Osama bin Laden: Declaration of Jihad against Americans

Impact

The Declaration of Jihad had limited immediate impact. Bin Laden had recently arrived in Afghanistan, which was witnessing the consolidation of the Taliban regime after years of civil war. The al Qaeda leader had to rebuild his organization in Afghanistan while plotting attacks on Western targets. The declaration's near-range impact, then, was to raise Bin Laden's profile in transnational Islamic militant circles. His notions became part of debates among Muslim militants over the scope and targets of jihad. Most militants remained focused on local political struggles rather than converts to global jihad against the United States.

Two years later, al Qaeda's first major terrorist operation, the 1998 attacks on American embassies in East Africa, would thrust Bin Laden to the forefront of the Islamic militant current. The United States reacted by launching cruise missile attacks on an al Qaeda base in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical company in Khartoum, Sudan, that Washington suspected of manufacturing biological weapons agents. These attacks failed to deter al Qaeda from pursuing jihad against the United States. In October 2000, an al Qaeda cell in Yemen attacked the USS Cole in Aden's harbor by detonating a boat loaded with explosives next to the U.S. warship.

The chain of al Qaeda operations against the United States reached a climax on September 11, 2001, with the hijacking of four civilian airliners. In New York City, al Qaeda's hijackers flew two airplanes into the World Trade Center's twin towers, causing their collapse. In Washington, D.C., the hijackers flew an airplane into the Pentagon. In the fourth airplane, passengers struggled with the hijackers, resulting in a crash landing in a field in western Pennsylvania. Almost three thousand people were killed in the four attacks, with the largest number perishing as the result of the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. The United States responded by invading Afghanistan a month later to expel al Qaeda from its havens and overthrow the Taliban regime that sheltered Bin Laden. Nevertheless, both groups survived and reorganized in Pakistan, and the idea of jihad against the United States remains a potent inspiration for Muslim militants.