New world requires new vocabulary

Some of the words and phrases are new, and some old ones have taken on new meaning after the events of Sept. 11, 2001. They remind us how the world has shifted:

Abu Ghraib: The prison noted for mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. forces.

Air marshal: Plainclothes law-enforcement officers on airplanes.

Al- Jazeera: An Arabic network headquartered in Qatar.

Al-Qaida: Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization. It means "the base."

Axis of Evil: Iran, Iraq, North Korea. From President Bush's State of the Union Address in January 2002.

Data mining: Massive collecting of information that is then sifted for specific information.

Dirty bomb: A conventional bomb that disperses radioactive material.

Enemy combatant: The military's term for a captured fighter who is not entitled to rights associated with criminal suspects.

Fatwa: An Islamic ruling issued by a religious leader.

Ground Zero: Site of the destroyed World Trade Center.

Guantánamo: The U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Used as a prison for fighters caught in Afghanistan and Iraq.

IED: Any improvised explosive device. Usually a roadside bomb.

Islamo-fascist: Islamic terrorists and their followers who support violence to create fundamentalist religious governments.

Jihad: Arabic for the struggle for religion. Often translated as holy war.

Mujahedeen: Arabic for those who are fighting a holy war.

Patriot Act: The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001.

Pre-emption: The policy of destroying a threat before it can be executed.

Shock and awe: Opening aerial offensive of the second Iraq war.

Shoe bomber: British national Richard Reid tried to blow up a trans-Atlantic airplane in December 2001 with explosives hidden in his shoes.

Taliban: Islamic fundamentalist rulers of Afghanistan before 9/11.

Tora Bora: A mountainous area in Afghanistan near the Pakistan border where al-Qaida and the Taliban fought a major battle in 2001 with U.S. and Afghan forces.

TSA: The Transportation Security Administration, created after Sept. 11.

WMD: Weapons of mass destruction: chemical, biological and nuclear.