Decade in Review: War, terror and politics

9 Dec 2009, 1:22 pm   -   Source: SBS - Shalailah Medhora
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The events of September 11 were a turning point in the decade (Getty Images)

The events of September 11 were a turning point in the decade (Getty Images)

The events of September 11, 2001 were a turning point for the decade. But what came afterwards was equally as significant.

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The events of September 11, 2001 were a turning point for the decade. But what came afterwards was equally as significant.

2000

-    George W Bush is voted in as the 43rd US President after the Supreme Court stopped the recount of thousands of disputed ballots in Florida. Bush is inaugurated in 2001, and re-elected four years later

2001

-    At about 8.50am on September 11, American Flight 11 crashes into the north tower of the World Trade Centre in New York, after being hijacked by extremists. Fifteen minutes later, United Flight 175 crashes into the south tower. Nearly an hour later, American Flight 77 crashes into The Pentagon. Just after 10am United Flight 93 crashes into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers and crew confront the hijackers. The final death toll from the attacks hovers near 3,000 by 2009

-    Less than a month after the Sept 11 attacks, US President Bush announces the start of the aerial bombing of Taliban and al-Qaeda bases, signalling the beginning of the Afghan war

-    Australian Prime Minister John Howard wins re-election following the Children Overboard scandal. Prior to the election, Howard and Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock had released pictures of asylum seekers in the water, accusing them of throwing their children overboard in an effort to win asylum in Australia. The Government later reneged on the statements

2002

-    Daniel Pearl, South Asia Bureau Chief for the Wall Street Journal, is abducted in Pakistan. His abductors release pictures of Pearl handcuffed, and make demands on the US for the release of Pakistani prisoners. The demands are not met, and Pearl is beheaded by his captors

-    Guantanamo Bay Detention Centre opens in Cuba. Several detainees claim they have been tortured there, with the US coming under attack for a lack of human rights checks at the facility. In 2009, US President Barack Obama announces he will close the centre

-    More than 200 people from 21 countries die when bombs explode in the popular Kuta district of Bali. Australia suffers the worst casualties, with 88 nationals dying in the attack. Three men accused carrying out the attack are put to death in 2008

-    Australia's Howard Government advises the country to "be alert but not alarmed" in its terrorism alert ad campaign, entitled 'Let's look out for Australia'. The three month television, newspaper and radio campaign costs $15 million

2003

-    War in Darfur begins after rebel groups begin attacking government targets, and the government retaliates. The government is accused of backing the Arab Janjaweed militia, who in turn are accused of trying to expel black Africans from Darfur in a campaign of forced relocation, rape and murder

-    US President George W Bush declares war in Iraq, saying Iraqi President Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. More than 35 countries, including Australia, lend their support to the war, and are given the name the Coalition of the Willing. The term 'shock and awe', used to describe the US's military strategy, becomes synonymous with the war in Iraq. Saddam Hussein is captured and hanged in 2006

-    Former actor Arnold Schwarzenegger is elected Governor of California

2004

-    More than 190 people die, and up to 1,800 others are injured when backpacks filled with explosives target peak-hour commuters on a train in Madrid. The conservative Spanish government blames Basque separatist group ETA for the attack, even when links to Islamic extremists emerge. The conservatives are voted out in an election just days after the attack, and the new Socialist government withdraws the country's troops from Iraq

-    Photos emerge showing physical, psychological and sexual abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, west of Baghdad in Iraq. The soldiers who took the photos or where depicted in them say abuse and torture in the prison is systematic, and that their superiors knew what was going on there

-    Ukrainian President Victor Yushenchenko is allegedly poisoned with dioxin TCDD, which marks his skin and gives it a greenish hue. Mystery still surrounds the poisoning, with supporters of the pro-Western President blaming his opponents for trying to assassinate him

- The world is shocked when nearly 400 people, half of them children, die in the Beslan school massacre. Families of the victims blame the Russian government for poorly handling the days-long siege

2005

-    Four suicide bombers target the transport network in central London at peak hour on July 7, killing 52 people and injuring more than 770 others. The first three bombs exploded on the London Underground, and the final bomb went off on a double-decker bus

-    Just two weeks after the bombings, a second plot targeting the Underground is uncovered after the home-made devices fail to detonate. Four men were sentenced to life for the planned attack in 2007

-    Shortly after the attempted London bombings, British police fatally shoot Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes, mistaking him for a would-be suicide bomber. His family finally reaches a settlement with Scotland Yard for a sum believed to be more than $A180,000

2006

-    Tony Blair announces he will resign as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. His popularity had dropped following his decision to send troops to Iraq. He finally handed over the reigns of the British Labour Party to successor Gordon Brown in June 2007

-    Hundreds of flights were grounded after British police uncover a plot to blow up planes using liquid explosives. The discovery of the plot changed air travel for good, with widespread restrictions applying to the amount of liquid being taken aboard planes

-    Hezbollah militants fire rockets on an Israeli patrol on the Israeli side of a border town, sparking the 34-day Israel-Hezbollah war. A cease-fire is eventually brokered by the United Nations

2007

-    A burning car drives into Glasgow Airport as part of a failed terror plot. Police in UK say the plot is connected with the earlier detection of two car bombs in London, and the threat level in the country is increased to critical

-    Days after the failed Glasgow plot Indian-born doctor, Mohamed Haneef, is arrested in Australia and detained for 25 days under the country's new Anti-Terrorism Act. Haneef is accused of aiding in the Glasgow attacks, in which his cousin was directly implicated. Charges against the doctor are eventually dropped, though the Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews still cancels his working visa. His visa is reinstated by the Federal Court late in the year

-    Kevin Rudd is elected in a landslide victory, ending John Howard's 11-year reign as Prime Minister. Howard loses Bennelong  to former journalist Maxine McKew, becoming only the second incumbent PM to lose his seat

-    Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto is killed when a suicide bomber targets a political rally in Rawalpindi

-    Post-election ethnic violence in Kenya kills up to 1,500 and leaves hundreds of thousands displaced. Nearly six months after the disputed election, a unity government encorporating both major political parties is formed

2008

-    Shoes thrown at US President Bush during a press conference by a journalist unhappy at the US's military involvement in Iraq. The journalist becomes somewhat of a hero in his home country, but is sentenced to jail for his actions

-    India's financial capital Mumbai comes under siege from ten heavily-armed men who storm a number of location, including hotels, a restaurant popular with foreigners, a railway station and a Jewish centre. Nearly 170 people died in the attacks, which lasted for three days

-    Israel begins its offensive in Gaza, saying the country is coming under increasing rocket attack from Hamas members A United Nations releasing a report released months after the conflict ends slams both sides for war crimes

2009

-    Morgan Tsvangirai agrees in principal to a unity government with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. Political crisis in the country had been ongoing since a disputed election the previous year

-    Gunmen attack a bus carrying Sri Lankan cricketers in the Pakistani city of Lahore, killing eight and causing the International Cricket Council (ICC) to question security protocol in the country, and forcing them to reconsider whether future international matches can be played there

-    The Sri Lankan Civil War that has been raging for more than a quarter of a century ends with the defeat of the Liberation of the Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Both sides accuse the other of human rights violations, as 300 thousand internally-displaced civilians continue to live in UN camps

-    Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is re-elected amid a controversial poll in Iran. Speculation surrounding voting fraud causes thousands of opposition supporters to take to the streets in the biggest protests seen by the country since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Accusations of manhandling by the Basij militia are rife, and a viral video showing the death of student Neda Agha-Soltan adds to mounting global pressure on Ahmadinejad to justify the election results

 

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