Portal:War on Terror
Portal maintenance status: (October 2018)
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Introduction
The War on Terror, also known as the Global War on Terrorism, is an international military campaign that was launched by the United States government after the September 11 attacks against the United States. 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, George 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 criticised by such people as Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and more nuanced ones subsequently came to be used by the Bush administration to publicly define the international campaign led by the U.S.; it was never used as a formal designation of U.S. operations in internal government documentation.
U.S. President Barack Obama announced on 23 May 2013 that the Global War on Terror is over, saying the military and intelligence agencies will not wage war against a tactic but will instead focus on a specific group of networks determined to destroy the U.S. On 28 December 2014, the Obama administration announced the end of the combat role of the U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan. However, the unexpected rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terror group led to a new operation against terror in the Middle East and South Asia, Operation Inherent Resolve.
Selected general articles
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden /oʊˈsɑːməbɪn ˈlɑːdən/ (Arabic: أسامة بن محمد بن عوض بن لادن, Usāmah bin Muḥammad bin ʿAwaḍ bin Lādin; March 10, 1957 – May 2, 2011), also rendered Usama bin Ladin, was a founder of the pan-Islamic militant organization al-Qaeda. He was a Saudi Arabian until 1994 (stateless thereafter), a member of the wealthy bin Laden family, and an ethnic Yemeni Kindite.
Bin Laden's father was Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a Saudi millionaire from Hadhramaut, Yemen and the founder of the construction company, Saudi Binladin Group. His mother, Alia Ghanem, was from a secular middle-class family based in Latakia, Syria. He was born in Saudi Arabia and studied at university in the country until 1979, when he joined Mujahideen forces in Pakistan fighting against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. He helped to fund the Mujahideen by funneling arms, money and fighters from the Arab world into Afghanistan, and gained popularity among many Arabs. In 1988, he formed al-Qaeda. He was banished from Saudi Arabia in 1992, and shifted his base to Sudan, until U.S. pressure forced him to leave Sudan in 1996. After establishing a new base in Afghanistan, he declared a war against the United States, initiating a series of bombings and related attacks. Bin Laden was on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) lists of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and Most Wanted Terrorists for his involvement in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings. Read more...- Islamism is a concept whose meaning has been debated in both public and academic contexts. The term can refer to diverse forms of social and political activism advocating that public and political life should be guided by Islamic principles or more specifically to movements which call for full implementation of sharia. It is commonly used interchangeably with the terms political Islam or Islamic fundamentalism. In academic usage, the term Islamism does not specify what vision of "Islamic order" or sharia are being advocated, or how their advocates intend to bring them about. In Western mass media it tends to refer to groups whose aim is to establish a sharia-based Islamic state, often with implication of violent tactics and human rights violations, and has acquired connotations of political extremism. In the Muslim world, the term has positive connotations among its proponents.
Different currents of Islamist thought include advocating a "revolutionary" strategy of Islamizing society through exercise of state power, and alternately a "reformist" strategy to re-Islamizing society through grass-roots social and political activism. Islamists may emphasize the implementation of sharia (Islamic law); pan-Islamic political unity, including an Islamic state; or selective removal of non-Muslim, particularly Western military, economic, political, social, or cultural influences in the Muslim world that they believe to be incompatible with Islam. Read more...
The Philippines (/ˈfɪləpiːnz/ (
listen) FIL-ə-peenz; Filipino: Pilipinas [ˌpɪlɪˈpinɐs] or Filipinas [ˌfɪlɪˈpinɐs]), officially the Republic of the Philippines (Filipino: Republika ng Pilipinas), is an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Situated in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of about 7,641 islands that are categorized broadly under three main geographical divisions from north to south: Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. The capital city of the Philippines is Manila and the most populous city is Quezon City, both part of Metro Manila. Bounded by the South China Sea on the west, the Philippine Sea on the east and the Celebes Sea on the southwest, the Philippines shares maritime borders with Taiwan to the north, Vietnam to the west, Palau to the east and Malaysia and Indonesia to the south.
The Philippines' location on the Pacific Ring of Fire and close to the equator makes the Philippines prone to earthquakes and typhoons, but also endows it with abundant natural resources and some of the world's greatest biodiversity. The Philippines has an area of 300,000 km2 (120,000 sq mi), according to the Philippines Statistical Authority and the WorldBank and, as of 2015, had a population of at least 100 million. , it was the eighth-most populated country in Asia and the 12th most populated country in the world. Approximately 10 million additional Filipinos lived overseas, comprising one of the world's largest diasporas. Multiple ethnicities and cultures are found throughout the islands. In prehistoric times, Negritos were some of the archipelago's earliest inhabitants. They were followed by successive waves of Austronesian peoples. Exchanges with Chinese, Malay, and Indian nations occurred. Then, various competing maritime states were established under the rule of datus, rajahs, sultans or lakans. Read more...- Cage, formerly Cageprisoners Ltd, sometimes styled as "CAGE", is a London-based advocacy organisation which aims "to empower communities impacted by the War on Terror". The organisation says it "highlights and campaigns against state policies, developed as part of the War on Terror, striving for a world free from oppression and injustice". The organisation was formed to raise awareness of the plight of the detainees held at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere and has worked closely with former detainees held by the United States and campaigns on behalf of current detainees held without trial.
Its outreach director, Moazzam Begg, is a former Guantánamo Bay detainee who was released without charge in 2005. Read more...
Ethiopia (/ˌiːθiˈoʊpiə/; Amharic: ኢትዮጵያ, ʾĪtyōṗṗyā,
listen (help·info)), officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (የኢትዮጵያ ፌዴራላዊ ዲሞክራሲያዊ ሪፐብሊክ, yeʾĪtiyoṗṗya Fēdēralawī Dēmokirasīyawī Rīpebilīk
listen (help·info)), is a country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Sudan and South Sudan to the west, and Kenya to the south. With over 102 million inhabitants, Ethiopia is the most populous landlocked country in the world and the second-most populous nation on the African continent. It occupies a total area of 1,100,000 square kilometres (420,000 sq mi), and its capital and largest city is Addis Ababa.
