Article by Kotie Geldenhuys
Photos/images courtesy of Pexels and Pixabay
This September, it has been 24 years since the world stood still for a few minutes as we watched how two airplanes flew into the two tallest buildings in New York. For those who have witnessed it firsthand, and even for those of us who have seen the footage numerous times, it is as if those images have been etched into our minds. These scenes gave us a wake-up call that terrorism is real.
The intersection between terrorism and transnational organised crime has long existed, even if systematic analysis of their relationship is relatively recent. Traditionally treated as distinct threats, the so-called 9/11 attacks on the United States of America caused these two forms of criminal activity to be viewed through a different lens. The 9/11 Commission revealed that the longstanding separation between counterterrorism and anti-crime efforts had hindered timely intervention. While the perpetrators were terrorists, the planning and funding of the attacks relied heavily on organised criminal networks, highlighting the critical and often overlooked nexus between these two global security threats (Ewi, 2023).
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[This is only an extract of an article published in Servamus: September 2025. This article is available for purchase.]