Today is September 11. Fourteen years ago, the world was cruelly jolted out of its self-induced stupor. The attacks on this day — that inspired the universal and easily recognisable moniker 9/11 — divided the world into two eras, so to say: before September 11, 2001 and after. The United States and the world would never be the same following strikes on some of America’s most famous landmarks. The attacks, led by the cataclysmic assault on the World Trade Centre twin towers, brought home an uncomfortable reality. Terror seemed to have given a peace-loving world a bloody nose and it would have to live with that on its visage.
So potent were the attacks that they, albeit temporarily, distracted the world from many a productive activity. Information technology was trying to change many things in the developed world as the developing world was still coming to terms with the slowly increasing use of mobile technology and an internet in its teens. The attacks, though directly not affecting the steady march of technology, temporarily slowed its momentum.
America’s so-called war on terror was launched to track down and eliminate Al Qaeda and its founder Osama bin Laden, found responsible for the attacks. Post 9/11, Washington came down heavily on terror groups. With the weakening of the most feared terror group of those times and the killing of Bin Laden in a dramatic raid in Pakistan, it was easy to believe that states would have less to fear and the world would be a safer place to live in. But that was not to be.
Instead of presiding over the demise of terrorism and insurgency, states are facing a new terrible reality. They have to contend with worse forms of terrorism with new-found militant groups and militias parading their egregious ideologies in almost all parts of the world. The Islamic State has emerged as the most feared terror group. Based on a hardline ideology that would even put the most hardened Al Qaeda militant to shame, the Islamist group’s grotesque acts have often gone unpunished. For IS, one brutal act drives a more macabre incident. At the receiving end of a US-led coalition’s air strikes, the group however, has largely held its own in Syria, Iraq, Libya and many other countries.
Numerous other terror groups across continents are a challenge to humanity and the quest for peace. Wars among nations seem to have become a thing of the past as governments grapple with debilitating insurgencies and civil wars. Be it the orchestrated attacks by Boko Haram in Nigeria or the marauders of Al Shabaab in Somalia or a lone wolf attack on a Tunisia beach, terrorism is more rife than it was after the September 11 attacks 14 years ago. And the world doesn’t have an answer.
Today is September 11. Fourteen years ago, the world was cruelly jolted out of its self-induced stupor. The attacks on this day — that inspired the universal and easily recognisable moniker 9/11 — divided the world into two eras, so to say: before September 11, 2001 and after. The United States and the world would never be the same following strikes on some of America’s most famous landmarks. The attacks, led by the cataclysmic assault on the World Trade Centre twin towers, brought home an uncomfortable reality. Terror seemed to have given a peace-loving world a bloody nose and it would have to live with that on its visage.
So potent were the attacks that they, albeit temporarily, distracted the world from many a productive activity. Information technology was trying to change many things in the developed world as the developing world was still coming to terms with the slowly increasing use of mobile technology and an internet in its teens. The attacks, though directly not affecting the steady march of technology, temporarily slowed its momentum.
America’s so-called war on terror was launched to track down and eliminate Al Qaeda and its founder Osama bin Laden, found responsible for the attacks. Post 9/11, Washington came down heavily on terror groups. With the weakening of the most feared terror group of those times and the killing of Bin Laden in a dramatic raid in Pakistan, it was easy to believe that states would have less to fear and the world would be a safer place to live in. But that was not to be.
Instead of presiding over the demise of terrorism and insurgency, states are facing a new terrible reality. They have to contend with worse forms of terrorism with new-found militant groups and militias parading their egregious ideologies in almost all parts of the world. The Islamic State has emerged as the most feared terror group. Based on a hardline ideology that would even put the most hardened Al Qaeda militant to shame, the Islamist group’s grotesque acts have often gone unpunished. For IS, one brutal act drives a more macabre incident. At the receiving end of a US-led coalition’s air strikes, the group however, has largely held its own in Syria, Iraq, Libya and many other countries.
Numerous other terror groups across continents are a challenge to humanity and the quest for peace. Wars among nations seem to have become a thing of the past as governments grapple with debilitating insurgencies and civil wars. Be it the orchestrated attacks by Boko Haram in Nigeria or the marauders of Al Shabaab in Somalia or a lone wolf attack on a Tunisia beach, terrorism is more rife than it was after the September 11 attacks 14 years ago. And the world doesn’t have an answer.
