Author: Michael N. Schmitt
Date: November 2002
On September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda terrorists flew two commercial airplanes into the World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon. A fourth crashed into the Pennsylvania countryside. Nearly 3,000 innocents died in the attacks. This Marshall Center Paper explores the legality of the US response to 9/11 against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Although States have conducted military counter-terrorist operations in the past, the scale and scope of Operation Enduring Freedom may well signal a sea change in strategies to defend against terrorism. This paper explores the normative limit on counter-terrorist operations. Under what circumstances can a victim State react forcibly to an act of terrorism? Against whom? When? And with what degree of severity?