Some of the oldest skeletal evidence for anatomically modern humans has been found in Ethiopia. It is widely considered as the region from which modern humans first set out for the Middle East and places beyond. According to linguists, the first Afroasiatic-speaking populations settled in the Horn region during the ensuing Neolithic era. Tracing its roots to the 2nd millennium BC, Ethiopia's governmental system was a monarchy for most of its history. In the first centuries AD, the Kingdom of Aksum maintained a unified civilization in the region, followed by the Ethiopian Empire circa 1137. During the late 19th-century Scramble for Africa, Ethiopia was one of two nations to retain its sovereignty from long-term colonialism by a European colonial power. Many newly-independent nations on the continent subsequently adopted its flag colours. The country was occupied by Italy in 1936 and became Italian Ethiopia (part of the Italian East Africa) until 1941. Ethiopia was also the first independent member from Africa of the 20th-century League of Nations and the United Nations. In 1974, the Ethiopian monarchy under Haile Selassie was overthrown by the Derg, a communist military government backed by the Soviet Union. In 1987, the Derg established the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, but it was overthrown in 1991 by the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, which has been the ruling political coalition since. Read more...
The Black Standard of ISIL, which was adopted by Abu Sayyaf
Abu Sayyaf (/ˈɑːbuːsɑːˈjɑːf/ (
listen); Arabic: جماعة أبو سياف; Jamāʿat Abū Sayyāf, ASG; Filipino: Grupong Abu Sayyaf), unofficially known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – Philippines Province, is a Jihadist militant and pirate group that follows the Wahhabi doctrine of Sunni Islam. It is based in and around Jolo and Basilan islands in the southwestern part of the Philippines, where for more than four decades, Moro groups have been engaged in an insurgency seeking to make the province independent. The group is considered violent and was responsible for the Philippines' worst terrorist attack, the bombing of Superferry 14 in 2004, which killed 116 people. The name of the group is derived from the Arabic abu (Arabic: أبو) ("father of"), and sayyaf (Arabic: سيّاف) ("swordsmith"). As of 2012, the group was estimated to have between 200 and 400 members, down from 1,250 in 2000. They use mostly improvised explosive devices, mortars and automatic rifles.
Since its inception in 1991, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and extortion. They have been involved in criminal activities, including kidnapping, rape, child sexual assault, forced marriage, drive-by shootings, extortion and drug trafficking. The goals of the group "appear to have alternated over time between criminal objectives and a more ideological intent". Read more...
The Iraq War was a protracted armed conflict that began in 2003 with the invasion of Iraq by a United States-led coalition that overthrew the government of Saddam Hussein. The conflict continued for much of the next decade as an insurgency emerged to oppose the occupying forces and the post-invasion Iraqi government. An estimated 151,000 to 600,000 or more Iraqis were killed in the first 3–4 years of conflict. The U.S. became re-involved in 2014 at the head of a new coalition; the insurgency and many dimensions of the civil armed conflict continue. The invasion occurred as part of a declared war against international terrorism and its sponsors under the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush following the September 11 terrorist attacks.
The invasion began on 20 March 2003, with the U.S., joined by the United Kingdom and several coalition allies, launching a "shock and awe" bombing campaign. Iraqi forces were quickly overwhelmed as U.S. forces swept through the country. The invasion led to the collapse of the Ba'athist government; Saddam was captured during Operation Red Dawn in December of that same year and executed by a military court three years later. However, the power vacuum following Saddam's demise and the mismanagement of the occupation led to widespread sectarian violence between Shias and Sunnis, as well as a lengthy insurgency against U.S. and coalition forces. Many violent insurgent groups were supported by Iran and al-Qaeda in Iraq. The United States responded with a troop surge in 2007. The winding down of U.S. involvement in Iraq accelerated under President Barack Obama. The U.S. formally withdrew all combat troops from Iraq by December 2011. Read more...
The then-U.S. Ambassador to Georgia John F. Tefft addresses the Georgian graduates of the GSSOP II Program. June 17, 2007.
The Georgia Sustainment and Stability Operations Program (GSSOP) was a security assistance program designed to create an increased capability in the Georgian military to support Operation Iraqi Freedom stability missions. Launched in January 2005, GSSOP was also designed to help solidify the progress made during the Georgia Train and Equip Program (GTEP) of 2002–2004 and continue to assist in the implementation of western standards in the Georgian armed forces.
The first phase of the program (GSSOP-I) lasted about 18 months and cost approximately $60 million. It ended in October 2006 to be succeeded by GSSOP-II, which lasted until June 2007. The training was conducted, primarily at the Krtsanisi National Training Centre near Tbilisi, by the United States Army Special Forces and United States Marine Corps Forces, Europe. The beneficiaries were the 22nd, 23rd, 31st, 32nd and 33rd Light Infantry Battalions, logistic battalions of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Infantry Brigades, the reconnaissance companies of the 2nd and 3rd Infantry Brigades, communication companies of the 2nd and 3rd Brigades, and an independent military police company. Read more...
Operation Juniper Shield formerly known as Operation Enduring Freedom – Trans Sahara (OEF-TS) is the military operation conducted by the United States and partner nations in the Sahara/Sahel region of Africa, consisting of counterterrorism efforts and policing of arms and drug trafficking across central Africa. It is part of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). The other OEF mission in Africa is Operation Enduring Freedom – Horn of Africa (OEF-HOA).
