What is al-Qaeda? Al-Qaeda is an international terrorist network led by Osama bin Laden. It seeks to rid Muslim countries of what it sees as the profane influence of the West and replace their governments with fundamentalist Islamic regimes. After al-Qaeda’s September 11, 2001, attacks on America, the United States launched a war in Afghanistan to destroy al-Qaeda’s bases there and overthrow the Taliban, the country’s Muslim fundamentalist rulers who harbored bin Laden and his followers. “Al-Qaeda” is Arabic for “the base.”
