Osama bin Laden had made focusing on the US a high precedence of his al-Qaida terrorist organization. Al-Qaida interprets from Arabic as “the bottom” – a base that bin Laden hoped to make use of to affect Muslims around the globe to oppose Western influences and states and to ascertain fundamentalist Islamic regimes. Bin Laden’s motives have been rooted in his extremist interpretation of Islamic theology, resentment over U.S. overseas coverage within the Center East, and a want to overthrow the present world order.
The “base” was so-called because of it being a centralized, hierarchical organization that offered funding, coaching and logistical help to terrorism worldwide, together with for the so-called “Planes Operation” of Sept. 11, 2001.
New York Metropolis firefighters work on the World Commerce Heart after two hijacked planes crashed into the Twin Towers, Sept. 11, 2001, in New York.
Ron Agam/Getty Pictures
With the intention to embolden and help his group, bin Laden typically videotaped himself with messages geared toward his audience, established coaching facilities in Afghanistan, had an expansive funding community that included rich people, couriers, mosques and different advanced methods to raise funds.
Bin Laden, by means of the al-Qaida terrorist group, focused the US for almost a decade earlier than the 9/11 assaults in 2001, using this massive and expansive infrastructure. Whereas al-Qaida’s 1998 attacks against U.S. embassies in Africa and the 2000 attack against the U.S. Navy guided missile destroyer USS Cole have been profitable, the group’s largest operation was the Sept. 11, 2001, assaults in opposition to the World Commerce Heart in New York Metropolis, the Pentagon, and the thwarted assault on Washington, D.C., that ended with the crash of United Airways Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pa. – all of which included recruiting and coaching the 19 terrorist operatives, funding their journey and bills, and time.
It took bin Laden nearly two years to place collectively the assets and coaching essential for these assaults 24 years in the past – one thing that in the present day may very well be performed nearly immediately.
Bin Laden and the 9/11 assaults lacked one thing that present-day terrorists, criminals and violent extremists have prepared entry to: the web and, particularly, the darkish internet. After the 9/11 assaults, as the US was ramping as much as assault al-Qaida, “the bottom” and affiliate organizations started shifting to a extra decentralized and incentivized type of terrorism and violence.
Policemen and firemen run away from an enormous mud cloud because the World Commerce Heart’s Tower One collapses after terrorists crashed two hijacked planes into the dual towers, Sept. 11, 2001, in New York.
Jose Jimenez/primera Hora/Getty Pictures
Terrorists expanded their use of the web for a variety of actions, together with planning assaults, radicalization and recruitment, propaganda dissemination, and fundraising. Whereas the web facilitates covert planning by means of instruments like encrypted messages, it additionally serves as a platform for psychological warfare, spreading disinformation and pictures to incite worry. This on-line presence contains social media platforms used for propaganda, communication and recruitment, making a problem for governments and platforms alike to handle the unfold of extremist content material in hopes of stopping potential violence.
In a 2004 study , the US Institute of Peace mentioned that a whole lot of terrorist teams had migrated on-line, using a instrument meant for higher communication for occasionally nefarious functions. Almost 20 years later, a 2022 examine titled Terrorism and the internet: How dangerous is online radicalization? highlighted how on-line radicalization had turn out to be a transparent menace that may metastasize in darkish corners, typically unnoticed.
The principle use of the web by these terrorist teams – incentivizing and radicalizing supporters and stoking worry with propaganda – is one thing bin Laden would have needed to do with videotapes performed by the information. Likewise, the web has made fundraising a lot simpler with using on-line fee strategies, that are straightforward to arrange and tough to hint. And now, with the appearance of generative synthetic intelligence (AI), terrorists have yet one more instrument at their disposal.
In response to a U.S. Home of Representatives Committee on Homeland Safety listening to background advisory earlier this 12 months, “GenAI is a quickly rising expertise that may produce quite a few sorts of content material, akin to textual content, photographs, or audio, when prompted by a consumer. Overseas terrorist organizations are actively searching for methods to use GenAI to help a wide range of violent extremist ways, methods, and procedures, akin to utilizing AI-powered chatbots, to work together with potential recruits.”
Smoke pours from the dual towers of the World Commerce Heart after they have been hit by two hijacked airliners in a terrorist assault, Sept. 11, 2001, in New York.
Robert Giroux/Getty Pictures
“Overseas cloud-based cell and desktop messaging purposes like TikTok and Telegram have allowed their platforms to turn out to be a breeding floor for radical extremism,” the advisory continued. Primarily, terrorist teams have been capable of weaponize the web and incite violence in methods they could not have imagined on Sept. 11.
Whereas terrorism is not new, using the web, and now AI, magnifies the capabilities and attain of terrorist teams that used to depend on scattered notes and videotapes to conduct their enterprise. It appears cheap to imagine that if bin Laden had had entry to the applied sciences of in the present day, the 9/11 assaults might have been precursors to extra and extra frequent lethal assaults.
The threats we face in the present day are extra advanced, borderless, and technologically superior than ever earlier than. Counterterrorism methods should proceed to adapt to fulfill this evolving battleground, leveraging not solely navy and intelligence instruments but additionally public-private partnerships with tech platforms, AI monitoring, and international diplomacy.
The legacy of 9/11 have to be greater than remembrance – it have to be vigilance. As we honor the almost 3,000 lives misplaced that day, and people first responders who’ve died within the years since, we should stay resolute in going through the ever-changing face of extremism, now armed with digital weapons and invisible armies.
Richard F. Frankel is an ABC Information contributor and former particular agent in cost for the FBI. Donald J. Mihalek is an ABC Information contributor, retired senior Secret Service agent and regional area coaching teacher who served on the president’s element and presidential transitions. The opinions expressed on this story are theirs and never these of ABC Information.
