Al-Qaeda attacks over the years

This is considered as the first World Trade Center attack and the first terrorist attack on America. On February 26, 1993, a bomb built in the nearby Jersey City was driven into an underground garage at the trade center and detonated, killing six and wounding 1,500. Ramzi Yousef, , nephew of Khalid Sheik Mohammed (the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks) used a truck bomb to attack the World Trade Center and intended to break the foundation of Tower One knocking it into Tower Two, bringing the entire complex down.

During his visit to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Manila in 1996, Clinton's motorcade was rerouted before driving over a bridge. Extremists working for bin Laden conducted extensive surveillance of President Bill Clinton and his party during a state visit to Manila in anticipation of mounting an assassination attempt. An intelligence team later discovered a bomb under the bridge. Allegedly Bin Laden had ordered Al-Qaida to use still and video cameras to follow Clinton and Secret Service personnel. The Secret Service later learnt from an al-Qaida defector that the surveillance was extensive, and the tapes along with maps and notes were sent to bin Laden, who was then living in Sudan.

The 1998 United States embassy bombings were a series of attacks that occurred on August 7, 1998, in which hundreds of people were killed in simultaneous truck bomb explosions at the embassies of the United States in the East African cities of Dar es Salaam and Nairobi. The date of the bombings marked the eighth anniversary of the arrival of American forces in Saudi Arabia. Shortly after the embassy bombings, the US government claimed that Osama bin Laden was responsible. hey issued a lengthy indictment of bin Laden and many of his associates in the late fall of 1998.

The September 11, 2001 attacks were the most devastating terrorist acts in American history, killing approximately 3,000 people. Three hijacked planes were flown into major U S landmarks, destroying New York's World Trade Center towers and plowing into the Pentagon. A fourth hijacked plane crashed in rural Pennsylvania, the target for which was believed to have been the US Capitol. The death toll was nearly 10 times greater than any other terrorist attack in history and made Bin Laden, for the first time, a household name in the United States and the west. The attacks were conducted by al-Qaeda, acting in accord with the 1998 fatwa issued against the US and its allies by military forces under the command of bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, and others.

Pearl was kidnapped while working as the South Asia Bureau Chief of The Wall Street Journal, based in Mumbai, India. He had gone to Pakistan as part of an investigation into the alleged links between Richard Reid (the "shoe bomber") and Al-Qaeda. He was subsequently executed by his captors. Pakistani militants ultimately beheaded him in Karachi after holding him for several days. US officials later reported that there was evidence of involvement by Khalid Sheik Mohammed. In July 2002, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British national of Pakistani origin, was sentenced to death by hanging for Pearl's abduction and murder. In March 2007, at a closed military hearing in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed stated that he had personally beheaded Pearl.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai survived an assassination attempt when shots were fired intohis presidential limousine. Karzai was on his way to a wedding celebration in Kandahar. He was not hurt but one of this US bodyguards and the governor of Kandahar were wounded. The attack came just after a car bomb exploded near two government offices in Kabul, killing 22 people.