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The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated
suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and s ...
terrorist attacks
The following is a list of terrorist incidents that have not been carried out by a state or its forces (see state terrorism and state-sponsored terrorism). Assassinations are listed at List of assassinated people.
Definitions of terrori ...
carried out by
al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremism, Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arab, Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military ta ...
against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning,
nineteen terrorists hijacked
Hijacking may refer to:
Common usage
Computing and technology
* Bluejacking, the unsolicited transmission of data via Bluetooth
* Brandjacking, the unauthorized use of a company's brand
* Browser hijacking
* Clickjacking (including ''like ...
four commercial
airliners
An airliner is a type of aircraft for transporting passengers and air cargo. Such aircraft are most often operated by airlines. Although the definition of an airliner can vary from country to country, an airliner is typically defined as an ...
scheduled to travel from the
Northeastern United States
The Northeastern United States, also referred to as the Northeast, the East Coast, or the American Northeast, is a geographic region of the United States. It is located on the Atlantic coast of North America, with Canada to its north, the Southe ...
to
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
. The hijackers crashed the first two planes into the Twin Towers of the
World Trade Center
World Trade Centers are sites recognized by the World Trade Centers Association.
World Trade Center may refer to:
Buildings
* List of World Trade Centers
* World Trade Center (2001–present), a building complex that includes five skyscrapers, a ...
in New York City, and the third plane into
the Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase ''The Pentagon'' is often used as a metony ...
(the headquarters of the
United States military
The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The president of the United States is the ...
) in
Arlington County, Virginia
Arlington County is a County (United States), county in the Virginia, Commonwealth of Virginia. The county is situated in Northern Virginia on the southwestern bank of the Potomac River directly across from the Washington, D.C., District of Co ...
. The fourth plane was intended to hit a
federal government
A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government (federalism). In a federation, the self-governin ...
building in Washington, D.C., but crashed in a field following a passenger revolt. The attacks killed nearly 3,000 people and instigated the
war on terror
The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is an ongoing international Counterterrorism, counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks. The main targets of the campa ...
.
The first impact was that of
American Airlines Flight 11
American Airlines Flight 11 was a domestic passenger flight that was hijacked by five al-Qaeda terrorists on September 11, 2001 as part of the September 11 attacks. Lead hijacker Mohamed Atta deliberately crashed the plane into the North Tower ...
. It was crashed into the
North Tower of the World Trade Center complex in
Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan (also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York) is the southernmost part of Manhattan, the central borough for business, culture, and government in New York City, which is the most populated city in the United States with ...
at 8:46 a.m. Seventeen minutes later, at 9:03, the World Trade Center’s
South Tower was hit by
United Airlines Flight 175
United Airlines Flight 175 was a domestic passenger flight that was hijacked by five al-Qaeda terrorists on September 11, 2001, as part of the September 11 attacks. The flight's scheduled plan was from Logan International Airport, in Boston, M ...
. Both 110-story skyscrapers
collapsed within an hour and forty-two minutes, precipitating the collapse of other World Trade Center structures including
7 World Trade Center
7 World Trade Center (7 WTC, WTC-7, or Tower 7) refers to two buildings that have existed at the same location within the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The original structure, part of the original World Trade Cent ...
, and damaging nearby buildings. A third flight,
American Airlines Flight 77
American Airlines Flight 77 was a scheduled American Airlines domestic transcontinental passenger flight from Washington Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Virginia, to Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles, California. The Boe ...
, crashed into the west side of the Pentagon in
Arlington County, Virginia
Arlington County is a County (United States), county in the Virginia, Commonwealth of Virginia. The county is situated in Northern Virginia on the southwestern bank of the Potomac River directly across from the Washington, D.C., District of Co ...
, at 9:37 a.m., causing a partial collapse. The fourth and final flight,
United Airlines Flight 93
United Airlines Flight 93 was a domestic scheduled passenger flight that was hijacked by four al-Qaeda attackers aboard the plane on the morning of September 11, 2001, as part of the September 11 attacks. The plane eventually crashed in Som ...
, flew in the direction of Washington, D.C. Alerted of the previous attacks, the plane's passengers fought back in an attempt to gain control of the aircraft, but the hijackers ultimately crashed the plane in a field in
Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania, near
Shanksville
Shanksville is a borough in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. It has a population of 197 as of the 2020 U.S. census. It is part of the Somerset, Pennsylvania Micropolitan Statistical Area and is located southeast of Pittsburgh and west of Philade ...
at 10:03 a.m. Investigators determined that Flight 93 was targeting either the
United States Capitol
The United States Capitol, often called The Capitol or the Capitol Building, is the seat of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, which is formally known as the United States Congress. It is located on Capitol Hill ...
or the
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...
