April 14th, 1972:  A group of Islamic Extremists phone in a false alarm while at a Mosque then ambush the responding police officer, killing him. January 19th, 1973:  Two Muslim Extremists rob a sporting goods store in Brooklyn, killing one police officer. In July of the same year, Palestinian terrorists assassinate an Israeli Diplomat in Bethesda, Maryland. These attacks do not have much in common, other than the fact they were all of the same faith. These three attacks were the first recorded terrorist attacks carried out by Islamic Extremists in the United States.  People often ask what could bring a person to carry out such a terrible action?  What would make a human being want to bring harm to another?  What made Adolf Hitler so Anti-Semitic What made the Rwandan government support militias that eventually would massacre 70% of the Tutsi population?  Why do terror groups mainly come from the same place?  Are the foundations and early beginnings of these terrorist groups similar? The question is not if they are similar, but why they are similar.  Islamic or Jihadi Terror organizations are the most commonly known in the world.  Al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad Union, and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant are just three of the dozens of groups that have emerged in the last 30 years.  Islamic terrorist groups have many similarities and most have started usually in the same country. Here are some ways that terror groups are formed similarly. 

Mariam-Webster Dictionary defines Terrorism as "the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims." Most of the world knows that Al Qaeda is responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the hijacking of planes of September 11th.  People also know that ISIS has claimed responsibility for the Boston Marathon bombings, Paris attacks, and the recent attacks at the Brussels Airport.  These two groups are known terrorist groups. Specifically, they are known as Jihadi Terror Groups. Those are only two out of dozens of Terrorist Organizations.  Ranging in size from single digit members up to thousands and hundreds of thousands of members.  What most people do not know is that groups like the Taliban are actually not terror groups, but an Islamic Fundamentalist Political Group.  The Taliban is often pulled into the conversation when attacks happen because they are related to the terror groups.  They do not want to be responsible, but they are actually funding and supporting Al Qaeda and ISIS.  If terrorism is the use of violence and intimidation to pursuit political aims, then what are these Islamic groups pursuing?  Most people would say they are pursuing the destruction of other religions such as Christianity and Judaism. Others might say the collapse of Western culture, or democracy as a whole.  But ISIS, like other terror groups, are actually in pursuit of political means.  ISIS wants what most countries want, as much influence in the world as possible.  This is the goal of all terror groups, and because these terrorist organizations have the same goals, they had to be formed similarly.

The first recorded Jihadi terrorist group was Al Fatah, formed in 1967 during the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  The group was formally the Palestinian National Liberation Movement, but they formed into Al Fatah when they realized that the war they were fighting was not winnable, and they turned to small attacks on Israeli citizens, thus dubbing the group the status of terror group. The gaps between this first group and the second are very large, and there are not many attacks that are well known. The late 1990's was when the age of terrorism really began with attacks in the United States like September 11th, or the bombing of the World Trade Center basement years before.  The first attack within the United States by a Jihadi terror group occurred in Brooklyn, New York on the 25th of February in 1991, Mustafa Shalabi was assassinated.  This attack by the organization that would later become Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack.

What creates a terrorist?  Almost every American has probably asked themselves this question at least once in their lifetime.  The question is not easy to answer without real facts, and other countries might view different people as terrorists, perhaps even the United States.  The United States is responsible for one of the most inconspicuous operations near the end of the 20th Century.  Afghanistan, as well as most of the Middle East was becoming more communist by the day, and the United States was determined to halt that change.  The Soviet Union and the United States were constantly butting heads during this time period, and both partook in many side conflicts in which one side would support a smaller government.  The Soviet Union supported the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam War, and the United States supported the Islamic fundamentalists during the USSR-Afghanistan conflict. Operation Cyclone was a covert plan to rid Afghanistan of communists, and the United States' plan was, well, to place Islamic fundamentalists in the country in order to create disorder.  These groups that we created called themselves the Mujihadeen. They were the group who fought the Soviet Union.  This operation is, to date, the most expensive operation by the CIA in United States History.  The operation cost the United States 630 million dollars every year for the ten years that it was in effect (1979-1989). Hundreds of thousands of weapons, hundreds of Stinger missiles, and 40 F-16 fighter jets were given to the Afghan "resistance." 

