December 29, 2014

NATO commanders yesterday formally ended the Afghanistan War during a brief ceremony in the Afghan capital, Kabul. At NATO mission headquarters in the city, the green-and-white flag of the United States-led coalition, known as the International Security Assistance Force, was ceremonially rolled up and sheathed. Then the flag of the new international mission, called Resolute Support, was raised. The ceremony marked the official end of a 13-year combat mission in Afghanistan. Beginning on Jan. 1, 2015, U.S.-led forces in the country will offer only training and support for the Afghan army.

A NATO coalition invaded Afghanistan in 2001 in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States. The intention behind the invasion was to crush the terrorist organization behind the attacks–al-Qa’ida–and to capture its leader–Osama bin Laden. NATO forces quickly brought down Afghanistan’s Taliban-controlled government, which had sheltered al-Qa’ida. However, much of the al-Qa’ida organization escaped into other countries, particularly across the border into Pakistan. (American military forces finally tracked down and killed bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011.)

American troops patrol a village along Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan. After the U.S. military overthrew the Taliban, some members of the Taliban and al-Qa`ida fled to the mountains along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. (Department of Defense)

In a prepared statement, President Barack Obama said, “Today’s ceremony in Kabul marks a milestone for our country. For more than 13 years, ever since nearly 3,000 innocent lives were taken from us on 9/11, our nation has been at war in Afghanistan. Now, thanks to the extraordinary sacrifices of our men and women in uniform, our combat mission in Afghanistan is ending, and the longest war in American history is coming to a responsible conclusion.” The president also paid tribute to the more-than 2,200 Americans killed in the war.

Despite the war, the Taliban continues to launch offensives and carry out terrorist attacks in Afghanistan. “Afghanistan remains a dangerous place,” the president said in his statement, “and the Afghan people and their security forces continue to make tremendous sacrifices in defense of their country.

Additional World Book articles:

• Terrorism: America’s New Enemy (a special report)

December 8, 2014

In a ceremony in Kabul, United States-led NATO forces closed its combat command in Afghanistan. The NATO flag was lowered and put away, marking the withdrawal of most foreign troop in Afghanistan more than 13 years after the country was invaded in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The intention behind the invasion was to crush the terrorist organization behind the attacks–al-Qa’ida–and to capture its leader–Osama bin Laden.

NATO forces quickly brought down Afghanistan’s Taliban-controlled government, which had sheltered al-Qa’ida. However, much of the al-Qa’ida organization escaped into other countries, particularly across the border into Pakistan. (American military forces finally tracked down and killed bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011.)

A United States Marine works with an Afghan soldier on marksmanship. Training will be the primary mission of remaining U.S. forces in Afghanistan. (Department of Defense)

After 13 years of intermittent combat, the Taliban remains an active force in Afghanistan, regularly launching offensives and carrying out terrorist attacks. The United States currently plans to maintain 13,000 troops there. The remaining U.S. forces are to continue the training of the Afghan army.

Additional World Book articles:

• Afghanistan War
• Terrorism: America’s New Enemy (a special report)

May 15, 2014

Standing before one of the foundational walls of the destroyed World Trade Center, President Barack Obama and other speakers today helped to officially dedicate the National September 11 Memorial Museum. The museum was built to honor the memory of those killed in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the February 26, 1993, World Trade Center bombing. In his remarks, President Obama described the museum as a “sacred place of healing and hope” and insisted that “no act of terror can match the strength and character of our country.”

The September 11 terrorist attacks, also called 9/11, were the worst acts of terrorism ever carried out against the United States. The terrorists hijacked four commercial jetliners and crashed two of them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and one into the Pentagon Building near Washington, D.C. Hijackers crashed the fourth jet in a Pennsylvania field to prevent it from being reclaimed by passengers. The attacks killed about 3,000 people, including the 19 hijackers.

The museum lies seven stories below the ground-level National September 11 Memorial, which includes twin reflecting pools that lie in the footprints of the North and South towers. The walls of the new museum are lined with some 23,000 photos and images connected to the attacks. On display are 12,500 objects associated with the tragedy, including 2,380 objects donated by survivors, families of the dead, first responders, and others involved in the rescue efforts and the investigation and cleanup. Visitors can also listen to 1,995 oral histories and watch 580 hours of film and video. In addition, the museum incorporates remnants of structural columns that now mark the footprints of the original Twin Towers and sections of the retaining wall, known as the slurry wall, originally built to keep the Hudson River from flooding the World Trade Center site when it was first excavated. Earlier this week, about 14,000 unidentified or unclaimed remains from people killed on September 11 were moved to a repository adjacent to the museum.  The museum is “a collective story about how people can be good to one another in times of crisis,” curator Jan Ramirez told CNN. “We’ve put out our first draft of history.”