The Congress approved $500 million for the Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Initiative (TSCTI) over six years to support countries involved in counterterrorism against alleged threats of al-Qaeda operating in African countries, primarily Algeria, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Nigeria, and Morocco. This program builds upon the former Pan Sahel Initiative (PSI), which concluded in December 2004 and focused on weapon and drug trafficking, as well as counterterrorism. TSCTI has both military and non-military components to it. OEF-TS is the military component of the program. Civil affairs elements include USAID educational efforts, airport security, Department of the Treasury, and State Department efforts. Read more...
Former President of Russia, Dmitri Medvedev, meets with FSB head, Alexander Bortnikov, in March 2009, to discuss the ending of the counter-terrorism operation in Chechnya.
The insurgency in the North Caucasus is a currently low-level armed conflict between Russia and militants associated with the Caucasus Emirate and, since June 2015, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) groups. It followed the official end of the decade-long Second Chechen War on 16 April 2009. It attracted people from the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and Central Asia, who then participated in the conflict, but volunteers from the North Caucasus are also fighting in Syria.
The insurgency has gone relatively dormant in recent years. During its peak, the violence was mostly concentrated in the North Caucasus republics of Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria. Occasional incidents happened in surrounding regions, like North Ossetia-Alania, Karachay-Cherkessia, Stavropol Krai and Volgograd Oblast. Read more...- The Moro conflict is an insurgency in the Mindanao region of the Philippines.
Due to marginalisation produced by continuous Resettlement Policy sustained at start of Mindanao and Sulu inclusion to the Philippine Commonwealth territory of 1935, by 1969, political tensions and open hostilities developed between the Government of the Philippines and Moro Muslim rebel groups. The developing Moro Insurgency was ultimately triggered by the Jabidah massacre, which saw the killing of 60 Filipino Muslim commandos on a planned operation to reclaim the eastern part of the Malaysian state of Sabah. In response, the University of the Philippines professor Nur Misuari established the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), an armed insurgent group that was committed to establishing an independent entity composed of Mindanao, Sulu, and Palawan. Over the successive years, the MNLF has splintered into several different groups including the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which wanted to establish an Islamic state within the Philippines. The Moro Insurgency is rooted in a long history of resistance by the Bangsamoro people against foreign rule, dating back to the American annexation of the Philippines in 1898 even as they are not part of Spain's Act of War. Since then, Moro resistance has persisted against the Philippine government. Read more...
President George W. Bush signs into law S. 3930, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, during a ceremony on October 17, 2006 in the East Room of the White House.
The United States Military Commissions Act of 2006, also known as HR-6166, was an Act of Congress signed by President George W. Bush on October 17, 2006. The Act's stated purpose was "to authorize trial by military commission for violations of the law of war, and for other purposes".
It was drafted following the Supreme Court's decision on Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006), which ruled that the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT), as established by the United States Department of Defense, were procedurally flawed and unconstitutional, and did not provide protections under the Geneva Conventions. It prohibited detainees who had been classified as enemy combatants or were awaiting hearings on their status from using habeas corpus to petition federal courts in challenges to their detention. All pending habeas corpus cases at the federal district court were stayed. Read more...
The Iraq War was a protracted armed conflict that began in 2003 with the invasion of Iraq by a United States-led coalition that overthrew the government of Saddam Hussein. The conflict continued for much of the next decade as an insurgency emerged to oppose the occupying forces and the post-invasion Iraqi government. An estimated 151,000 to 600,000 or more Iraqis were killed in the first 3–4 years of conflict. The U.S. became re-involved in 2014 at the head of a new coalition; the insurgency and many dimensions of the civil armed conflict continue. The invasion occurred as part of a declared war against international terrorism and its sponsors under the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush following the September 11 terrorist attacks.
The invasion began on 20 March 2003, with the U.S., joined by the United Kingdom and several coalition allies, launching a "shock and awe" bombing campaign. Iraqi forces were quickly overwhelmed as U.S. forces swept through the country. The invasion led to the collapse of the Ba'athist government; Saddam was captured during Operation Red Dawn in December of that same year and executed by a military court three years later. However, the power vacuum following Saddam's demise and the mismanagement of the occupation led to widespread sectarian violence between Shias and Sunnis, as well as a lengthy insurgency against U.S. and coalition forces. Many violent insurgent groups were supported by Iran and al-Qaeda in Iraq. The United States responded with a troop surge in 2007. The winding down of U.S. involvement in Iraq accelerated under President Barack Obama. The U.S. formally withdrew all combat troops from Iraq by December 2011. Read more...
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL /ˈaɪsəl/), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS /ˈaɪsɪs/), officially known as the Islamic State (IS) and by its Arabic language acronym Daesh (Arabic: داعش dāʿish, IPA: [ˈdaːʕɪʃ]), is a Salafi jihadist militant group and former unrecognised proto-state that follows a fundamentalist, Salafi doctrine of Sunni Islam. ISIL gained global prominence in early 2014 when it drove Iraqi government forces out of key cities in its Western Iraq offensive, followed by its capture of Mosul and the Sinjar massacre.
The group has been designated a terrorist organisation by the United Nations and many individual countries. ISIL is widely known for its videos of beheadings and other types of executions of both soldiers and civilians, including journalists and aid workers, and its destruction of cultural heritage sites. The United Nations holds ISIL responsible for human rights abuses and war crimes. ISIL also committed ethnic cleansing on an historic scale in northern Iraq. Read more...- Pakistan's role in the War on Terror is a widely discussed topic among policy-makers of various countries, political analysts and international delegates around the world. Pakistan has simultaneously received allegations of harbouring and aiding terrorists and commendation for its anti-terror efforts.
At least 65,000 people have been killed in Pakistan due to terror attacks since the beginning of the war on terror, while the economic losses have been measured at $120 billion. Since 2001, the country has also hosted millions of Afghan refugees who fled the war in Afghanistan. Read more...
