is a British terrorist. He was arrested and served time in Indian prison for the 1994 kidnappings of Western tourists in India, an act which he acknowledges he was responsible for. He was released in 1999 and provided safe passage into Afghanistan with the support of Taliban in exchange for passengers aboard hijacked Indian Airlines Flight 814. He is most well known for his role in the 2002 kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Saeed was arrested by Pakistani police on 12 February 2002, in Lahore, in connection with the Pearl kidnapping and was sentenced to death on 15 July 2002 by special judge of anti terrorism court Syed Ali Ashraf Shah for killing Pearl. Sheikh's murder conviction was overturned by a Pakistani Court on 2 April 2020.
WThe 2021 Taliban offensive, also known as the summer offensive, was a military offensive by the Taliban insurgent group and other allied militants against the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan that led to the fall of the republic based in Kabul and marked the end of the nearly 20-year-old War in Afghanistan, that had begun following the United States invasion of the country.
WTargeted Killing in International Law is a book about the legality of targeted killing, written by Nils Melzer. It was first published by Oxford University Press in May 2008. The book explores the history of targeted killing as a government strategy by multiple countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, Switzerland and Germany; for both military and law enforcement purposes. Melzer argues that directly after the September 11 attacks in the United States, perceptions of the tactic became more positive.
WTargeted Killings: Law and Morality in an Asymmetrical World is a non-fiction compilation book about targeted killing edited by Claire Finkelstein, Jens David Ohlin, and Andrew Altman. It was published by Oxford University Press in 2012. The book grew out of contributions by the authors to a conference in April 2011 at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Targeted Killings features eighteen essays in five sections arranged by topic. The work argues that after the 11 September attacks by Al-Qaeda in 2001, the United States and other countries began to see the tactic of targeted killing differently. The practice of targeted killing had previously been accepted in situations of self-defence in military settings; after 11 September 2001 it was used to kill non-combatants and those not directly involved in a particular armed force.
WOperation Toral was the codename for the British presence within Afghanistan post-2014 as part of NATO's Resolute Support Mission. UK forces had two major tasks: training and mentoring Afghan Forces, and providing force protection for NATO advisors via the Kabul Security Force/Kabul Protection Unit.
WUnited Nations Security Council resolution 1267 was adopted unanimously on 15 October 1999. After recalling resolutions 1189 (1998), 1193 (1998) and 1214 (1998) on the situation in Afghanistan, the Council designated Osama bin Laden and associates as terrorists and established a sanctions regime to cover individuals and entities associated with Al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden and/or the Taliban wherever located.
WUnited Nations Security Council resolution 1452, adopted unanimously on 20 December 2002, after recalling resolutions 1267 (1999), 1333 (2000), 1363 (2001), 1368 (2001) and 1390 (2001) concerning Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and terrorism, the Council decided that financial sanctions against the organisations would not apply to expenses for food, rent, medicine and medical care, health insurance and professional fees.
WUnited Nations Security Council resolution 1455, adopted unanimously on 17 January 2003, after recalling resolutions 1267 (1999), 1333 (2000), 1363 (2001), 1373 (2001), 1390 (2001) and 1452 (2002) concerning Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and terrorism, the council improved the implementation of measures against the groups. It was the first Security Council resolution adopted in 2003.
WUnited Nations Security Council resolution 1617, adopted unanimously on 29 July 2005, after recalling resolutions 1267 (1999), 1333 (2000), 1363 (2001), 1373 (2001), 1390 (2001), 1452 (2002), 1455 (2003), 1526 (2004) and 1566 (2004) concerning terrorism, the Council renewed sanctions against Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Osama bin Laden and associated individuals and groups for a further seventeen months.
WUnited Nations Security Council Resolution 1988, adopted unanimously on June 17, 2011, after recalling resolutions 1267 (1999), 1333 (2000), 1363 (2001), 1373 (2001), 1390 (2002), 1452 (2002), 1455 (2003), 1526 (2004), 1566 (2004), 1617 (2005), 1624 (2005), 1699 (2006), 1730 (2006), 1735 (2006), 1822 (2008) and 1904 (2009) on terrorism and the threat to Afghanistan, the Council imposed separate sanctions regimes on Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
WUnited Nations Security Council Resolution 1989, adopted unanimously on June 17, 2011, after recalling resolutions 1267 (1999), 1333 (2000), 1363 (2001), 1373 (2001), 1390 (2002), 1452 (2002), 1455 (2003), 1526 (2004), 1566 (2004), 1617 (2005), 1624 (2005), 1699 (2006), 1730 (2006), 1735 (2006), 1822 (2008), 1904 (2009) and 1988 (2011) on terrorism and the threat to Afghanistan, the Council imposed separate sanctions regimes on Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
WThe War in Afghanistan was a conflict that took place from 2001 to 2021 in Afghanistan. It began when the United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban-ruled Islamic Emirate. The war ended with the Taliban regaining power after a 19 years and 10 months-long insurgency against allied NATO and Afghan Armed Forces. It was the longest war in United States history, surpassing the Vietnam War (1955–1975) by approximately five months.
WThe War on Terror (WoT), also known as the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) and the U.S. War on Terror, is the term that refers to an ongoing international military campaign launched by the United States government following the September 11 attacks. The targets of the campaign are primarily extremist groups located throughout the Muslim world, with the most prominent groups being Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and their various franchise groups. The naming of the campaign uses a metaphor of war to refer to a variety of actions that do not constitute a specific war as traditionally defined. U.S. president George W. Bush first used the term "war on terrorism" on 16 September 2001, and then "war on terror" a few days later in a formal speech to Congress. In the latter speech, President Bush stated, "Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists and every government that supports them." The term was originally used with a particular focus on countries associated with al-Qaeda. The term was immediately criticized by such people as Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and more nuanced terms subsequently came to be used by the Bush administration to publicly define the international campaign led by the U.S. While it was never used as a formal designation of U.S. operations in internal government documentation, a Global War on Terrorism Service Medal was issued.