The National September 11 Memorial stands on the site of the former World Trade Center towers in New York City. Twin reflecting pools lie in the footprints of the two towers. Waterfalls cascade into the pools. The names of people who died in the attacks are inscribed on bronze panels surrounding each pool. (© Richard Levine, Alamy Images; AP Photo)

Additional World Book articles:

• Terrorism
• United States, History of the (September 11 terrorist attacks)
• Terrorism: America’s New Enemy (a Special Report)
• New York City (2001) (a Back in Time article)
• Washington, D.C. (2001) (a Back in Time article)

January 14, 2014

The security situation in Iraq continues to rapidly break down. Yesterday, multiple car bombs exploded in several of Baghdad’s Shi’ite neighborhoods, killing at least 29 people. The attacks appeared to be coordinated with the arrival of United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who was in Baghdad to confer with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki. The secretary general reportedly scolded Iraq’s political leaders for not working together to “stop the senseless deaths of Iraqi women, children, and men.” More than 8,000 Iraqis were killed in 2013 as security deteriorated in and around Baghdad, the capital; hundreds more have died so far this month.

In restive Anbar province, a Sunni stronghold west of Baghdad, the city of Fallujah is currently under the control of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, a militant group with connections to the al-Qa’ida terrorist network. On January 12, fighting between the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, commonly known as ISIS, and Iraqi government forces spread out of Anbar province to the very outskirts of Baghdad. Clashes between ISIS forces and the Iraqi army left at least 14 people dead near the notorious Abu Ghraib prison. In Ramadi, the other major city in Anbar province, militants captured and executed four members of an elite unit of the Iraqi military in an effort to retake control of the area.

Iraqi militants celebrate an attack on U.S. trucks in 2004 in Fallujah, the site of renewed fighting between Iraqi forces and Sunni rebels. The militants are again in control of the city. (© Karim Sahib, AFP/Getty Images)

ISIS is also actively involved in the civil war in Syria. Experts on the situation in Syria note that infighting between ISIS and the secular Free Syrian Army rebel group threatens to tip the balance among rebel forces. ISIS forces have increasingly come into conflict with the Free Syrian Army and other factions as Islamist militants attempt to enforce their strict form of Islamic Shari’ah law on areas under rebel control. The Free Syrian Army and the other factions have been fighting to bring down the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since 2011.

Additional World Book articles:

• Iraq War
• Iraq 2011 (a Back in Time article)
• Iraq 2012 (a Back in Time article)
• Iraq: a Quest for Political Identity in a Second Year of War (a special report)
• Syria: The Roots of a Rebellion (a special report)

January 2, 2014

Special Iraqi security forces are battling jihadist militants in the Iraqi cities of Fallujah and Ramadi. The militants have reportedly taken over swaths of both cities. Fallujah and Ramadi are in Anbar province, a stronghold for Sunni Muslims that has been especially difficult to control since the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. The militants are members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which is connected to the al-Qa`ida terrorist network. An Iraqi police officer reported to a BBC correspondent today that the militants have seized at least 10 police stations and freed a number of prisoners.

Sunni tribal fighters are reported to have also taken to the streets, many fighting on the side of the government. They also did this at the time of U.S. military surge in Iraq in an attempt to rein in the chaos engulfing the region. (The surge refers to President George W. Bush’s 2007 increase in the number of American troops in Iraq to control sectarian violence and bring Anbar province under control.) The latest violence began last Saturday (Dec. 28, 2013) in Ramadi, when security forces arrested a prominent Sunni member of parliament.

The initial round of sectarian violence in Iraq began in February 2006 with the bombing of the al-Askari Mosque in Samarra, one of the holiest sites in Shi`ite Islam. The bombing, carried out by the Sunni militant group al-Qa`ida in Iraq, triggered a wave of Shi`ite reprisals against Sunnis, followed by Sunni counterattacks. At the height of the violence in 2006 and 2007, the monthly death toll regularly topped 1,000.

Iraqis inspect the ruins of the al-Askari shrine in Samarra, north of Baghdad. The 2006 bombing of the shrine led to violence between Sunni and Shi`ite Muslims (AP/Wide World).

