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Al-Qaeda terror campaign
Date 1996-present Location World-wide especially Middle East Result Ongoing Start of the War on Terrorism
Combatants
al-Qaeda	United States (primary) +other countries
Commanders
Osama bin Laden Ayman al-Zawahiri	George W. Bush Many others
Casualties
Unknown	3,500+

Attacks by al-Qaeda
WTC bombing – 1st Khobar – Africa embassies – USS Cole – September 11 – Ghriba – Mombasa – Riyadh – Istanbul – 2nd Khobar – Amman

The Al-Qaeda terror campaign started in 1996 with the Khobar Towers bombing.

Note: al-Qaeda does not take credit for most of the following actions, resulting in ambiguity over how many attacks the group has actually conducted. Following the U.S. declaration of the War on Terrorism in 2001, the U.S. government has striven to highlight any connections between other militant groups and al-Qaeda. Some prefer to attribute to al-Qaedaism actions that might not be directly planned by al-Qaeda as a military headquarters, but which are inspired by its tenets and strategies.

Contents 1 Operation Bojinka 2 Saudi Arabia 1995-96 3 1998 U.S. embassy bombings 4 1999 and 2000 attacks 5 September 11, 2001 attacks 6 Paris embassy attack plot, 2001 7 Other attacks 8 March 11, 2004 Madrid attacks 9 July 7, 2005 London bombings 10 2005 Egypt attacks 11 2005 Jordan attacks 12 References

Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheik Mohammed planned Operation Bojinka, a plot to destroy airplanes in mid-Pacific flight using explosives. An apartment fire in Manila, Philippines exposed the plan before it could be carried out. Yousef was arrested, but Mohammed evaded capture until 2003.

Al-Qaeda is often listed as a suspect in two bombings in Saudi Arabia in 1995 and 1996 - the bombing at a U.S. military facility in Riyadh in November 1995, which killed two people from India and five Americans, and the June 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, which killed American military personnel in Dhahran. However, these attacks are also often ascribed to Hizbullah.

Al-Qaeda is believed to have conducted the bombings in August 1998 of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killing more than 200 people and injuring more than 5,000 others.

In December 1999 and into 2000, al-Qaeda planned attacks against U.S. and Israeli tourists visiting Jordan for millennial celebrations; however, Jordanian authorities thwarted the planned attacks and put 28 suspects on trial. Part of this plot included the planned bombing of the Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles, California, but this plot was foiled when bomber Ahmed Ressam was caught at the US-Canadian border with explosives in the trunk of his car. Al-Qaeda also planned to attack the USS The Sullivans on January 3, 2000, but the effort failed due to too much weight being put on the small boat meant to bomb the ship.

Despite the setback with the USS The Sullivans, al-Qaeda succeeded in bombing a U.S. warship in October 2000 with the USS Cole bombing. German police foiled a plot to destroy a cathedral in Strasbourg, France in December 2000. See: Strasbourg cathedral bombing plot

The most destructive act ascribed to al-Qaeda was the series of attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001. These attacks destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon in a series of suicide hijacking of airplanes.

See Paris embassy attack plot

Other attacks ascribed to al-Qaeda and its affiliate include:

• Singapore embassies attack plot
• kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl
• Ghriba Synagogue Attack in Djerba, Tunisia
• Foiled attacks on Western warships in the Strait of Gibraltar
• Limburg tanker bombing
• Rizal Day Bombings in the Philippines
• November 2002 Kenyan hotel bombing in Mombasa
• An attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner.
• Riyadh Compound Bombings in May 2003
• 2003 Istanbul bombings

Al-Qaeda has strong alliances with a number of other Islamic militant organizations including the Indonesian Islamic extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah. That group was responsible for the 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings.

Although there have been no identified al-Qaeda attacks within the territory of the United States since the September 11, 2001 attacks, attacks in the Middle East, Far East, Africa and Europe involving extensive casualties and turmoil have been attributed to organizations with affiliation to al-Qaeda, though not always directly to al-Qaeda itself.

See 2004 Madrid train bombings.

On the day of the 2004 Madrid train bombings, the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi reported receiving an email from a group affiliated with al-Qaeda claiming responsibility. The authenticity of that claim has been questioned,^[1] and the group making the claim was qualified by U.S. officials as "notoriously unreliable".^[2]

A videotape claiming responsibility was also found^{[citation needed]}.

The coincidence in timing of the attacks with elections in Spain inspired several politically-focused speculations on the real identity of the perpetrators, with many initially suspecting ETA.^[3]

Direct al-Qaeda involvement in the Madrid 2004 bombings has been discounted by some sources,^[4] and mildly asserted by the MIPT.^[5]

Interpol and the Spanish Government now concur that a fanatical Islamic group of individuals were the perpetrators,^[6] helped by Spanish policemen and Guardia Civil informers.^{[7][8][9][10][11][12]}

Al-Qaeda is believed to be involved in the 7 July 2005 London bombings ("7/7" bombings), a series of attacks against mass transit in London which killed 56 people, including the 4 suicide bombers (see Mohammad Sidique Khan). A statement from a previously unknown group, "The Secret Organization of al-Qaeda in Europe" claimed responsibility; however, the authenticity of the statement and the group's connection to al-Qaeda have not been independently verified. The suspected perpetrators have not been definitively linked to al-Qaeda, although the contents of a video tape made by one of the bombers Mohammad Sidique Khan prior to his death and subsequently sent to Al Jazeera gives strong credence to an al-Qaeda connection. An apparently unconnected group attempted to duplicate the attack later that month, but their bombs failed to detonate.

Al-Qaeda is suspected of being involved with the 2005 Sharm el-Sheikh attacks in Egypt. On July 23, 2005, a series of car bombs killed about 90 civilians and wounded over 150. The attack was the deadliest terrorist action in the history of Egypt.

Al-Qaeda is also suspected in the November 9, 2005 Amman, Jordan attacks in which three simultaneous bombings occurred at American franchise-owned hotels in Amman. The blasts killed 57 and injured 120 people. Most of the injured and killed were attending a wedding at the Radisson Hotel. The targeting of celebrating Muslim civilians cost al-Zarqawi (the man believed to have planned the attacks) greatly in Jordanian public opinion, and to a lesser extent in Arab public opinion as a whole.