Between 9/11 and 10/7
How terrorism has evolved and become more vicious and personal since 2001
The 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks compelled the world to remember one of history’s worst terrorist atrocities, an event that fundamentally altered the Middle East and set off a global chain of consequences that continues today. The attacks were significant not only for their unconscionable use of civilian airliners as weapons, but also for its scale as terrorists hijacked four planes carrying more than 250 passengers and crew. Three struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 people. The devastation might have been even greater without the bravery of the passengers aboard United Flight 93, who sacrificed their lives to thwart the terrorists’ plans. The horror of what occurred, seared into the memories of those who witnessed it, can obscure how much worse the attacks might have been. The World Trade Center alone could accommodate as many as 50,000 office workers on a typical workday. Had the attacks occurred later, the death toll could have been far higher. The world had entered an era of “no limits” terrorism.
As shocking as the 9/11 attacks were, terrorism and aircraft hijackings originating in the Middle East were not new. Palestinian terrorist organizations, driven by secular nationalism, pan-Arabism, and Marxist-leftist ideologies prevalent during the Cold War conducted a series of hijackings and aircraft bombings between 1968 and 1996 that killed about 370 people, including 83 hostages. These often-dramatic attacks involved diverting European and Israeli airliners to Middle Eastern capitals, where hijackers often issued demands, mostly centered on the release of prisoners. Many of these sagas ended with the hijackers’ deaths and the hostages’ release. Significantly, these attacks were “limited” in scope. Even when terrorists bombed airliners, they could anticipate the likely scale of casualties before planting the explosives.
The rise of al-Qaeda in the 1990s changed the nature of terrorism. Gone were the demands for the release of prisoners held in Israeli and Europeans jails. Fueled by Sunni jihadism, a counterpart to the Shi’ite jihadism unleashed by Iran’s 1979 revolution, al-Qaeda pursued one singular goal – to kill as many people as possible without limits using suicide bombers. Al-Qaeda sought “spectacular attacks” designed to shake the foundations of the West. Its operations escalated from the failed 1993 attempt to destroy the World Trade Center to the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people, and the attack on the USS Cole off Yemen, which killed 17 U.S. sailors. This campaign culminated in the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Despite the appalling nature of these attacks, the average Western citizens’ concern about mass terrorism did not significantly change. As al-Qaeda favored “spectacular attacks” including the subsequent Madrid and London train bombings in 2004 and 2005 which killed nearly 250 people, increased caution was only required when flying and engaging in other forms of mass travel as well as when visiting major metropolitan cities like New York, London & Washington. There was little concern regarding terrorism in everyday life and local cities and towns. That all changed with the rise of ISIS.
ISIS, an acronym for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria splintered from al-Qaeda in the wake of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the Syrian civil war which began in 2011. ISIS declared a “caliphate” in 2014 and captured vast swaths of territory in both countries.
ISIS operated on two main fronts. As a terrorist army, where it engaged in mass atrocities including executions of civilians, torture, persecution, and enslavement of religious minorities. In particular ISIS targeted the Yazidi community in northern Iraq which resulted in the killing of thousands and the subjugation of Yazidi women and children to sexual slavery and forced conversions. These atrocities, which were widely broadcast on social media, attracted tens of thousands of “foreign fighters” from over 86 countries and almost certainly acted as a template for the horrifying assault on Israeli civilians by Hamas on October 7, 2023.
It was ISIS in its second capacity, however, where it had its most long-term impact. ISIS functioned as in inspiration for radicalization worldwide which sparked attacks throughout Europe and the United States. Unlike al-Qaeda, which favored large attacks on major cities and symbols of Western power, ISIS encouraged its followers to take the closest weapon to hand and attack wherever they could. Such attacks began with a string of coordinated shootings and bombings in Paris which included a suicide bombing at a soccer game, drive by shootings at cafés and an armed assault at Bataclan concert hall in which 130 people were massacred in November 2015. There were multiple car/truck attacks throughout Europe in Germany, Sweden and Spain in the ensuing years including a grotesque assault on Bastille Day in Nice, France where a terrorist drove a cargo truck through a crowd enjoying fireworks which killed 86 in 2016. In the United States, ISIS inspired terrorist attacks at a holiday party in San Bernadino County which took the lives of 14 and at a gay nightclub in Orlando, FL in which 49 people were gunned down. Gone was the sense of security that terrorism occurred “over there” or “someplace else.” In the age of social media radicalization and inspiration where ISIS members were encouraging assaults on Western targets via tweets and direct messages, terrorism could literally occur anywhere.
All of which leads to the mass terrorist atrocity perpetuated by Hamas on Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023. Like ISIS, Hamas amassed a vast terrorist army. Like ISIS, Hamas invaded Israeli civilian towns and Kibbutzim, not for the purpose of conquest, but for the purpose of engaging in mass murder, torture, sexual assault, and the taking of hostages. There were no military objectives to the Hamas attack. No attempt to conquer territory and issue demands. The purpose of the assault was to terrorize the civilian population and to kill as many people as possible. Palestinian terrorism in various forms has existed since before Israel’s founding, but nothing approached the atrocities of October 7, 2023. Terrorism might strike an airliner, bus, nightclub, checkpoint, restaurant, or even a school, yet people could still retreat to their homes and feel safe among neighbors they trusted. On October 7, terrorists, including, in some cases, individuals known to have worked in these communities, entered homes to commit atrocities. Mothers and daughters were raped. Fathers and sons were dismembered. Entire families were burned alive. At the Supernova music festival, a scene of horrific sexual assaults, over 375 were murdered, nearly three times the number killed at the Bataclan by ISIS.
The Hamas attacks was the apogee of the evolution of terrorism since 2001. Whereas once it appeared possible that one could “negotiate” with terrorists who had limited goals and planned to survive their own attacks, terrorism morphed into suicidal mass attacks against major targets in which the terrorists planned for none to survive. This latest iteration of jihadist terrorism is even more personal. The movement of terrorism into more private and intimate spaces has led to an increased sense of loss of security by the general public and increased suspicion of neighbors. In Europe, there is growing support for anti-immigrant political parties as the result of the continual terrorist threats from immigration and migration from the Middle East. In Israel, the shocking nature of the attacks has made Israelis even more skeptical of the possibility of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip while there is any chance that Hamas remains in control in the Gaza Strip. For peace to survive, this new wave of terrorism must be decisively defeated.
