The inattention of the Bush administration to the threat from al Qaeda had results. Shortly before 9/11, Bush’s attorney general, John Ashcroft, turned down FBI requests for some 400 additional counterterrorism personnel. Peter Bergen Read Quote
The Russians have been waging wars with these separatists since the 19th century, but for obvious reasons, Chechen separatist terrorism tends to be carried out by Chechens. Peter Bergen Read Quote
Hydrogen peroxide-based bombs were used in the London bombings in 2005; in al Qaeda’s foiled plot to attack subways in New York City in 2009 and also in the ISIS-directed Paris attacks in 2015 and the ISIS-directed attacks in Brussels a year later. Peter Bergen Read Quote
The special reverence that al Qaeda had for Sheikh Rahman was underlined by a two-hour propaganda videotape that the group’s media division released in the spring of 2001, when the 9/11 attacks were in their final planning phase. Peter Bergen Read Quote
If the Arab Spring was a large nail in the coffin of al-Qaeda’s ideology, the death of bin Laden was an equally large nail in the coffin of al-Qaeda the organization. Peter Bergen Read Quote
