[54][55] The political theorist Richard Jackson has argued that "the 'war on terrorism' [...] is simultaneously a set of actual practices—wars, covert operations, agencies, and institutions—and an accompanying series of assumptions, beliefs, justifications, and narratives—it is an entire language or discourse".

[59] Denouncing the remarks of George W. Bush, Osama Bin Laden stated during an interview in 21 October 2001: "The events proved the extent of terrorism that America exercises in the world.

[73] In December 2012, Jeh Johnson, the General Counsel of the Department of Defense, speaking at Oxford University, stated that the war against al-Qaeda would end when the terrorist group had been weakened so that it was no longer capable of "strategic attacks" and had been "effectively destroyed."

[75] In May 2013, two years after the assassination of Osama bin Laden, Barack Obama delivered a speech that employed the term global war on terror put in quotation marks (as officially transcribed by the White House): "Now, make no mistake, terrorists still threaten our nation.

"[77] In May 1996, the group World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders (WIFJAJC), sponsored by Osama bin Laden (and later re-formed as al-Qaeda),[78][79] started forming a large base of operations in Afghanistan, where the Islamist extremist regime of the Taliban had seized power earlier in the year.

The George W. Bush administration defined the following objectives in the war on terror:[98] The 2001 AUMF has authorized US President to launch military operations across the world without any congressional oversight or transparency.

Shortly after, Bush rejected a Taliban offer to hand over bin Laden on the condition the bombing campaign was halted,[103] and by mid-November, Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan, fell.

The US military and NATO troops took control of Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport for use in Operation Allies Refuge and the large-scale evacuation of foreign citizens and certain vulnerable Afghans, executed in cooperation with the Taliban.

The British 16th Air Assault Brigade (later reinforced by Royal Marines) formed the core of the force in southern Afghanistan, along with troops and helicopters from Australia, Canada and the Netherlands.

Task Force 150 consists of ships from a shifting group of nations, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Pakistan, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

The primary goal of the coalition forces is to monitor, inspect, board and stop suspected shipments from entering the Horn of Africa region and affecting the United States' Operation Iraqi Freedom.

On 1 July 2006, a Web-posted message purportedly written by Osama bin Laden urged Somalis to build an Islamic state in the country and warned western governments that the al-Qaeda network would fight against them if they intervened there.

During his 2002 State of the Union Address, George W. Bush accused North Korea, Iran and Iraq of propping up state-sponsored terrorism and pursuing Weapons of Mass Destruction.

[150][151] On 5 February 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell made a presentation before the UN Security Council which claimed to implicate Iraq in building a secret WMD program and having ties to Al-Qaeda.

[153] Justifying his policy Bush declared: "Terrorists and terror states do not reveal these threats with fair notice, in formal declarations—and responding to such enemies only after they have struck first is not self-defense, it is suicide.

The Iraq War troop surge of 2007 was part of this "new way forward", which along with U.S. backing of Sunni groups it had previously sought to defeat has been credited with a widely recognized dramatic decrease in violence by up to 80%.

[165] In 2002, the Musharraf-led government took a firm stand against the jihadi organizations and groups promoting extremism, and arrested Maulana Masood Azhar, head of the Jaish-e-Mohammed, and Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, chief of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, and took dozens of activists into custody.

[186] However, the indigenous rebel groups who had staked their claims to Libya and turned their weapons on ISIL—with the help of airstrikes by Western forces, including U.S. drones, the Libyan population resented the outsiders who wanted to establish a fundamentalist regime on their soil.

The counterterrorism measures of Plan Colombia acquired further expansion during the presidency of George W. Bush and an important focus on national security after the events of 9/11, as the threat of global terrorism received greater attention.

[citation needed] The Justice Department launched the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System for certain male non-citizens in the U.S., requiring them to register in person at offices of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

The USA PATRIOT Act of October 2001 dramatically reduces restrictions on law enforcement agencies' ability to search telephone, e-mail communications, medical, financial, and other records; eases restrictions on foreign intelligence gathering within the United States; expands the Secretary of the Treasury's authority to regulate financial transactions, particularly those involving foreign individuals and entities; and broadens the discretion of law enforcement and immigration authorities in detaining and deporting immigrants suspected of terrorism-related acts.

Political interest groups have stated that these laws remove important restrictions on governmental authority, and are a dangerous encroachment on civil liberties, possible unconstitutional violations of the Fourth Amendment.

[240][241][242] In 2005, The Washington Post and Human Rights Watch (HRW) published revelations concerning kidnapping of detainees by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and their transport to "black sites", covert prisons operated by the CIA whose existence is denied by the US government.

The Post defended its decision to suppress this news on the ground that such revelations "could open the U.S. government to legal challenges, particularly in foreign courts, and increase the risk of political condemnation at home and abroad."

The report's author Stephanie Savell stated that in an ideal scenario, the preferable way of quantifying the total death toll would have been by studying excess mortality, or by using on-the-ground researchers in the affected countries.

[308] American forces (mostly via drone strikes) killed between 846 and 1,609 terrorists in Yemen (mostly AQAP members) up to June 2019, according to a variety of media organizations including the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the New America Foundation.

The notion of a "war" against "terrorism" has proven highly contentious, with critics charging that it has been exploited by participating governments to pursue long-standing policy/military objectives, including structural Islamophobia,[333][334] reduce civil liberties,[335] and infringe upon human rights.

[342] In addition, Professor Richard Jackson notes how countries like Russia, India, Israel and China adopted the language of the war on terror to describe their own fight against domestic insurgents and dissidents.

He argues that "Linking rebels and dissidents at home to the global 'war on terrorism' gives these governments both the freedom to crack down on them without fear of international condemnation, and in some cases, direct military assistance from America".

The notion of a "war on terror" remain contentious, with critics charging that it has been used to reduce civil liberties and infringe upon human rights,[26] such as controversial actions by the U.S. including surveillance, torture, and extraordinary rendition, and drone strikes that resulted in the deaths of alleged terrorists but also civilians.