The threat posed to the United States by nuclear terrorism from Al Qaeda - Essay Example

The capacity of international terrorism to generate impressive fear and bring about violent damage to a state became really obvious on September 11, 2001. The acts performed by terrorists demonstrated that terrorists are able to effect devastation and death. Adam D. Schiff, a member of the Committee on International Relations explained in the Hearing that "the failure to stop 9/11, if such a thing was even possible, was not a result of bad intelligence or ill will by officials of one Administration or those of another; it was, I think, a failure to imagine that such a thing was even possible" (3).

Everyone knew about the grave danger of Al-Qaeda even before September 11, 2001, but countries from all over the world soundly responded its acts only after the outrageous events of that fatal day. The result brought not only to enlisting the efforts of law enforcement bodies to wage war against the violent terrorism but also to a transformation of the peoples and their fully engaging in this war. Less than in a month practical results appeared. Coalition forces deprived Al-Qaeda of a well-known shelter, obliterating the Taliban in Afghanistan.

In examining current potentialities of this terrorist organization, there is a point of view that Al-Qaeda can't be considered such global Islamic terrorist danger as they were on September 11, 2001. The reason is that U.S. and allied counter efforts have exhausted Al Qaeda's central governing structure and abilities to the level where Al Qaeda serves more as inspiration than a real terrorism planning and implementation center. According to this point of view, the menace from Al Qaeda has been displaced by the menace from groups that support Al Qaeda's ideology but don't have a proper contact with remaining Al Qaeda leaders.

Thus the same violent acts are unlikely to happen as the situation demands an accurate and proper cooperation (Katzman 1).According to an alternative view a great number of Islamic militant cells have a close contact with Al Qaeda leaders and go on to perform their terrorist actions. Richard Clarke in the Hearing before the Subcommittee of International Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Human Rights of the Committee on International Relations describes Al Qaeda's network like: "a mythic hydra, where one head is lopped off, two more emerge from the bloody neck" (3).

Taking into account this point of view Al-Qaeda even today is an evil force of great concern in the USA and in the whole world. It has been reorganized preparing newcomers with the help of new means and methods, posing again a threat on the USA as well as its allies (Gunaratna 23). Jack Boureston and Charles Mahaffey in their article called Al-Qaeda and Mass Casualty Terrorism: Assessing the Threat mention that Al-Qaeda doesn't represent a single organization, as it's a confederation of terrorist organizational network with members in over than 40 countries, among which is the USA.

The head of intelligence service of Germany assessed that Al-Qaeda consists of approximately 70,000 people all over the world, tens of thousands of which are training at al-Qaeda camps in the Sudan, Yemen, and Afghanistan. There are three common features for all of them: their Muslim faith, a bitter contempt for Western countries and hence a hard determination to maim innocent