War on terrorThe war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is a global counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks and is also the most recent global conflict spanning multiple wars. The main targets of the campaign were militant Islamist and Salafi jihadist armed organisations such as al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and their international affiliates, which were waging military insurgencies to overthrow governments of various Muslim-majority countries.
Islamic extremismIslamic extremism, Islamist extremism, or radical Islam, is used in reference to extremist beliefs and behaviors which are associated with the far-right ideology in Islam. These are controversial terms with varying definitions, ranging from academic understandings to the idea that all ideologies other than Islam have failed and are inferior to Islam. These terms can also be used in reference to other sects of Islam that do not share such beliefs.
Presidency of Barack ObamaBarack Obama's tenure as the 44th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2009, and ended on January 20, 2017. A Democrat from Illinois, Obama took office following a decisive victory over Republican nominee John McCain in the 2008 presidential election. Four years later, in the 2012 presidential election, he defeated Republican nominee Mitt Romney to win re-election. Obama is the first African American president, the first multiracial president, the first non-white president, and the first president born in Hawaii.
JihadismJihadism is a neologism for militant Islamic movements that are perceived as existentially threatening to the West. It has been applied to various insurgent Islamic extremist, militant Islamist, and terrorist individuals and organizations whose ideologies are based on the Islamic notion of jihad. It has also been applied to various Islamic empires in history, such as the Umayyad Caliphate and the Ottoman Empire, who extensively campaigned against non-Muslim nations in the name of jihad.
Targeted killingTargeted killing is a form of assassination carried out by governments outside a judicial procedure or a battlefield. Since the late 20th century, the legal status of targeted killing has become a subject of contention within and between various nations. Historically, at least since the mid-eighteenth century, Western thinking has generally considered the use of assassination as a tool of statecraft to be illegal.
AssassinationAssassination is the willful killing, by a sudden or secret attack, of a personespecially if prominent or important. It may be prompted by grievances, notoriety, financial, military, political or other motives. Many times governments, corporations, organized crime or their agents order assassinations. Acts of assassination have been performed since ancient times. A person who carries out an assassination is called an assassin or hitman.
Killing of Osama bin LadenOn May 2, 2011, Osama bin Laden, the founder, and first leader of the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda, was shot and killed at his compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad by United States Navy SEALs of SEAL Team Six (also known as DEVGRU). The operation, code-named Operation Neptune Spear, was carried out in a CIA-led mission, with the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) coordinating the Special Mission Units involved in the raid.
Salafi jihadismSalafi jihadism, also known as Revolutionary Salafism or jihadist-Salafism, is a religious-political Sunni Islamist ideology, seeking to establish a global caliphate, characterized by the advocacy of "physical" (military) jihadist attacks on non-Muslim and (takfired) Muslim targets, and the Salafist interpretation of sacred Islamic texts "in their most literal, traditional sense", to bring about the return to (what adherents believe to be) "true Islam".
Islamic terrorismIslamic terrorism (also known as Islamist terrorism or radical Islamic terrorism) refers to terrorist acts with religious motivations carried out by fundamentalist militant Islamists and Islamic extremists. Incidents and fatalities from Islamic terrorism have been concentrated in eight Muslim-majority countries (Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, and Syria), while four Islamic extremist groups (Islamic State, Boko Haram, the Taliban, and al-Qaeda) were responsible for 74% of all deaths from terrorism in 2015.
MujahideenMujahideen, or Mujahidin (mujāhidīn), is the plural form of mujahid (mujāhid), an Arabic term that broadly refers to people who engage in jihad (struggle or striving [for justice, right conduct, Godly rule, etc.]), interpreted in a jurisprudence of Islam as the fight on behalf of God, religion or the community (ummah). The widespread use of the word in English began with reference to the guerrilla-type militant groups led by the Islamist Afghan fighters in the Soviet–Afghan War (see Afghan mujahideen).