Afghanistan (/æfˈɡænɪstæn,æfˈɡɑːnɪstɑːn/ (
listen); Pashto/Dari: افغانستان, Pashto: Afġānistān [avɣɒnisˈtɒn, ab-], Dari: Afġānestān [avɣɒnesˈtɒn]), officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located within south-central Asia. Afghanistan is bordered by Pakistan in the south and east; Iran in the west; Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan in the north; and in the far northeast, China. Its territory covers 652,000 square kilometers (252,000 sq mi) and much of it is covered by the Hindu Kush mountain range, which experience very cold winters. The north consists of fertile plains, whilst the south-west consists of deserts where temperatures can get very hot in summers. Kabul serves as the capital and its largest city.
Human habitation in Afghanistan dates back to the Middle Paleolithic Era, and the country's strategic location along the Silk Road connected it to the cultures of the Middle East and other parts of Asia. The land has historically been home to various peoples and has witnessed numerous military campaigns, including those by Alexander the Great, Mauryas, Muslim Arabs, Mongols, British, Soviet, and since 2001 by the United States with NATO-allied countries. It has been called "unconquerable" and nicknamed the "graveyard of empires". The land also served as the source from which the Kushans, Hephthalites, Samanids, Saffarids, Ghaznavids, Ghorids, Khaljis, Mughals, Hotaks, Durranis, and others have risen to form major empires. Read more...
The President's Surveillance Program (PSP) is a collection of secret intelligence activities authorized by the President of the United States George W. Bush after the September 11 attacks in 2001 as part of the War on Terrorism. Information collected under this program was protected within a Sensitive Compartmented Information security compartment codenamed STELLARWIND.
The last presidential authorization expired on February 1, 2007, but some of the collection activities were continued, first under the authority of the Protect America Act of 2007, passed in August of that year, and then under the FISA Amendments Act (FAA), which was enacted in July 2008. Read more...
A propaganda poster from the First Intifada
Terrorism, in some of its definitions, serves to communicate a message from terrorists to a target audience (TA). Symbols play an important role in this communication, through graphics that the organizations use to represent themselves, as well as the meaning and significance behind their choice of targets. Read more...- The USA PATRIOT Act is an Act of Congress signed into law by US President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001. With its ten-letter abbreviation (USA PATRIOT) expanded, the Act's full title is "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001". The abbreviation, as well as the full title, have been attributed to Chris Cylke, a former staffer on the House Judiciary Committee. For further information on the background of the legislation, see the history of the Patriot Act.
In response to the September 11 attacks and the 2001 anthrax attacks, Congress swiftly passed legislation to strengthen national security. On October 23, 2001, Republican Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner introduced H.R. 3162 incorporating provisions from a previously-sponsored House bill and a Senate bill also introduced earlier in the month. The next day, the Act passed the House by a vote of 357–66, with Democrats comprising the overwhelming portion of dissent. The three Republicans voting "no" were Robert Ney of Ohio, Butch Otter of Idaho, and Ron Paul of Texas. On October 25, the Act passed the Senate by a 98–1 vote, the only dissident being Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. Read more...
Iraq (/ɪˈræk/, /ɪˈrɑːk/ (
listen) or /aɪˈræk/; Arabic: العراق al-'Irāq; Kurdish: عێراق Eraq), officially known as the Republic of Iraq (Arabic: جُمُهورية العِراق ; Kurdish: کۆماری عێراق Komari Eraq), is a country in Western Asia, bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, Kuwait to the southeast, Saudi Arabia to the south, Jordan to the southwest and Syria to the west. The capital, and largest city, is Baghdad. Iraq is home to diverse ethnic groups including Arabs, Kurds, Assyrians, Turkmen, Shabakis, Yazidis, Armenians, Mandeans, Circassians and Kawliya. Around 95% of the country's 37 million citizens are Muslims, with Christianity, Yarsan, Yezidism and Mandeanism also present. The official languages of Iraq are Arabic and Kurdish.
Iraq has a coastline measuring 58 km (36 miles) on the northern Persian Gulf and encompasses the Mesopotamian Alluvial Plain, the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range and the eastern part of the Syrian Desert. Two major rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, run south through Iraq and into the Shatt al-Arab near the Persian Gulf. These rivers provide Iraq with significant amounts of fertile land. Read more...
Operation Linda Nchi (Swahili: Linda Nchi) was the Kenya Defence Forces military entry into southern Somalia. ("Protect the country"; The soldiers were in pursuit of Al-Shabaab militants that are alleged to have kidnapped several foreign tourists and aid workers inside Kenya. Read more...- Extrajudicial prisoners of the United States, in the context of the early twenty-first century War on Terrorism, refers to foreign nationals the United States detains outside of the legal process required within United States legal jurisdiction. In this context, the U.S. government is maintaining torture centers, called black sites, operated by both known and secret intelligence agencies. Such black sites were later confirmed by reports from journalists, investigations, and from men who had been imprisoned and tortured there, and later released after being tortured until the CIA was comfortable they had done nothing wrong, and had nothing to hide.
Of these prisoners being held by the U.S., some were suspected of being from the senior ranks of al Qaeda, referred to in U.S. military terms as "high value detainees." According to the Swiss senator Dick Marty's reports on Secret Detentions and Illegal Transfers of Detainees involving Council of Europe Member States, about a hundred persons had been kidnapped by the CIA on European territory and subsequently rendered to countries where they were tortured. Read more... - Since 2004, the United States government has attacked thousands of targets in Northwest Pakistan using unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) operated by the United States Air Force under the operational control of the Central Intelligence Agency's Special Activities Division. Most of these attacks are on targets in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas along the Afghan border in Northwest Pakistan.