Tensions between Iraq’s minority Sunnis and majority Shi`ites escalated again in 2012 in the wake of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq in December 2011. Yesterday, the United Nations reported that 8,868 people died in sectarian violence in Iraq in 2013. Iraq Body Count, a British-based organization that has tracked violence in Iraq since 2003, recorded 9,475 civilian deaths in 2013 and issued this warning: “If current violence levels continue unabated throughout the coming year, then 2014 threatens to be as deadly as 2004, which saw the two sieges of Fallujah [by U.S. forces in April and November of that year] and Iraq’s [sectarian] insurgency take hold.”

Additional World Book articles:

• The War in Iraq (a special report)
• Iraq 2006 (a Back in Time article)
• Iraq 2007 (a Back in Time article)
• Iraq 2008 (a Back in Time article)
• Iraq 2012 (a Back in Time article)

September 23, 2013

Kenyan security forces continue an assault launched yesterday on the Westgate shopping complex in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, in an attempt to end a two-day siege by terrorists. More than 1,000 people were inside the mall, Nairobi’s most up-scale shopping complex, when the terrorists stormed it on Saturday, slaughtering dozens of civilians and taking hostages. At least 62 people are known to have died in the attack, and more than 170 others were injured. A Kenyan army spokesperson has announced that security forces have secured much of the shopping center and that only a small number of hostages is believed to remain under the militants’ control. However, the militants are armed with military-grade weaponry and, according to security experts, seem determined to fight to the death.

The Islamist al-Shabab movement has claimed it carried out the attack in retaliation for Kenyan military operations in Somalia. The group, which has killed countless civilians with suicide bombs, has repeatedly threatened attacks in Kenya if the Kenyan government did not pull its troops out of Somalia. There are currently about 4,000 Kenyan troops there as part of an African Union peacekeeping force.

Nairobi, a city of more than 3 million people, is one of Africa's largest and most cosmopolitan cities. It is a center for banking, trade, and other commercial activities. (© Images of Africa Photobank/Alamy Images)

Al-Shabab (Arabic for “youths”) has been active in Somalia since the early 2000′s. It is intent on establishing an Islamic state there under Shar’iah law. Al-Shabab has at various times controlled large sections of southern and central Somalia. In early 2012, Western-backed African Union peacekeeping forces pushed al-Shabab out of the Somali capital, Mogadishu. Despite being forced out of the capital, al-Shabab remains in control of smaller towns and large swathes of the countryside.

Terrorism experts believe that al-Shabab has links to the al-Qa’ida cell in Yemen, the Islamic Maghreb terrorist organization in Mali, and the Islamist Boko Haram terrorist group in Nigeria.

The expensive shops and restaurants at Nairobi’s Westgate Mall attracted wealthy Kenyans and expatriates alike. Among the dead were people from Canada, China, France, Ghana, India, and the United Kingdom.

Additional World Book articles:

• Islam 2012 (a Back in Time article)
• Kenya 2011 (a Back in Time article)
• Kenya 2012 (a Back in Time article)
• Nigeria 2012 (a Back in Time article)
• Terrorism 2008 (a Back in Time article)

August 6, 2013

The U.S. Department of State today told American citizens and non-emergency government staff to leave Yemen “immediately.” The U.S. Air Force has confirmed that it is flying embassy staff out of Sanaa, the Yemeni capital. In London, the British Foreign Office has ordered its embassy staff withdrawn from Yemen and issued a travel advisory. Interpol, the international policing organization, has issued a separate global security alert, noting that “hundreds of terrorists” have in the past month been freed in prison breaks in Iraq, Libya, and Pakistan.

U.S. government officials confirmed yesterday that electronic communications were  intercepted in which al-Qa’ida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri ordered the head of the al-Qa’ida affiliate in Yemen to carry out a major attack. Zawahiri succeeded Osama bin Laden as the head of al-Qa’ida.

In Sanaa, hundreds of armored vehicles surround the presidential palace, military headquarters, and Western embassies. According to a BBC security source, Yemeni intelligence services have disclosed that dozens of al-Qa’ida militants are known to have entered Sanaa in recent days, presumably to carry out of a major attack on Western embassies and Yemen’s military headquarters.

Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, is enclosed by a wall. Traffic enters and leaves through one of eight gates. (A. Tessore, Shostal)

On August 2, the State Department closed a number of embassies and consulates in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia. The closing were in response to an al-Qa’ida threat “emanating from the Arabian Peninsula.” The State Department also ordered a worldwide travel alert for the entire month of August, particularly significant in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia.

Additional World Book articles:

• Diplomacy
• September 11 terrorist attacks
• The Middle East: From Fall to Spring (a special report)

August 2, 2013

The U.S. Department of State will close a number of embassies and consulates through the weekend–August 3 and 4–primarily in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia. The closing are in response to an al-Qa’ida threat “emanating from the Arabian Peninsula.”

The State Department has also ordered a worldwide travel alert for the entire month of August, particularly significant in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia. “Current information suggests that al-Qa’ida and affiliated organizations continue to plan terrorist attacks both in the region and beyond, and that they may focus efforts to conduct attacks in the period between now and the end of August,” the State Department announced today in a bulletin issued to travelers and expatriates. “Terrorists have targeted and attacked subway and rail systems, as well as aviation and maritime services. U.S. citizens should take every precaution to be aware of their surroundings and to adopt appropriate safety measures to protect themselves when traveling.”

The U.S. State Department has issued a worldwide travel alert, citing threats from al-Qa’ida affiliated organizations. (World Book illustration)

Additional World Book articles:

• Diplomacy
• September 11 terrorist attacks
• The Middle East: From Fall to Spring (a special report)

July 22, 2013

Attacks on two large prisons outside Baghdad resulted in the deaths of at least 25 Iraqi security guards this morning. At the infamous Abu Ghraib prison, hundreds of convicts, including senior members of al-Qa’ida in Mesopotamia, broke out as the militants carried out their military-style assault. (Al-Qa’ida in Mesopotamia is an Iraqi offshoot of Osama bin Laden’s terrorist organization. In Iraq, the organization is made up of Sunni insurgents.)

Sectarian violence is once again on the rise in Iraq, especially in and around Baghdad and in the northern city of Mosul. (World Book map).

In the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, a suicide car-bomber targeting Iraqi security forces left another 22 soldiers and 3 passers-by dead today. A separate attack in western Mosul killed 4 policemen.

Experts on the situation in Iraq note that the prison attacks on Taji and Abu Ghraib, which began late on July 21, are the latest indication of the deteriorating state of security in the country. They also suggest that Sunni militants are re-gaining momentum in their insurgency against Nouri al-Maliki’s Shi’ite-dominated government. The latest surge of attacks in Iraq has resulted in the deaths of more than 450 Iraqis since the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan on July 10. Sectarian violence in Iraq has not been this bad since 2007 and 2008.

Additional World Book articles:

• Iraq War
• Iraq: a Quest for Political Identity in a Second Year of War (a special report)
• Iraq 2007 (a Back in Time article)
• Iraq 2008 (a Back in Time article)

June 18, 2013

NATO forces in Afghanistan today handed over responsibility for security for the whole country to Afghan troops for the first time since NATO forces invaded the country in 2001. At a ceremony in Kabul, the capital, Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced that “our own security and military forces will lead all the security activities.” There are currently 350,000 Afghans in uniform. NATO troops will remain in Afghanistan through 2014, providing military back-up when needed.

In Doha, capital of Qatar, a Taliban spokesperson, Mohammed Naim, declared today in a televised speech that the Taliban is prepared to take the first step toward peace negotiations with the Afghan government. The Taliban, a militant Islamic group that was once aligned with Al-Qa`ida, has tried for decades to establish a united Islamic state in Afghanistan.  Naim noted that their political and military goals “are limited to Afghanistan” and that they did not wish to “harm other countries.”

The Taliban has spent much of the past 12 years hiding in the rugged terrain along the Afghan-Pakistan border, from which they organized military raids into Afghanistan. © Piers Benatar, Panos Pictures

The Taliban announcement is the first indication that the chief antagonists in the Afghanistan War are interested in ending the 12-year conflict. NATO forces, led by the United States military, entered Afghanistan to rout Al-Qa`ida, the terrorist organization that carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. NATO ended up fighting the Taliban. The Taliban, which had gained control of most of Afghanistan in the mid-1990′s, had allowed Osama Bin Laden to establish his Al-Qa`ida headquarters and terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. Driven from power in 2001, the Taliban has been battling NATO forces ever since.

Additional World Book articles:

• Afghanistan 2001 (a Back in Time article)
• Terrorism: America’s New Enemy (a special report)