Operation Cyclone is often criticized heavily because of the aftermath and its relation to the September 11th attacks. Remember how the United States placed Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan to create disorder?  Well, one of the fundamentalists that was sent to Afghanistan was a man named Osama Bin Laden.  While in the country, he founded Al Qaeda which would eventually bomb the World Trade Center.  So in a way, President Carter and Reagan can be considered responsible for the attacks on September 11th.  How many other terrorist organizations might have also been created as a result of the United States plan to halt the Communist Regime?  The answer is unknown, but the fact that organizations were formed from the United States' mistakes is clear. 

That is not the only similarity between the way terrorist groups are formed through.  Groups are always forming and crumbling every day.  There have been hundreds of Jihadi terrorist organizations that the average person would not recognize by just hearing the name.  Surprisingly, Afghanistan is not the country with the most terrorist organizations coming from it, it is Pakistan.  Pakistan is responsible for more than 70 percent of the attacks on the United States.  This would catch most Americans off guard because it would seem as if Pakistan was the country that was mainly doing the right thing, and that Afghanistan is on a mission to destroy the Western World, but it is actually the opposite.  The Afghan government wants to rid its country of terrorists, and is very accepting of United States Military presence.  Pakistan,  on the other hand, has been accused of "breeding" terrorists. 

Fareed Zakaria is an Indian born writer for the Washington Post, and host of Fareed Zakaria-GPS on CNN.  He has written more than 600 articles, and nearly all of those are related to Foreign Affairs. In his article "Terrorism's Supermarket," Zakaria accuses Pakistan of "breeding" terrorist organizations. According to Zakaria, the Pakistani military refuses to enter areas of the country that the terrorists are attacking Westerners and other people.  Zakaria says:  "Consider the tribal area where Faisal Shahzad is said to have trained on his visits to Pakistan:  North Waziristan, where the deadliest groups that attack Afghans, Indians, and Westerners hole up.  Although last year the Pakistani military took the fight to South Waziristan, a haven for groups that have launched attacks inside Pakistan, the generals have refused to go into the North, despite repeated entreaties from the United States and NATO.  As far as the Pakistani military is concerned, there's always a compelling reason why now isn't the right time to go there." (Terrorisms Supermarket, paragraph 6). Although it is easy to say that the military might not be fair matched to some of the terrorist organizations that exist there, but the military is present in the rest of the country, and they do not attack or punish these terrorist groups for any actions causing them to thrive. 

Today, we are in the midst of the largest terrorist organization in human history.  Over two hundred thousand soldiers fight for this group that has a net-worth of over 2 billion dollars.  The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or ISIS is the most influential terror group to date.  ISIS has claimed credit for many attacks against the world including the Boston Marathon bombing, the attacks in Paris, as well as the attacks in the Brussels Airport.  There are many people that say that the Obama Administration is responsible for the rise of ISIS, but in reality it is the Bush administration that is responsible for the Islamic State.  In the academic journal, "The Rise of the Islamic State," Luna Shamieh describes the very beginnings of ISIS in ways uncommonly known. "The political situation in both Iraq and Syria permitted for the expansion of ISIS.  Both countries included internal conflict and growing seeds of struggle.  This made the expansion of ISIS in the region possible" (The Rise of the Islamic State, pg. 364).  Saddam Hussein was the former President of Iraq, and when he invaded his neighboring country of Kuwait, he caused the United Nations to sanction a united coalition led by the United States.  Within days the Iraqi forces were forced out of the country, but the sanctions never ended as a no fly zone was implemented until the second Iraq invasion.  This created a strong northern presence of the Kurds and a weak southern status for the Shia. 