These strikes began during the administration of United States President George W. Bush, and increased substantially under his successor Barack Obama. Some in the media have referred to the attacks as a "drone war". The George W. Bush administration officially denied the extent of its policy; in May 2013, the Obama administration acknowledged for the first time that four US citizens had been killed in the strikes. Read more... - Criticism of the War on Terror addresses the morals, ethics, efficiency, economics, as well as other issues surrounding the War on Terror. It also touches upon criticism against the phrase itself, which was branded as a misnomer. The notion of a "war" against "terrorism" has proven highly contentious, with critics charging that participating governments exploited it to pursue long-standing policy/military objectives, reduce civil liberties, and infringe upon human rights. It is argued that the term war is not appropriate in this context (as in War on Drugs), since there is no identifiable enemy and that it is unlikely international terrorism can be brought to an end by military means.
Other critics, such as Francis Fukuyama, note that "terrorism" is not an enemy, but a tactic: calling it a "war on terror" obscures differences between conflicts such as anti-occupation insurgents and international mujahideen. With a military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan and its associated collateral damage Shirley Williams maintains this increases resentment and terrorist threats against the West. Other criticism include United States hypocrisy, media induced hysteria, and that changes in American foreign and security policy have shifted world opinion against the US. Read more...
Operation Eagle Assist is a military operation that began following the September 11 attacks on October 9, 2001, after the North Atlantic Council's October 4 decision to operationalize Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. In total, 830 crew members from 13 NATO nations executed 360 operational sorties, totaling nearly 4300 hours, over the skies of the United States in NATO AWACS aircraft.
The decision to terminate what was NATO's first deployment "in the defense of one of its member countries" "was made on the basis of upgrades to the U.S. air defense posture, enhanced cooperation between U.S. civil and military authorities, and on mandatory evaluations of homeland security requirements." Read more...- Targeted 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.
The book begins with a discussion of targeted killing of non-combatants, followed by discussions of legalities, the rationale of self-defence, the choice of targets, and when and whether the ends can be used to justify the means. Several contributors defend targeting of non-combatants, while Jeremy Waldron discusses the morality associated with the tactic and argues against its use. Jeff McMahan identifies the problematic nature of targeted killing and emphasizes regulations for law enforcement to avoid abuse of process. Richard V. Meyer writes that any entity wishing to carry out targeted killing should first have to declare war on the targeted parties. Kevin H. Govern examines the elimination of Osama Bin Laden and identifies this killing as justified and the product of a rational decision-making process. In the final portion of the book, Fernando Tesón says that targeted killing is particularly justified against terrorists because they use tactics specifically designed to kill civilians. Read more...
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a sovereign country lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with a sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to its east, the English Channel to its south and the Celtic Sea to its south-south-west, giving it the 12th-longest coastline in the world. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland. With an area of 242,500 square kilometres (93,600 sq mi), the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world. It is also the 22nd-most populous country, with an estimated 66.0 million inhabitants in 2017.
The UK is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary democracy. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 1952, making her the longest-serving current head of state. The United Kingdom's capital and largest city is London, a global city and financial centre with an urban area population of 10.3 million. Other major urban areas in the UK include the conurbations centred on Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow and Liverpool. Read more...
The Insurgency in the Maghreb refers to Islamist militant and terrorist activity in the Maghreb and Sahel regions of North Africa since 2002. The conflict succeeded the conclusion of the Algerian Civil War as the militant group Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) allied itself with al-Qaeda to eventually become al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Algeria and other Maghreb states affected by the activity have been offered assistance in fighting extremist militants by the United States and the United Kingdom since 2007, when Operation Enduring Freedom – Trans Sahara began.
The Arab Spring in 2011 opened up for militant Islamists to put increasing pressure on governments and engage in full-scale warfare. In 2012 AQIM and Islamist allies captured the northern half of Mali, until being fought back less than a year later following a French-led foreign intervention, which was succeeded by the Sahel-wide Operation Barkhane. In Libya the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has been able to control some limited territory in the ongoing civil war since 2014, amid allegations of local collaboration between the otherwise rivalling AQIM and ISIL. Read more...- The unitary executive theory is a theory of American constitutional law holding that the President possesses the power to control the entire executive branch. The doctrine is rooted in Article Two of the United States Constitution, which vests "the executive power" of the United States in the President.
Although that general principle is widely accepted, there is disagreement about the strength and scope of the doctrine. It can be said that some favor a "strongly unitary" executive, while others favor a "weakly unitary" executive. The former group argue, for example, that Congress's power to interfere with intra-executive decision-making (such as firing executive branch officials) is limited, and that the President can control policy-making by all executive agencies within the limits set for those agencies by Congress. Still others agree that the Constitution requires a unitary executive, but believe this to be harmful, and propose its abolition by constitutional amendment. Read more...
The Iranian Revolution (Persian: انقلاب ایران, translit. Enqelāb-e Irān; also known as the Islamic Revolution or the 1979 Revolution) was a series of events involving the overthrow of the 2,500 years of continuous Persian monarchy under Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, who was supported by the United States, and eventual replacement with an Islamic republic under the Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the revolution, supported by various leftist and Islamist organizations and student movements.
Demonstrations against the Shah commenced in October 1977, developing into a campaign of civil resistance that included both secular and religious elements and which intensified in January 1978. Between August and December 1978, strikes and demonstrations paralyzed the country. The Shah left Iran for exile on 16 January 1979, as the last Persian monarch, leaving his duties to a regency council and Shapour Bakhtiar who was an opposition-based prime minister. Ayatollah Khomeini was invited back to Iran by the government, and returned to Tehran to a greeting by several million Iranians. The royal reign collapsed shortly after on 11 February when guerrillas and rebel troops overwhelmed troops loyal to the Shah in armed street fighting, bringing Khomeini to official power. Iran voted by national referendum to become an Islamic republic on 1 April 1979 and to formulate and approve a new theocratic-republican constitution whereby Khomeini became Supreme Leader of the country in December 1979. Read more...- "Enhanced interrogation techniques" or "enhanced interrogation" is a euphemism for the U.S. government's program of systematic torture of detainees by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and various components of the U.S. Armed Forces at black sites around the world, including Bagram, Guantanamo Bay, and Abu Ghraib, authorized by officials of the George W. Bush administration. Methods used included beating, binding in contorted stress positions, hooding, subjection to deafening noise, sleep disruption, sleep deprivation to the point of hallucination, deprivation of food, drink, and withholding medical care for wounds, as well as waterboarding, walling, sexual humiliation, subjection to extreme heat or extreme cold, confinement in small coffin-like boxes, and repeated slapping. Several detainees endured medically unnecessary "rectal rehydration", "rectal fluid resuscitation", and "rectal feeding". In addition to brutalizing detainees, there were threats to their families such as threats to harm children, and threats to sexually abuse or to cut the throat of detainees' mothers.