.
Within hours of the attacks, the
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
determined that al-Qaeda was responsible. The United States formally
responded by launching the war on terror and
invading Afghanistan to depose the
Taliban
The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state (polity), state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalist, m ...
, which had not complied with U.S. demands to expel al-Qaeda from Afghanistan and extradite its leader,
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was a Saudi-born extremist militant who founded al-Qaeda and served as its leader from 1988 until Killing of Osama bin Laden, his death in 2011. Ideologically a Pan-Islamism ...
. The U.S.'s invocation of
Article 5 of NATO—its only usage to date—called upon allies to fight al-Qaeda. As U.S. and
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
ground forces swept through Afghanistan, bin Laden went into hiding. Although bin Laden denied any involvement,
in 2004 he formally claimed
responsibility for the attacks. Al-Qaeda's cited motivations included
U.S. support of Israel, the presence of
U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, and
sanctions against Iraq
The sanctions against Iraq were a comprehensive financial and trade embargo imposed by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Iraq. They began August 6, 1990, four days after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, stayed largely in force until May 22, ...
. After
evading capture for almost a decade, bin Laden was
killed by the U.S. military on May 2, 2011.
The attacks resulted in
2,977 non-hijacker fatalities, an indeterminate number of injuries, and
substantial long-term health consequences, in addition to at least $10billion in infrastructure and property damage. It remains the
deadliest terrorist attack in human history and the
single deadliest incident for firefighters and
law enforcement officers
A law enforcement officer (LEO), or peace officer in North American English, is a public-sector employee whose duties primarily involve the enforcement of laws. The phrase can include campaign disclosure specialists, local police officers, pros ...
in U.S. history, with 343 and 72 killed, respectively. The destruction of the World Trade Center and its environs seriously harmed the New York City economy and
induced global market shocks. Many other countries strengthened
anti-terrorism legislation
Anti-terrorism legislation are laws with the purpose of fighting terrorism. They usually, if not always, follow specific bombings or assassinations. Anti-terrorism legislation usually includes specific amendments allowing the state to bypass its ...
and expanded their powers of
law enforcement
Law enforcement is the activity of some members of government who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by discovering, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms governing that society. The term en ...
and
intelligence agencies
An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, public safety, and foreign policy objectives.
Means of informatio ...
. Cleanup of the
World Trade Center site
The World Trade Center site, often referred to as "Ground zero#World Trade Center, Ground Zero" or "the Pile" immediately after the September 11 attacks, is a 14.6-acre (5.9 ha) area in Lower Manhattan in New York City. The site is bounde ...
(colloquially "Ground Zero") took eight months and was completed in May 2002, while the Pentagon was repaired within a year. After delays in the design of a replacement complex, the
One World Trade Center
One World Trade Center (also known as One World Trade, One WTC, and formerly Freedom Tower) is the main building of the rebuilt World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Designed by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Mer ...
began construction in November 2006 and opened in November 2014.
Memorials to the attacks include the
National September 11 Memorial & Museum
The National September 11 Memorial & Museum (also known as the 9/11 Memorial & Museum) is a memorial and museum in New York City commemorating the September 11 attacks of 2001, which killed 2,977 people, and the 1993 World Trade Center bombi ...
in New York City, the
Pentagon Memorial
The Pentagon Memorial, formally the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial, located just southwest of The Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., is a permanent outdoor memorial to the 184 people who di ...
in Arlington County, and the
Flight 93 National Memorial
The Flight 93 National Memorial is a memorial built to commemorate the crash of United Airlines Flight 93, which was one of four aircraft hijacked during the September 11 attacks in 2001. The memorial is located in Stonycreek Township in Somer ...
at the Pennsylvania crash site.
Background
Al-Qaeda
The origins of al-Qaeda can be traced to 1979 when the
Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden traveled to the central Asian country to volunteer, viewing the war as a
holy
Sacred describes something that is dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a deity; is considered worthy of spiritual respect or devotion; or inspires awe or reverence among believers. The property is often ascribed to objects (a ...
cause to help fellow Muslims (in Afghanistan) defeat
Communist
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
invaders (the Soviets).
Bin Laden organized fellow Arab
mujahideen
''Mujahideen'', or ''Mujahidin'' ( ar, مُجَاهِدِين, mujāhidīn), is the plural form of ''mujahid'' ( ar, مجاهد, mujāhid, strugglers or strivers or justice, right conduct, Godly rule, etc. doers of jihād), an Arabic term th ...