The United States withdrew from Iraq from June 2009 to August 2010 which was the deciding factor in the eventual creation of the Islamic State.  United States Commander General Lloyd said "As we leave, we can expect to see some turbulence in security initially, and that's because you will see various elements try to increase their freedom of movement and freedom of action ... there will probably be unfinished business for many, many years to come ...  Al Qaeda will continue to do what it's done in the past, and we expect that it is possible they can even increaser their capability."  Lloyd was right, though he specifically says Al Qaeda, the real threat that emerged and thrived in the absence of the United States was the Islamic State.  During the absence, the Iraqi government could no longer pay the wages of its people.  Terrorist organizations, which were stealing money and beginning to become more and more wealthy, could pay much more reliably.  When these organizations like Al Qaeda started getting more power, they attacked prisons and released prisoners that would eventually help create the Islamic State.  Though it can be argued that it is the Obama Administrations fault for the creation because of the withdrawal from Iraq, this only furthered the status of ISIS not actually creating it. The actual creation of ISIS occurred in 2006 under the Bush Administration.

This shows that terrorist organizations are not always formed in the same way. ISIS was formed as the result of a weakened government status.  Lashkar-e-Taiba was formed as a militia in order to fight for the freedom of the Sunni people.  Things go wrong for a group even though it might have been formed for a good purpose.  For example, the Nazi Party in Germany is often referred to as a terrorist organization. They meet the definition: "a group that uses violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims." Germany was going through a depression much worse than the Great Depression in the United States, and Germany turned to a party which could fix their problems.  In the beginning, the Nazi Party really wasn't a bad thing for Germany.  They brought the country out of a depression and freed its people from starving.  When they turned into a terror group was when they blamed the nation's problems on a certain people.  Although these terror groups usually are formed with the plan of being terrorist organizations, they can also be formed from a group which was not created for that purpose.

In "Building the Nazi Mindset", David Beisel attempts to answer the question of why Germany was able to turn from one of the most civilized countries in Europe to the most well-known terror group in history. He says that when he asks this to his students they often reply that it was "awful that the Jews were killed" and that it "never should have happened." And when I read this I think to myself: "Aren't we a terror group?" In 1938 President Andrew Jackson first started his Indian Removal Policy, in which he forced the Cherokee Nation to give up their lands east of the Mississippi River and move to what is now modern day Oklahoma. Not only that, it is estimated that from the creation of the United States, between 80 and 90 percent of the Native Indian population was killed by Americans. The very country that prides itself on fighting terrorism and being the "Police of the Modern World" has committed terrible genocide that can be interpreted as terrorism.

That is not always the case though. It is known that Al Qaeda was formed in the hopes of bringing fear and destruction to the Western world.  The group was founded by Usama Bin Laden and Muhammad Atef in 1989.  It was headquartered in Afghanistan and Peshawar, Pakistan.  Al Qaeda was extremely well funded, and it was determined that the group was kept alive by the wealthy Sunni citizens in Saudi Arabia who felt obligated to donate money.  This is different than the way a lot of terror groups are formed because this was solely created to cause fear among the world. 

Each group has different goals.  For example, a principle goal of Al Qaeda was to drive the United States armed forces out of Saudi Arabia (and elsewhere on the Saudi Arabian Peninsula) and Somalia by violence.  Members of al Qaeda issued fatwahs (rulings on Islamic law) indicating that such attacks were both proper and necessary.  So when people would read this in the specific country, if they were Muslim, then they could not do anything because they believed what was happening was morally right.  Just like the Nazi Party saying that the Jewish population was responsible for the destruction of Germany's economy.  Terrorists are often created by blaming the problems of their nation on another people.

Terrorist organizations are formed in many different ways.  They have been created since humanity was born, whether the groups knew that they were doing it or not.  They are used to carry out different plans, different goals, but they use the same tactics of fear and intimidation, all to further political aims.  Many people believe that the current age we live in will become known as the "Age of Terrorism."  Wars are no longer fought through large wars between countries, rather they are fought between a specific country and a smaller organization or group.  It started in the Cold War, with the Soviet Union and United States supporting different countries that would spread democracy or communism.

Terrorist groups, in the end, are mostly formed in the same ways, though.  It is very clear that the absence of a government or military in a country will eventually lead to the creation of groups, and in some cases those groups could be supporting and caring, but history has proven the absence of a government will form a terrorist group or a manipulating organization.  Another reason that groups are formed similarly is from religion.  The use of religion to manipulate citizens of a certain country has been very common in history.  It is easy to threaten the afterlife and what most people live for, because it is not something that most people will stand up against.  Terrorist groups are around now and will be around for the rest of humanity.  It is something that history has proven to repeat.

