Twenty years after 9/11, did US win its ‘war on terror’?

It has been twenty years since the United States declared "war on terror" in retaliation to the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington.

Hyderabad: It has been twenty years since the United States declared "war on terror" in retaliation to the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington.

Former US President George W Bush announced 'war on terror' against al-Qaeda with the goal of eradicating terrorist groups across the world. The threats of attacks on the US still looms even after twenty years while the scenario is different from what it was in 2001. Two US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that killed tens of thousands of civilians with the expenditure of trillions of dollars were also witnessed. US succeeded in capturing and killing al-Qaeda's Osama Bin Laden during an American raid on his Pakistan compound in 2011.

The US wars against terror in various parts of the world including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Iraq and Africa may have cost the US exchequer a whopping $8 trillion in current dollars, a new study by Brown University concluded.

With the US troops withdrawal from Afghanistan, experts have warned that the capability of anti-US groups to organize and proliferate would escalate. Reports also raise concern over the growth of domestic threats in the US as well as with the spread of groups with affiliations or affinity to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.

Concerns are raised over the spread of groups with similar ideologies to other parts of the world, especially in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. As the fighter groups do not centre predominantly in a particular part of the world, it poses challenges to track and curb.