The number of detainees subjected to these methods has never been authoritatively established, nor how many died as a result of the interrogation regime, though this number is believed to be at least 100. The CIA admits to waterboarding three people implicated in the September 11 attacks: Abu Zubaydah, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and Mohammed al-Qahtani. A Senate Intelligence Committee found photos of a waterboard surrounded by buckets of water at the Salt Pit prison, where the CIA had claimed waterboarding was never used. Former guards and inmates at Guantánamo have said that deaths which the US military called suicides at the time, were in fact homicides under torture. No murder charges have been brought for these or for acknowledged torture related homicides at Abu Ghraib and at Bagram. Read more...
Operation Enduring Freedom – Horn of Africa (OEF-HOA) is the United States military operation to combat militant Islamism and piracy in the Horn of Africa. It is one component of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), which includes eight African states stretching from the far northeast of the continent to the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea in the west. The other OEF mission in Africa is known as Operation Enduring Freedom – Trans Sahara (OEF-TS), which, until the creation of the new United States Africa Command, was run from the United States European Command.
The Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) is the primary (but not sole) military component assigned to accomplish the objectives of the mission. The naval component is the multinational Combined Task Force 150 (CTF-150) which operates under the direction of the United States Fifth Fleet. Both of these organizations have been historically part of United States Central Command. In February 2007, United States President George W. Bush announced the establishment of the United States Africa Command which took over all of the area of operations of CJTF-HOA in October 2008. Read more...- A set of legal memoranda known as the "Torture Memos" were drafted by John Yoo as Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the United States and signed in August 2002 by Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee, head of the Office of Legal Counsel of the United States Department of Justice. They advised the Central Intelligence Agency, the United States Department of Defense, and the president on the use of enhanced interrogation techniques: mental and physical torment and coercion such as prolonged sleep deprivation, binding in stress positions, and waterboarding, and stated that such acts, widely regarded as torture, might be legally permissible under an expansive interpretation of presidential authority during the "War on Terror".
Following accounts of the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq, one of the memos was leaked to the press in June 2004. Jack Goldsmith, then head of the Office of Legal Counsel, had already withdrawn the Yoo memos and advised agencies not to rely on them. After Goldsmith was forced to resign because of his objections, Attorney General Ashcroft issued a one paragraph opinion re-authorizing the use of torture. Then in December 2004, another head of OLC reaffirmed the original legal opinions. Read more... - Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (Arabic: حزب المجاھدین, Ḥizb al-Mujāhidīn, meaning "Party of Holy Warriors" or "Party of Mujahideen") is a Kashmiri separatist militant organization founded by Muhammad Ahsan Dar in September 1989. The group has been designated as a terrorist group by India, the European Union and the United States, active in the state of Jammu and Kashmir since 1989. The current commander of the group is Sayeed Salahudeen.
Holding a pro-Pakistan ideology, the group is considered to be the largest indigenous militant group in Kashmir. In 1990 Muhammad Ahsan Dar had more than 10,000 armed men under his command. The group was designated as a foreign terrorist organisation by the United States State Department on 16 August 2017. Read more...
Bush's "axis of evil" comprised Iran, Iraq, and North Korea (red). "Beyond the Axis of Evil" comprised Cuba, Libya, and Syria (orange). The United States is blue.
The phrase "axis of evil" was first used by U.S. President George W. Bush in his State of the Union address on January 29, 2002, and often repeated throughout his presidency, to describe foreign governments that, during his administration, sponsored terrorism and sought weapons of mass destruction. The notion of such an axis was used to pinpoint these common enemies of the United States and rally the American populace in support of the War on Terror. Read more...- The Al-Qaeda insurgency in Yemen refers to the armed conflict between the Yemeni government with United States assistance, and al-Qaeda-affiliated cells. The strife is often categorized as a sub-conflict in the greater Global War on Terror.
Government crackdown against al-Qaeda cells began in 2001, and reached an escalation point on January 14, 2010, when Yemen declared open war on al-Qaeda. In addition to battling al Qaeda across several provinces, Yemen is also contending with Shia insurgency in the north and militant separatists in the south. Fighting with al-Qaeda escalated during the course of the 2011 Yemeni revolution, with Jihadists seizing most of the Abyan Governorate and declaring it an Emirate at the close of March. A second wave of violence occurred throughout early 2012, with militants claiming territory across the southwest amid heavy combat with government forces. Read more...
The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was a NATO-led security mission in Afghanistan, established by the United Nations Security Council in December 2001 by Resolution 1386, as envisaged by the Bonn Agreement. Its main purpose was to train the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) and assist Afghanistan in rebuilding key government institutions, but was also engaged in the 2001–present war with the Taliban insurgency.
