The Sept. 11 attacks changed the way Americans view the world for good, believes an ISU professor of political science.

Up until that day, the United States was “still under the influence of the triumphalism of the Cold War,” said Richard Mansbach, professor of political science.

To discuss the global impacts of the 9/11 attacks, one must first understand where suicide attacks, like what was seen on Sept. 11, came from.

“Suicide bombing was developed by the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka in the 1980s,” said Ellen Pirro, lecturer of political science.

The Tamil Tigers were a separatist group in northern Sri Lanka that wished to establish an independent state for the Tamil people.

As the Tamil Tigers were starting their 30-plus-year campaign, Osama bin Laden was building a full-fledged Sunni Islamic terrorist group that was to begin operations in targeted countries, particularly in the West.

Within 12 years of its formation, al-Qaida already was responsible for famous attacks such as the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in the East Africa and the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen.

By 2001, al-Qaida’s sophistication reached a new high with the Sept. 11 attacks, which killed almost 3,000 American citizens.

Less than a month after the Sept. 11 attacks, the United States was in Afghanistan to begin the war on al-Qaida and terrorism.

By Nov. 11, 2001, the United States and its NATO allies had taken the capital, Kabul, and were on the hunt to capture bin Laden.

However, despite a quick and easy conventional victory against the Taliban, the war became drawn out and “efforts were turned over to locals and many of them were incompetent … and the Afghan leadership was a disaster,” Mansbach said.

Two years later, the United States launched its invasion of Iraq, and world support for the United States began to wane.

After the Iraq War, “we alienated everybody, but the power relationships of the world did not change,” Pirro said.

In other words, the United States and its allies remained power centers in the world, but no one wanted to associate with them because of the wars.

“Everybody decided to call their opponents terrorists … The Russians called the Chechens terrorists, the Israelis called the Palestinians terrorists, the Turks called the Kurds terrorists, and in part, terrorists groups have multiplied since then,” Pirro said.

Since the war on terror began 10 years ago, “the old al-Qaida is mostly diminished … and is more of a metaphor for these groups than an actual entity,” Mansbach said.

Several splinter groups have broken off to conduct their own attacks.

Other groups have simply arisen after having seen the success and publicity al-Qaida received.

Most recently, the terrorist group known as Boko Haram entered the world stage by bombing the United Nation headquarters in the Nigerian capital of Abuja.

Boko Haram is an Islamic militant group that fights to establish an Islamic state in Nigeria.

It has been added to the long list of terrorist groups that have formed since Sept. 11.