ABSTRACT
The twenty-first century was inaugurated with a devastating terrorist attack, different from the idiosyncratic patterns of the twentieth century’s tactical and local terrorism. In his first interview after the events of September 11, Osama bin Laden was asked: ‘Can you justify the killing of innocent men in the light of Islamic teachings?’ He answered: ‘The September 11 attacks were not targeted at women and children. The real target was America’s icons of military and economic power’ (www.alquimmah.net). He meant this: al-Qaeda’s goal was to cause a great deal of quantitative and qualitative damage.