(the "
Afghan Arabs
Afghan Arabs (also known as Arab-Afghans) are Arab and other Muslim Islamist mujahideen who came to Afghanistan during and following the Soviet–Afghan War to help fellow Muslims fight Soviets and pro-Soviet Afghans.
Estimates of the volunte ...
") to resist the Soviets until that country's exit from Afghanistan in 1989. The U.S.
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
(CIA) funneled several billion dollars worth of weapons to the indigenous
Afghan mujahideen resistance, a portion of which bled to the Arab volunteers. However, no direct U.S. aid to bin Laden or any of his affiliates has ever been established.
In 1996, bin Laden issued his first ''
fatwā
A fatwā ( ; ar, فتوى; plural ''fatāwā'' ) is a legal ruling on a point of Islamic law (''sharia'') given by a qualified '' Faqih'' (Islamic jurist) in response to a question posed by a private individual, judge or government. A jurist i ...
'', calling for
American soldiers to leave Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
. In a second ''fatwā'' in 1998, bin Laden outlined his objections to
American foreign policy
The officially stated goals of the foreign policy of the United States of America, including all the bureaus and offices in the United States Department of State, as mentioned in the ''Foreign Policy Agenda'' of the Department of State, are ...
with respect to Israel, as well as the continued presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia after the
Gulf War
The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...
.
Bin Laden used Islamic texts to exhort Muslims to attack Americans until the stated grievances were reversed.
Muslim legal scholars "have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the
jihad
Jihad (; ar, جهاد, jihād ) is an Arabic word which literally means "striving" or "struggling", especially with a praiseworthy aim. In an Islamic context, it can refer to almost any effort to make personal and social life conform with Go ...
is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries", according to bin Laden.
Osama bin Laden
![Osama bin Laden portrait](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Osama_bin_Laden_portrait.jpg)
Bin Laden orchestrated the attacks. He initially denied involvement, but later recanted his false statements.
Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera ( ar, الجزيرة, translit-std=DIN, translit=al-jazīrah, , "The Island") is a state-owned Arabic-language international radio and TV broadcaster of Qatar. It is based in Doha and operated by the media conglomerate Al Jazeera ...
broadcast a statement by him on September 16, 2001: "I stress that I have not carried out this act, which appears to have been carried out by individuals with their own motivation." In November 2001, U.S. forces recovered a videotape from a destroyed house in
Jalalabad, Afghanistan
Jalalabad (; Dari/ ps, جلالآباد, ) is the fifth-largest city of Afghanistan. It has a population of about 356,274, and serves as the capital of Nangarhar Province in the eastern part of the country, about from the capital Kabul. Jala ...
. In the video, bin Laden is seen talking to
Khaled al-Harbi
Khaled bin Ouda bin Mohammed al-Harbi, ( ar, خالد بن عودة بن محمد الحربي, ''Khālid bin ‘Ūdah bin Muḥammad al-Ḥarbī'') (c.1963 - present) is a Saudi national who was associated with Osama bin Laden's mujahadeen grou ...
and
admits foreknowledge of the attacks. On December 27, 2001, a second bin Laden video was released. In the video, he said:
but he stopped short of admitting responsibility for the attacks.
Shortly before the
U.S. presidential election in 2004, bin Laden used a
taped statement to publicly acknowledge al-Qaeda's involvement in the attacks on the United States. He admitted his direct link to the attacks and said they were carried out because...
Bin Laden said he had personally directed his followers to attack the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Another video obtained by Al Jazeera in September 2006 shows bin Laden with one of the attacks' chief planners,
Ramzi bin al-Shibh
Ramzi Mohammed Abdullah bin al-Shibh ( ar, رمزي محمد عبدالله بن الشيبة; also transliterated as bin al-Shaibah; born 1 May 1972[Hamza al-Ghamdi
Hamza al-Ghamdi ( ar, حمزة الغامدي, , also transliterated as Alghamdi) (November 18, 1980 – September 11, 2001) was one of five terrorist hijackers of United Airlines Flight 175 as part of the September 11 attacks.
Born in Saudi Ara ...](_bl ...<br></span></div>, as well as two hijackers, <div class=)
and
Wail al-Shehri
Wail Mohammed al-Shehri ( ar, وائل الشهري, ; also transliterated as Alshehri) (July 31, 1973 – September 11, 2001) was one of five terrorist hijackers of American Airlines Flight 11, which was flown into the North Tower of the World ...