ISAF was initially charged with securing Kabul and the surrounding areas from the Taliban, al Qaeda and factional warlords, to allow for the establishment of the Afghan Transitional Administration headed by Hamid Karzai. In October 2003, the UN Security Council authorized the expansion of the ISAF mission throughout Afghanistan, and ISAF subsequently expanded the mission in four main stages over the whole of the country. From 2006 to 2011, ISAF had become increasingly involved in more intensive combat operations in southern and eastern Afghanistan. Read more...- Terrorism in Saudi Arabia has formerly been attributed to Islamic extremists. Their targets included foreign civilians— Westerners affiliated with its oil-based economy—as well as Saudi Arabian civilians and security forces. Anti-Western attacks have occurred in Saudi Arabia dating back to 1995. Saudi Arabia itself has been accused of funding terrorism in other countries, including Syria. Read more...
The Disposition Matrix, informally known as a kill list, is a database of information for tracking, capturing, rendering, or killing suspected enemies of the United States. Developed by the Obama administration beginning in 2010, it goes beyond existing kill lists and is intended to become a permanent fixture of U.S. policy. The process determining criteria for killing is not public and was heavily shaped by National Counterterrorism Director and former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John O. Brennan.
Though White House, National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), and CIA spokespeople have declined to comment on the database, officials have stated privately that kill lists will expand "for at least another decade", if not indefinitely. One official stated "it's a necessary part of what we do". Paul R. Pillar, the former deputy director of the CIA's counterterrorism center, has stated, "We are looking at something that is potentially indefinite". Read more...
Pakistan (Urdu: پاکِستان), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (Urdu: اِسلامیجمہوریہ پاکِستان), is a country in South Asia. It is the sixth-most populous country with a population exceeding 212,742,631 people. In area, it is the 33rd-largest country, spanning 881,913 square kilometres (340,509 square miles). Pakistan has a 1,046-kilometre (650-mile) coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by India to the east, Afghanistan to the west, Iran to the southwest, and China in the far northeast. It is separated narrowly from Tajikistan by Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor in the northwest, and also shares a maritime border with Oman.
The territory that now constitutes Pakistan was the site of several ancient cultures and intertwined with the history of the broader Indian subcontinent. The ancient history involves the Neolithic site of Mehrgarh and the Bronze Age Indus Valley Civilisation, and was later home to kingdoms ruled by people of different faiths and cultures, including Hindus, Indo-Greeks, Muslims, Turco-Mongols, Afghans, and Sikhs. The area has been ruled by numerous empires and dynasties, including the Persian Achaemenid Empire, Alexander III of Macedon, the Seleucid Empire, the Indian Maurya Empire, the Gupta Empire, the Arab Umayyad Caliphate, the Delhi Sultanate, the Mongol Empire, the Mughal Empire, the Afghan Durrani Empire, the Sikh Empire (partially), and, most recently, the British Empire. Read more...- The Clash of Civilizations is a hypothesis that people's cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world. The American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington argued that future wars would be fought not between countries, but between cultures, and that Islamic extremism would become the biggest threat to world peace. It was proposed in a 1992 lecture at the American Enterprise Institute, which was then developed in a 1993 Foreign Affairs article titled "The Clash of Civilizations?", in response to his former student Francis Fukuyama's 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man. Huntington later expanded his thesis in a 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.
The phrase itself was earlier used by Albert Camus in 1946, by Girilal Jain in his analysis of the Ayodhya dispute in 1988, by Bernard Lewis in an article in the September 1990 issue of The Atlantic Monthly titled "The Roots of Muslim Rage" and by Mahdi El Mandjra in his book "La première guerre civilisationnelle" published in 1992. Even earlier, the phrase appears in a 1926 book regarding the Middle East by Basil Mathews: Young Islam on Trek: A Study in the Clash of Civilizations (p. 196). This expression derives from "clash of cultures", already used during the colonial period and the Belle Époque. Read more...
A not unusual five-country NATO multinational fleet (namely the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, France, and the Netherlands) during Operation Enduring Freedom in the Oman Sea. In four descending columns, from left to right: MM Maestrale (F 570), FS De Grasse (D 612); USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74), FS Charles De Gaulle (R 91), FS Surcouf (F 711); USS Port Royal (CG-73), HMS Ocean (L 12), USS John F. Kennedy (CV 67), HNLMS Van Amstel (F 831); and MM Durand de la Penne (D 560).
Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, several nations took on Al-Qaeda and the Taliban during Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in Afghanistan. OEF was the initial combat operations starting on 7 October 2001, in the wake of the 11 September attacks on the United States, and during 2002 and 2003.
This list covers US and coalition forces and other forms of support for OEF from October 2001. Some nations' operations in Afghanistan continued as part of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). For example, United States troops are deployed both in the OEF and ISAF. Read more...- Targeted 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.
Melzer holds a PhD degree in law from University of Zürich. His dissertation dealt with targeted killing and the book updates and revises that work. He had earlier written on the subject for Yearbook of Humanitarian International Law in 2006. Melzer serves as a legal advisor for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). He has lectured at the Master-level at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. Read more...
The 2007 Lebanon conflict began when fighting broke out between Fatah al-Islam, an Islamist militant organization, and the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) on May 20, 2007 in Nahr al-Bared, an UNRWA Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli.
It was the most severe internal fighting since Lebanon's 1975–90 civil war. The conflict revolved mostly around the siege of Nahr el-Bared, but minor clashes also occurred in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp in southern Lebanon and several terrorist bombings took place in and around Lebanon's capital, Beirut. Fighting ended in September 2007. Read more...- The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan describes the draw down of United States Armed Forces in the Afghanistan war and the plans after its post-2014 presence when most combat troops had left Afghanistan at the end of 2014.
