Homeland Security Essay Topics

The Terrorist Threat
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The Terrorist Threat
Terrorism has been a significant challenge in the United States, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has committedly battled the ever-evolving terrorism. Since the 9/11 attacks, which claimed many Americans' lives, the state, through DHS, laid strategies on countering the challenge of terrorism to reduce the suffering of innocent Americans, within and outside the American land (Department of Homeland Security, 2014). Americans' perception of the nature of terrorist threats changed after 9/11 because terrorists started operating from within the country so intelligently that it becomes hard for the DHS to detect and stop potential attacks. Attacks by individual Americans were rampant than before 9/11 incidence; and this implied that external terrorist groups, particularly the Al- Qaida, had changed their tactics. This paper reviews the nature and challenges of terrorist threats and the counterterrorism approaches used by DHS.
The 9/11 attacks made the American government put a lot of counterterrorism pressure on Al-Qaeda, especially in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and their neighborhoods (Department of Homeland Security, 2014). As a result of the pressure, the leader of Al- Qaida could not sophisticatedly strategize external attacks but remained aspired to hit the American land. It was noted that the United States had a more potent enemy to conquer after small terrorist groups affiliated with Al-Qaida and ideologically helped to attack American citizens living overseas. For instance, Al-Qaida's Arabian Peninsula affiliates arouse a lot of concern because their principal interest is to attack the American aviation industry (Baugut & Neumann, 2019). Also, there are militants that affiliate and offer support to al-Qaida. The affiliate militants operate from the conflict zones of West Africa, North Africa, and Middle East regions (Department of Homeland Security, 2014). Their primary terroristic concern is to train recruits, especially those with western passport, and use them to attack their mother country, the US.
The Al-Qaida leaders, affiliate groups, and individual supporters operate through propaganda to convince their western supporters that cannot travel to conflict zones that America is an enemy and should face attacks. The propaganda thrives through the use of digital media. Al- Qaeda uses social media like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter to further their ideologies (Baugut & Neumann, 2019). They do so by creating propaganda that intends to seduce youth to become their affiliates. For instance, the Al- Qaeda used the US Army invasion of Al-Qaida's strongholds in Afghanistan to draw attention to the Muslim youth worldwide that what the group fights is real.
They hold that the US is anti- Islamic and that Al- Qaeda is the only group that the Islamic community should use to fight their enemy. Al- Qaida's triggers its members’ heinous actions by falsely claiming that the Islam religion is under attack (Baugut & Neumann, 2019). They appeal to their followers by convincing them that they can invade and exploit Islam in the military, religion, and economy...