The Road to 9/11: A chronology
1988-2001
1988
16 March: Iraqi forces attack the Kurdish town of Halabjah, 150 miles north-east of Baghdad, using chemical weapons (not for the first time). Thousands of Kurds die.
15 May: The Soviet army withdraws from Afghanistan after 8.5 years; up to 50,000 Soviet troops have died there. They leave behind a pro-Communist government, headed by Muhammad Najibullah (1947-96), against whom the Mujahideen continue to fight.
Afghanistan Online: History
www.afghan-web.com/history/
Very full chronology of Afghani history plus a number of articles.
8 August: The Iran–Iraq war ends with a ceasefire. As many as one million people may have died.
The militant Islamic organisation Hamas draws up its ‘Covenant’, claiming the whole of Palestine as an Islamic republic. It identifies itself as the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood (now a diverse and far-reaching organisation), and rejects the PLO as the sole representative of Palestinians. Like Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas runs numerous relief organisations within the Palestinian community and thus gains considerable support. It decides that suicide bombers are martyrs and, as such, are acceptable to Islam – a view contested by most Muslims.
Osama bin Laden breaks away from MAK (see 1984) and establishes al-Qaeda (‘The Foundation’ or ‘The Base’). Believed to operate as a network of cells, it aims to drive US influence out of the Muslim world and destroy Israel. Opinions differ as to how much it can be seen as a single ‘organisation’ in any traditional sense – especially after the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001.
al-Qa’ida
www.fas.org/irp/world/para/ladin.htm
Well-researched article about Osama bin Laden’s organisation, on the Federation of American Scientists’ Intelligence Resource Program website.
Al-Qaeda: Osama bin Laden's network of terror www.infoplease.com/spot/terror-qaeda.html
Lengthy article by Laura Hayes, plus extensive timeline of suspected al-Qaeda attacks.
1989
Osama bin Laden leaves Afghanistan and returns to Saudi Arabia.
1990–91
2 August: Iraq invades neighbouring Kuwait, claiming it as historically part of its territory. The action causes deep divisions within the Arab world. Saudi Arabia, especially, sees the invasion as a threat and supports the US when, at the beginning of 1991, it attacks Iraq. Iraq is defeated within weeks in what is now called the Gulf War, but the US and its allies (including Britain) withdraw their troops and Saddam Hussein remains president. UN sanctions are imposed. Saudi support for the US and Israel (which suffered some bombing by Iraq) during the war outrages many Muslims, especially radicals, such as Osama bin Laden, both within and outside Saudi Arabia. Many commentators see this as a driving force in the growth of militant Islam. The PLO and Jordan are among those siding with Iraq.
Persian Gulf War, 1991, TV News Collection
www.chotank.com/desertstorm.html
Selected transcripts and still frames from over 500 Gulf War TV news tapes.
1991
The Saudi government expels Osama bin Laden, who moves to Sudan.
The US and the USSR (the latter on the point of collapse) agree to stop funding the warring parties in Afghanistan. (The Afghan Mujahideen subsequently claim responsibility for destroying the Soviet Union.) Without Soviet assistance, the Afghan government collapses and the Mujahideen take over, forming a fundamentalist Islamic state.
26 December: The first round of Algeria’s first multi-party elections indicate that the Islamic Salvation Front is likely to win. Fearing that this will result in the country becoming an Islamic state with no further elections, the army seizes power in January, and a long running civil war ensues, with atrocities committed by both sides.
Algeria Civil War 1992-present
www.onwar.com/aced/chrono/c1900s/yr90/falgeria1992.htm
Concise account of the civil war.
1993
26 February: A truck filled with explosives is used to bomb New York’s World Trade Center. Six people die. A number of Islamic extremists are convicted in 1997 and 1998 for plotting the attack, though no one has been convicted of actually carrying it out. Subsequently, links are suggested between this attack and the events of 11 September 2001.
July: A plot to bomb several more New York landmarks is uncovered. Those convicted for this (in 1995) include the cleric Abdel Rahman (see 1981).
New York City landmark bomb plot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_landmark_bomb_plot
Short article on the plot and its aftermath.
13 September: In Palestine, the first intifada ends with the signing of the Oslo Accords (also known as the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-government Arrangements), signed on the White House lawn in the US by Israel and the PLO. The Palestinians agree to recognise Israel in return for the phased dismantling of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory, while some land is handed over to Palestinian control – under a Palestinian Authority. A final resolution is scheduled to be reached by 1999.
1994
25 February: Jewish extremist Baruch Goldstein kills 29 Muslims and injures about 100 at a site holy to both Muslims and Jews at Hebron on the West Bank. A series of suicide attacks on Israeli targets follow, many carried out by Hamas.
