Al-Qaeda? Who Are They? Al-Qaeda is a small and violent group of terrorist who practices the Islamic Religion and they want to create an Islamic state that is independent from other countries. The group Al-Qaeda considers the freedom that the United States citizens have are evil and they do not want the United States to spread the freedom they give their citizens to other countries (Pressler, 2011). This group is responsible for many of the terrorist attacks that have happened all over the world, but September 11th is one of the most deadly attacks that have happened thus far. Osama Bin Laden? Who Is This Person? Osama Bin Laden was born March 10, 1957. Osama Bin Laden was the seventeenth child out of fifty-two children born to Mohammed Bin Laden, who was a Yemeni immigrant who owned the largest construction company in a Saudi kingdom. Osama Bin Laden went to school in Jiddah; he married young; and joined the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. Osama Bin Laden looked at Islam as more than just a religion; Islam is what shaped his beliefs and what influenced him all the decisions he made (Staff, 2009). In the 1970’s, while he was in college, Osama Bin Laden became a follower of the racial pan-Islamist scholar Abdullah Azzam, who believed should raise up in holy war and to create a single Islamic state; and this belief is what stuck to Osama Bin Laden (Staff, 2009). U.S. Response to the Attack? When the September 11th attack happened, the United States response was attacking the Al-Qaeda training camps that are in Afghanistan; and in less than a month after the attack happened, the United States went and disrupted Afghanistan, so that they were able to break up the Al-Qaeda group and the Afghanistan government. Afghanistan was one of the few countries that the group Al-Qaeda had their operations at. 9/11 Key Events These events are in relation to the group Al-Qaeda and with their leader Osama Bin Laden before the September 11th attack (Press, 2002): • 2/26/1993 o A bomb explodes underneath the world trade center, which killed six people and injured more than a thousand individuals; and a group of Muslim extremist was convicted for this attack (Press, 2002). • 11/13/1995 o There were two bombs that exploded at the United States Saudi Military Facility …show more content…
The Department of Homeland Security is a merge of twenty-two governmental agencies into one; including Customs Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the United States Coast Guard, and the Federal and Emergency Management Agency. The Department of Homeland Security placed one-hundred and thirty United States inspectors at ports in major European, Asia, and Muslim nations (Library, 2015). After the September 11th attack, the ideas were turned into policies, which resulted in changes in the government’s structure. The Department of Homeland Security’s new concept is “the interaction of evolving threats and hazards with traditional governmental and civic responsibilities for civil defense, emergency response, law enforcement, customs, border control, and immigration.” The Department of Homeland Security creates a large importance on the need for joint actions and efforts across the previous discrete elements of the government and society. On November 25, 2002, President Bush signed the Homeland Security Act of 2002. Former Governor of Pennsylvania Tim Ridge became the Department of Homeland Security first Secretary. The Department of Homeland Security has the mission of protecting the United States from further terrorist attacks; reducing the nation’s vulnerability to terrorism; and minimizing the damage from potential terrorist attacks and natural disasters. The Department of Homeland Security is the greatest federal reorganization since President Truman merged the Defense