Terrorist Attacks Against the United States

Terrorism is the threatened or actual use of illegal force and violence by a non-state actor to attain a political, economic, religious, or social goal through fear, coercion, or intimidation. Because terrorism can be difficult to identify, international organizations concerned with terrorism, including the Institute for Economics & Peace and the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), have developed several criteria that must be met for an incident to be considered terrorism:

1. The incident must be intentional, the result of a conscious calculation on the part of a perpetrator.

2. The incident must entail some level of violence or threat of violence, including property damage as well as violence against people.

3. Acts of terrorism conducted by one state against another state are not included.

In addition, two of these three criteria must also be met in order to be considered an act of terrorism:

1. The violent act was aimed at attaining a political, economic, religious, or social goal.

2. The violent act included evidence of an intention to coerce, intimidate, or convey some other message to a larger audience other than to the immediate victims.

3. The violent act was outside the precepts of international humanitarian law.

The term terror (from the Latin “to frighten”) was first applied to the period of the French Revolution between March 1793 and July 1794, known as the Reign of Terror. In the name of protecting the principles of the revolution, the Committee of Public Safety, headed by Maximilien Robespierre, guillotined several thousand of its political opponents. In modern times, the term terrorism has been applied to actions by groups operating outside government rather than to groups of official government agencies, although some governments provide military and financial support for terrorists.

Terrorism differs from assassination and other acts of political violence in that attacks are aimed at ordinary people rather than at military targets or political leaders. Other types of military action can result in civilian deaths—bombs can go astray, targets can be misidentified, or an enemy’s military equipment can be hidden in civilian buildings—but average individuals are unintended victims rather than principal targets in most conflicts. Terrorists consider all citizens of a country responsible for government actions and policies that they oppose, so they view civilians as legitimate targets.

September 11, 2001, Attacks

The most dramatic terrorist attacks against the United States occurred on September 11, 2001 (Figure 8-46). The tallest buildings in the United States, the 110-story twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, were destroyed, and the Pentagon, near Washington, D.C., was damaged. The attacks resulted in 2,977 civilian fatalities:

• 88 (77 passengers and 11 crew members) on American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into World Trade Center Tower 1 (North Tower).

• 60 (51 passengers and 9 crew members) on United Airlines Flight 175, which crashed into World Trade Center Tower 2 (South Tower).

• 2,605 on the ground at the World Trade Center.

• 59 (53 passengers and 6 crew members) on American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon.

• 125 on the ground at the Pentagon.

• 40 (33 passengers and 7 crew members) on United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers fought with terrorists on board, preventing an attack on another Washington, D.C., target.

Terrorist Attack on the World Trade Center, September 11, 2001

(a) At 9:03 a.m., United Flight 175 approaches World Trade Center Tower 2 and (b) crashes into it. Tower 1 is already burning from the crash of American Flight 11 at 8:45 a.m.

In addition, 19 terrorists died on the four hijacked airplanes. Responsible or implicated in most of the anti-U.S. terrorism during the 1990s, as well as the September 11, 2001, attack, was the al-Qaeda network.

Pause & Reflect 8.3.5

How has travel in the United States been affected by the 9/11 attacks?

Other Terrorist Attacks Against Americans

Americans have suffered numerous terrorist attacks (Figure 8-47). Other than the 2001 World Trade Center attack, these are the terrorist attacks that have killed the most Americans since 1988:

• Lockerbie, Scotland, 1988. A bomb destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 en route from London to New York, killing 243 passengers, 16 crew, and 11 on the ground in the town of Lockerbie. The only person convicted for the attack was Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. In 2003, Libya’s long-time leader Muammar al-Gaddafi renounced terrorism, accepted responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing, and paid compensation to the families of the victims. Brutal attacks on Libyan protestors in 2011 again brought most other states of the world into active opposition to Gaddafi’s regime, which was ultimately overthrown. Gaddafi was captured and killed. Since then, Libya has been plunged into a civil war.

• Oklahoma City, 1995. A car bomb killed 168 and injured at least 680 in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. Timothy J. McVeigh was convicted and executed for the Oklahoma City bombing. For assisting McVeigh, Terry I. Nichols was convicted of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter but not executed. McVeigh claimed that his terrorist act was provoked by rage against the U.S. government for such actions as the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s 51-day siege of the Branch Davidian religious compound near Waco, Texas, culminating with an attack on April 19, 1993, that resulted in 80 deaths.

• Kenya and Tanzania, 1998. Truck bombs killed 213 in the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, and another 11 in the U.S. embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The bombings were ordered by al-Qaeda in retaliation for an alleged role played by the United States in capturing four al-Qaeda operatives in Albania. Twenty-one al-Qaeda operatives were indicted; eight each were captured and jailed, two died, and three were never captured.

• Orlando, 2016. A gunman killed 49 and injured 58 others in an attack in Pulse, a nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The suspect, Omar Mateen, was a U.S. citizen born in the United States. Mateen was killed at the nightclub, and the FBI was unable to establish a motive for the attack, such as possible links to terrorist organizations or because the nightclub was patronized primarily by the LGBTQ community.

Terrorist Attacks in the United States

The map shows terrorist attacks between 2009 and 2018 with at least 10 fatalities or injuries, plus three earlier attacks with especially high fatalities.