Inside Story

Did killing Osama bin Laden make the world safer?

Examining al-Qaeda leader’s effect on how American policymakers and Western countries deal with the Middle East.

It was an emotional and cathartic moment for many Americans: US President Barack Obama announcing the death of the man who orchestrated the killing of more than 3,000 people on September 11, 2001, and who evaded capture for years.

Five years after the controversial killing of the world’s most wanted man, Osama bin Laden’s message lives on.

He has inspired a new generation of armed groups around the world, many of them even more violent than al-Qaeda.

For many Muslims, bin Laden was the face of a global militancy that hijacked their religion and the trigger for the so-called War on Terror.

It is a campaign which has come to define American foreign policy post-9/11. And it continues to shape the relationship of many countries with the Muslim world.

Inside Story examines the effect bin Laden has had on American policymakers and how Western countries deal with the Middle East.

And we ask, has the War on Terror made us all any safer?

Presenter: Fauziah Ibrahim

Guests:

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross – Senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Afshin Shahi – Director of the Centre for the Study of Political Islam, Bradford University.

Ahmad Moussalli – Professor of political science at the American University of Beirut.