Crime and Punishment in America Primary Sources | Al Qaeda

Excerpt from "The Al Qaeda Training Manual"
Reprinted from Terrorism: Documents of International and Local Control, Volume 39, U.S. Perspectives, edited by James Walsh
Published in 2003

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the United States was involved in a long struggle to protect the nation's homeland and American interests abroad from terrorism. The threat of terrorism was an ever-changing enemy involving America in a new kind of war. The enemy was not a specific government of a specific country. Terrorist threats take many forms and aim at many different targets. The enemy has many hiding places and, more often than not, is invisible. Terrorist threats have only one common element, they aim at America's "vulnerabilities," weaknesses they find in U.S. defenses or in U.S. preparedness.

Since 9/11 the U.S....