OneJerusalem.com

Today at 9 a.m. E.D.T., and 4 p.m. M.E.T. (for those living in Israel and other similar time-zone countries), ceremonies will mark the fifth anniversary of what is now being considered the worst single attack against the United States, since Pearl Harbor. The events of this modern ‘day of infamy’ have been shown during the past few days by news networks all over the world. All the major U.S. new programs have been screening the horrible occurrences, in which at least 3.000 people lost their lives; most of them at the sight of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, New York City. Particularly as these events are re-screened, the nightmare of that fateful day becomes real again, almost a real as it was too many, a mere five years ago.

Despite intense efforts to find him, however, the world’s No. 1 arch villain, Osama bin Laden is still at large, and in fact appeared over the weekend in a new tape, together with his second in command, Ayman Muhammad al-Zawahiri, with renewed warnings that America and other Western countries have not seen the last of the terror organization known as Al Qaeda.

This follows on the heels of the tape last week in which Al-Zawahiri, together with a person known as Azaam the American, inviting all ‘non believers’ to convert to Islam before it will be too late. With people like bin Ladin and al-Zawahiri still on the lam, and with the near occurrence of yet another mega-terror attack in London only weeks back, many are wondering what is yet in store for not only Americans, but others as well.

Security experts, including many here in Israel, has been saying that in the past five years since the attacks in New York and Washington D.C., insufficient preparations have been made to prevent another large scale act of terror from happening. Security operations at most U. S. airports, though better than they were in 2001, are still not sufficient enough to prevent another attack from occurring. Terrorists have become more savvy and sophisticated in their methods, even though some of the equipment they used is composed of very simple and common items. New screening devices, including personal profilers, polygraph-like interrogators, and a myriad of photographic, X-ray, and finger printing devices, still are not completely reliable.

Al Qaeda itself have changed dramatically since the American-led coalition forces bombed and attacked Afghanistan, sending bin Laden and his subordinates into hiding and scattering the terror organization in to a number of smaller groups, now known to be far away from their former training centers in Khandaha and Tora Bora. Recent reports even say that many top Al Qaeda people (mostly Sunni Muslims) are now in Iran, enjoying the protection provided by the Shiite dominated Iranian government; despite the intense rivalry and hatred between these two religious groups. The reality of this unification of former enemies lies in their joint hatred for the United States, and for “The Zionist Entity” that these Muslim groups allege is actually in control of things there. Israel’s new war with the Hezbollah has intensified the hatred of these groups against Israel, with Al Qaeda and other Islamic groups no doubt planning new acts of terror against both Israel and the USA.

Though new safer buildings will replace the destroyed twin towers of the World Trade Center, today’s commemoration should remind us all that the worst is not over yet – not by a long shot!

(Photograph courtesy of Wikipedia)