General Aviation Security

Appendix A: Global Terrorist Groups^*

AFGHANISTAN

NAME: al Qaeda

DATE STARTED/FIRST ACTIVE: Established by Osama bin Laden in the late 1980s.

GOALS: Establish a pan-Islamic Caliphate throughout the world by working with allied Islamic extremist groups to overthrow regimes it deems “non-Islamic,” and expelling Westerners and non-Muslims from Muslim countries.

MAIN ANTI-U.S. ACTIVITIES TO DATE: Is suspected of involvement in the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen. Conducted the bombings in August 1998 of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that killed at least 301 persons and injured more than 5,000 others. Claims to have shot down U.S. helicopters and killed U.S. servicemen in Somalia in 1993, and ...