The War on Terror that began after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center was the impetus for two wars: the war on Afghanistan from 2001-2014 and the war in Iraq from 2003- 2011. The wars took place in those two states because the U.S. believed that those states had connections to al-Qaeda, the terrorist group behind the 9/11 attacks. President George W. Bush as well as President Barack Obama condoned these wars in the hope of stopping al-Qaeda and other terrorist cells and limiting or ending future terrorist attacks in the United States. However, some claim that these wars have fueled the fire of jihadists and have increased their desire to attack America. Yet, the United States' invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan is not the sole reason behind jihadists' targeting the U.S., because the root cause for terrorism is complex; additionally, the Afghanistan and Iraq war increased the national debt, but has not stopped the increase of terrorism worldwide. .
Terrorism in the twenty- first century is a multilayered issue. One of the reasons terrorism is prevalent is because there are groups of Muslims who are susceptible to jihadist rhetoric because they are alienated in their community. The fact is, "American jihad ranges from the full spectrum from lone nuts with a general appetite for violence in the jihadist rhetoric to more sophisticated would-be terrorists who have actually trained abroad" (Katel 703). In fact, since 9/11 American Muslims are less drawn to jihadism. However, outside the U.S., especially in Europe, terrorism is more likely. Some of these terrorist attacks include a nightclub in Bali, Indonesia in 2002 that killed 202 people and jihadists destroying subway trains in London in 2005. That is because European Muslims "tended to be more alienated from the surrounding societies and hence more susceptible to jihadist ideology" (714). These alienated individuals are more likely to listen to Muslim extremists and their propaganda that debase the true religion of Islam.