NATO had planned on maintaining 13,000 troops including 9,800 Americans in an advisory and counter-terrorism capacity in Afghanistan during the 2015 phase of the War in Afghanistan and they were expected to maintain a presence inside Afghanistan until well after the end of 2016. In July 2016, in light of the deteriorating security conditions, the US postponed the withdrawal until December 2016 and decided to maintain a force of 8,400 troops in 4 garrisons (Kabul, Kandahar, Bagram and Jalalabad) indefinitely due to Taliban resurgence attempt after the Battle of Kunduz. The withdrawal was completed in December 2016 leaving behind 8,400 troops. Read more...
al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (Arabic: تنظيم القاعدة في جزيرة العرب, translit. Tanẓīm al-Qā‘idah fī Jazīrat al-‘Arab, lit. 'al-Qaeda Organization in the Arabian Peninsula' or تنظيم قاعدة الجهاد في جزيرة العرب, Tanẓīm Qā‘idat al-Jihād fī Jazīrat al-‘Arab, "Organization of Jihad's Base in the Arabian Peninsula"), or AQAP, also known as Ansar al-Sharia in Yemen (Arabic: جماعة أنصار الشريعة, Jamā‘at Anṣār ash-Sharī‘ah, "Group of the Helpers of the Sharia"), is a militant Islamist organization, primarily active in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. It was named for al-Qaeda, and states it is subordinate to that group and its now-deceased leader Osama bin Laden, a Saudi citizen of Yemeni heritage. It is considered the most active of al-Qaeda's branches, or "franchises," that emerged due to weakening central leadership. The U.S government believes AQAP to be the most dangerous al-Qaeda branch. The group established an emirate during the 2011 Yemeni Revolution.
The group has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United Nations and several countries and international organizations. Since 2015, hundreds of AQAP members were recruited by militias backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in the war against the Houthis. Read more...- Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (Arabic: حركة الجهاد الإسلامي, Ḥarkat al-Jihād al-Islāmiyah, meaning "Islamic Jihad Movement", HuJI) is an Islamic fundamentalist organisation most active in South Asian countries of Pakistan and Bangladesh since the early 1990s. It was banned in Bangladesh in 2005. The operational commander of HuJI, Ilyas Kashmiri, was killed in a US drone strike using a Predator drone in South Waziristan on 4 June 2011. He was linked to the 13 February 2010 bombing of a German bakery in Pune. A statement was released soon after the attack which claimed to be from Kashmiri; it threatened other cities and major sporting events in India. A local Taliban commander named Shah Sahib was named as Kashmiri's successor. Read more...
"State Sponsors of Terrorism" is a designation applied by the United States Department of State to countries which the Department alleges to have "repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism". Inclusion on the list imposes strict unilateral sanctions.
The countries currently on the list are Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria. Read more...- The War in Afghanistan (or the U.S. War in Afghanistan; code named Operation Enduring Freedom – Afghanistan (2001–2014) and Operation Freedom's Sentinel (2015–present) followed the United States invasion of Afghanistan of 7 October 2001. The U.S. was supported initially by the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia and later by a coalition of over 40 countries, including all NATO members. The war's public aims were to dismantle al-Qaeda and to deny it a safe base of operations in Afghanistan by removing the Taliban from power. The War in Afghanistan is the second longest war in United States history, behind the Vietnam War.
Following the September 11 attacks in 2001 on the U.S., which President George W. Bush blamed on Osama bin Laden who was living or hiding in Afghanistan, President Bush demanded that the Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden and expel al-Qaeda; bin Laden had already been wanted by the U.S. since 1998. The Taliban declined to extradite him unless they were provided evidence of his involvement in the September 11 attacks and also declined demands to extradite others on the same grounds. The U.S. dismissed the request for evidence as a delaying tactic, and on 7 October 2001 launched Operation Enduring Freedom with the United Kingdom. The two were later joined by other forces, including the Northern Alliance which had been fighting the Taliban in the ongoing civil war since 1996. In December 2001, the United Nations Security Council established the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), to assist the Afghan interim authorities with securing Kabul. At the Bonn Conference the same month, Hamid Karzai was selected to head the Afghan Interim Administration, which after a 2002 loya jirga (grand assembly) in Kabul became the Afghan Transitional Administration. In the popular elections of 2004, Karzai was elected president of the country, now named the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Read more...
An unlawful combatant, illegal combatant or unprivileged combatant/belligerent is a person who directly engages in armed conflict in violation of the laws of war. An unlawful combatant may be detained or prosecuted under the domestic law of the detaining state for such action, subject to international treaties on justice and human rights.
The Geneva Conventions apply in wars between two or more sovereign states. Article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention states that the status of a detainee may be determined by a "competent tribunal". Until such time, he must be treated as a prisoner of war. After a "competent tribunal" has determined that an individual detainee is an unlawful combatant, the "detaining power" may choose to accord the detained unlawful combatant the rights and privileges of a prisoner of war as described in the Third Geneva Convention, but is not required to do so. An unlawful combatant who is not a national of a neutral state, and who is not a national of a co-belligerent state, retains rights and privileges under the Fourth Geneva Convention so that he must be "treated with humanity and, in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial". Read more...
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Selected images
Child killed by a car bomb in Kirkuk, July 2011
A British C-130J Hercules aircraft launches flare countermeasures before being the first coalition aircraft to land on the newly reopened military runway at Baghdad International Airport
John Walker Lindh was captured as an enemy combatant during the United States' 2001 invasion of Afghanistan
Campaign streamer awarded to units who have participated in Operation Enduring Freedom
U.S. Special Forces soldier and infantrymen of the Philippine Army
An AV-8B Harrier takes off from the flight deck of USS Wasp during Operation Odyssey Lightning, August 8, 2016.
The United Kingdom is the second largest contributor of troops in Afghanistan
- Other allies involved in major operations
Major terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda and affiliated groups:1. 1998 United States embassy bombings • 2. 11 September 2001 attacks • 3. Bali bombings 2002• 4. Madrid bombings 2004 • 5. London bombings 2005 • 6. Mumbai attacks 2008
U.S. Army soldier of the 10th Mountain Division in Nuristan Province, June 2007
A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement helicopter patrols the airspace over New York City
Tomahawk missiles being fired from USS Philippine Sea and USS Arleigh Burke at IS targets in Syria
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