Thirteen Years after 9/11: Fear of terror attacks continue to soar

Thirteen years after the September 11 terror attacks, this was supposed to be a season of relief for the US, with Iraq managing on its own and most U.S. troops finally ending their combat duty in Afghanistan. Instead, Americans are bracing for another upsurge of military engagement in a region where one war blurs into another. Across the world, a generation has now grown up amid this continuous conflict, and there’s no end in sight.


“The Cold War took 45 years,” said Elliott Abrams, a longtime diplomat who was top Middle East adviser to President George W. Bush. “It’s certainly plausible that this could be the same. … It’s harder to see how this ends.”

For now, President Barack Obama seems to have bipartisan support as he prepares to outline his plans Wednesday for expanded operations against militants of the so-called Islamic State who have overrun large swaths of Iraq. His administration has cautioned that the effort could take several years.

Click to Read: Obama pledges to destroy ISIS

Since the Autumn of 2001, America, with its allies, has been at war against factions of Islamic militants and terrorists, including the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as offshoots in Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere.

Indeed, some analysts say the conflict dates back further, citing such incidents as the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York and the 1983 bombing that killed 241 U.S. servicemen at a barracks in Lebanon. Military historian Max Boot suggests the starting point was the Iranian revolution of 1979, when the U.S. Embassy in Tehran was seized and its staff held hostage for 444 days.

“For the first time, we understood the threat by armed Islamist extremism,” said Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and former adviser to Republican presidential campaigns. “We didn’t face up to it — we tried to ignore it as long as possible. But after 9/11, we couldn’t ignore it anymore.”

The September 11 attacks triggered the invasion of Afghanistan by the U.S. and its allies, starting in October 2001, with the aim of dismantling al-Qaeda’s base of operations and toppling the Taliban regime. The Taliban, though quickly ousted from power, has been waging an insurgency ever since.

In 2003, the U.S. spearheaded an invasion of Iraq, citing various justifications but nonetheless categorizing the conflict as part of “the Global War on Terrorism.” Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was captured, tried and executed, yet an insurgency arose against the U.S.-led coalition waged by various factions, including al-Qaeda affiliates and Sunni militants who were precursors of the Islamic State group.

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