Domestic Pre-9/11 And Post-9/11 Terrorist Events Research Paper

Introduction

The two bombing events that have greatly shown how terrorist related activities have evolved include the Boston Marathon Bombing and the Oklahoma City bombings. Terrorist activities have taken a new turn especially the methods used to carry out the bombings together with the people involved. Terrorism has always been associated with various terror groups or terror cells that are usually associated with a particular terror group like al-Qaida or other militant groups. At present, the terrorist activities like the Boston and Oklahoma bombings have been perpetrated by individuals who do not have links with the terror groups and have just been radicalized into committing the heinous acts especially through remote training by the Islamic fundamentalists groups that harbor extremist views (Comer et al., 2014). Therefore, evolution of the bombings and the related terror groups has heightened in that they have sought to include people through radicalizing them and giving them ways of making the instruments of terror and carrying the bombings as a result.

How the two events occurred

The motivations of the attacks in the two bombings were different. In the Boston Marathon bombing the motivation was the teachings from Islamic militants groups like al-Qaida and the self-radicalization of the two brothers Tsarnaev and Tarmalev. Their motivation was born out of hate that resulted from the teachings and further radicalization with the various wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to justify attacks on the United States (Gates et al., 2014). Methods used in carrying out the attacks in both bombings were not similar as the two brothers used backpacks while the Oklahoma bombings McVeigh used a track loaded with explosives. The impact was wide in the Boston marathon as more people were injured with three deaths and 168 injuries. Oklahoma had more injuries with 168 deaths. The bomb destroyed most of the northern part of the building resulting in massive damage to the building and the surrounding properly to some extent.

The lessons learned from the Oklahoma bombing were that bombings cannot only be linked to Islamic militants but can be perpetrated within the United States by people who have expressed distrust of the government. Another lesson learnt was that unity helped in doing many things like rescue efforts and carrying out searches. In the Boston marathon hospitals learnt that they need to be observant particularly when their IT staff are working in the community. Hospitals further discovered the hard way especially, where various restrictions were placed on their staff and as a result stifling their operations. As such, those at work had to remain and to continue working until the restriction was removed. The security has to learn on how they had improved in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and learnt that they had to improve on how information was shared between them and other parties. Another lesson learnt after the Boston marathon bombing was the cooperation between the agencies at the national, local and state level, which was not usually the case in most operations. The various lessons like cooperation between national, local and state agencies are important in ensuring that security agencies marshal their efforts together to find out perpetrators (Schaedig, 2013). Sharing of information among the state agencies is further important in ensuring that such acts are detected before they happen.

Various strategies like coming up with a unified security response to such attacks have been important with the FBI heading the group. Bill Clinton established the FBI as the leader in conducting terrorism while cooperating with the other security agencies at the national, state and local level. Some strategies have involved the boosting of border security and coming up with immigration policies to further prevent illegal entry especially that of terrorists. The strategies in dealing with terrorism have evolving form tackling terrorism individually to tackling it cooperatively with the FBI leading the agencies.

Conclusion

Therefore, terrorism had greatly evolved especially when considering the Boston and Oklahoma bombings that happened in the United States. Though the two bombings were dissimilar to some extent, they both encompassed hate and to some extent radicalism. Bombings have evolved from being perpetrated by terrorist groups to those perpetrated by individuals. The Oklahoma city bombing was conducted because of a grudge against various people who were dissatisfied with the government and further went ahead to commit crimes against innocent people. Evolution of the bombings has taken a stance, as in the Boston Marathon where individuals are radicalized remotely and proceed to commit the acts thought training on the internet. Though the bombing was a domestic one, it was recorded as one of the worst bombings to have happened on the United States soil. As such the various methods that tackle terrorism now should be far ahead than those that were used to deal with the Oklahoma bombings.

Security agencies, which have not been working together, are now conducting various security measures jointly with the FBI heading the various operations to detect and prevent terrorism. Intelligence is shared and acted upon by the security agencies, and further action is determined by the security agencies to ensure that measures are put in place to prevent further attacks. Radicalization has taken a center state in passed on extremist views to people who are not of the Islamic faith but who can still be radicalized to propagate acts of terrorists by the teachings they receive. It is no longer terrorism associated to a group but that associated to individuals who may feel the need to act on various injustices though they may regret in the end.

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