13-18 May: Despite the events of February, the PLO and Israel meet in Cairo and reach agreement on implementing the principles established in 1993. The Israelis withdraw their military forces from the Jericho area of the occupied West Bank, and from the Gaza Strip. But there are important outstanding issues: Israeli settlements remaining or even being newly established in the West Bank and Gaza, the fate of millions of Palestinian refugees from the conflicts in 1948 and 1967, and the status of Jerusalem. Palestinians soon become disillusioned with the peace process.
1 July: Yasser Arafat returns from 27 years’ exile to the Gaza Strip and, in October, is named, along with Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and foreign minister Shimon Peres, as the winners of that year’s Nobel peace prize. In the same month, Israel and Jordan sign a peace treaty.
In Pakistan, the Taliban – a faction of the Mujahideen that espouses a particularly extreme and fundamentalist view of Islam – emerges in the Afghan refugee camps of Peshawar.
1995
28 September: Conflict between Palestinians and Israelis has continued. Resentments and violence on both sides have led to Palestinian attacks on Israelis and Israeli assassinations of Palestinian militants. Despite this, an interim agreement (sometimes known as Oslo II) on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is signed, giving Palestinians self-rule in several towns, including Bethlehem, Hebron, Jenin, Nablus and Ramallah, as well as hundreds of villages. Many Israelis are outraged at the surrender of what they see as Jewish land.
4 November: Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated by a Jewish extremist.
1996
5 January: Yahya Ayyash, a senior member of Hamas, is assassinated, probably by Israeli security forces. Hamas continues suicide bomb attacks on Israel, and Israel bombards Lebanon.
20 January: Yasser Arafat is elected president of the Palestinian Authority.
May: Binyamin Netanyahu, who has opposed the Oslo process, becomes prime minister of Israel and lifts a freeze on Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, which had been imposed as part of the peace process.
May: Osama bin Laden arrives in Afghanistan and is welcomed by the Taliban.
27 September: In Afghanistan, the Taliban take power and execute the president Muhammad Najibullah. They enforce the strictest interpretation of Islamic religious Shari’ah law ever seen. Public executions and amputations become regular occurrences. Women’s lives are restricted to an unprecedented extent.
1998
The US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania are bombed. Over 200 people are
killed in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, and 11 in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.
Over 4,000 people are injured. Al-Qaeda forces led by Osama bin Laden
are immediately suspected, and in 2001, four men linked to the organisation
are convicted and jailed for life.
1999
17 May: In Israel, Ehud Barak (1942- ) becomes prime minister and promises to end the conflict with the Palestinians.
2000
25 May: Israel withdraws from Lebanon, but fails to make peace with Syria.
July: Barak and Yasser Arafat meet US President Bill Clinton at Camp David to discuss the contentious issues of Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem, but fail to reach agreement.
28 September: In a highly provocative act, Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon visits the al-Aqsa mosque on Haram esh-Sherif (known by Jews as Temple Mount) in Jerusalem, one of Islam’s holiest shrines. The second Palestinian intifada begins almost immediately afterwards. Although it is known as the ‘al-Aqsa intifada’, it is still debated whether Sharon’s visit to the mosque was the trigger. Violence on both sides quickly escalates and continues.
12 October: The destroyer USS Cole is attacked by a suicide bomber while in harbour in Aden, Yemen. Seventeen sailors are killed and 39 injured. The attack is blamed on Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda followers.
2001
6 February: Ariel Sharon takes over as prime minister of Israel after a general election in late 2000.
11 September: Four aircraft are hijacked by Islamic extremists, most of them Saudis. Two aircraft are flown into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York, bringing them crashing to the ground. A third is flown into the Pentagon, just outside Washington DC, while the fourth aircraft crashes in the countryside of Pennsylvania after the hijackers are overcome by passengers. Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda is blamed. In all, more than 3,000 people are killed.
7 October: The US attacks Afghanistan in order to destroy al-Qaeda and the Taliban, which is seen as supporting bin Laden. The Taliban are eventually overthrown, but Afghanistan remains in crisis and bin Laden is never found.
9-11 Research
www.911research.wtc7.net
Subtitled ‘An attempt to uncover the truth about September 11, 2001’, this site focuses on the attack and analyses the official explanation.
Numerous further attacks claimed by or blamed on al-Qaeda have taken place throughout the world since the infamous ‘9/11’ – not least the bombs on three underground trains and a bus in London on 7 July 2005, killing more than 50 people. Many commentators suggest that the Iraq War, which started in 2003 and in which the US and its allies (including Britain) attacked Iraq and overthrew Saddam Hussein, has exacerbated the situation, fuelling the anger of extremist Muslims. At the same time, the conflict often said to lie at the very heart of Islamic fundamentalism – that between Israel and the Palestinians – shows little sign of resolution.