, as they made preparations for the attacks. The U.S. never formally indicted bin Laden for the 9/11 attacks, but he was on the FBI's Most Wanted List for the
bombings of the U.S. Embassies in
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Dar es Salaam (; from ar, دَار السَّلَام, Dâr es-Selâm, lit=Abode of Peace) or commonly known as Dar, is the largest city and financial hub of Tanzania. It is also the capital of Dar es Salaam Region. With a population of over s ...
, and
Nairobi, Kenya
Nairobi ( ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Kenya. The name is derived from the Maasai language, Maasai phrase ''Enkare Nairobi'', which translates to "place of cool waters", a reference to the Nairobi River which flows throug ...
. After a
10-year manhunt, U.S. President
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
announced that bin Laden was
killed by American special forces in his
compound
Compound may refer to:
Architecture and built environments
* Compound (enclosure), a cluster of buildings having a shared purpose, usually inside a fence or wall
** Compound (fortification), a version of the above fortified with defensive struct ...
in
Abbottabad
Abbottabad (; Urdu, Punjabi language(HINDKO dialect) آباد, translit=aibṭabād, ) is the capital city of Abbottabad District in the Hazara region of eastern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. It is the 40th largest city in Pakistan and fourth ...
, Pakistan, on May 1, 2011.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
![Khalid Shaikh Mohammed after capture](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Khalid_Shaikh_Mohammed_after_capture.jpg)
Journalist
Yosri Fouda
Yosri Fouda ( ar, يسري فودة ', ), is an Egyptian investigative reporter, author, and television host. He established Al Jazeera's office in London and was one of the star figures in the channel until he resigned in 2009. Fouda also worked ...
of the Arabic television channel
Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera ( ar, الجزيرة, translit-std=DIN, translit=al-jazīrah, , "The Island") is a state-owned Arabic-language international radio and TV broadcaster of Qatar. It is based in Doha and operated by the media conglomerate Al Jazeera ...
reported that in April 2002 al-Qaeda member
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (sometimes also spelled Shaikh; also known by at least 50 pseudonyms; born March 1, 1964 or April 14, 1965) is a Pakistani Islamist militant held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp under terrorism-re ...
admitted his involvement in the attacks, along with Ramzi bin al-Shibh.
The 2004
9/11 Commission Report
''The 9/11 Commission Report'' (officially the ''Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States)'' is the official report into the events leading up to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. It was prepa ...
determined that the animosity towards the United States felt by Mohammed, the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks, stemmed from his "violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel".
[9/11 Commission Report (2004), p. 147.] Mohammed was also an adviser and financier of the
1993 World Trade Center bombing
The 1993 World Trade Center bombing was a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City, U.S., carried out on February 26, 1993, when a van bomb detonated below the North Tower of the complex. The urea nitrate–hydrogen gas en ...
and the uncle of
Ramzi Yousef
Ramzi Ahmed Yousef ( ur, , translit=''Ramzī Ahmad Yūsuf''; born 20 May 1967 or 27 April 1968) is a Pakistani convicted terrorist who was one of the main perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the bombing of Philippine Airlines ...
, the lead bomber in that attack.
Mohammed was arrested on March 1, 2003, in
Rawalpindi
Rawalpindi ( or ; Urdu, ) is a city in the Punjab province of Pakistan. It is the fourth largest city in Pakistan after Karachi, Lahore and Faisalabad, and third largest in Punjab after Lahore and Faisalabad. Rawalpindi is next to Pakistan's ...
, Pakistan, by Pakistani security officials working with the CIA. He was then held at multiple
CIA secret prisons
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
and
Guantanamo Bay where he was interrogated and tortured with methods including
waterboarding
Waterboarding is a form of torture in which water torture, water is poured over a cloth covering the face and breathing passages of an immobilized captive, causing the person to experience the sensation of drowning. In the most common method ...
. During U.S. hearings at Guantanamo Bay in March 2007, Mohammed again confessed his responsibility for the attacks, stating he "was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z" and that his statement was not made under duress.
A letter presented by Mohammed's lawyers in the U.S. District Court, Manhattan, on July 26, 2019, indicated that he was interested in testifying about Saudi Arabia's role in the 9/11 attacks and helping the victims and families of the victims of 9/11 in exchange for the United States not seeking the death penalty against him. James Kreindler, one of the lawyers for the victims, raised question over the usefulness of his testimony.
Other al-Qaeda members
In "Substitution for Testimony of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed" from the trial of
Zacarias Moussaoui
Zacarias Moussaoui (Arabic: زكريا موسوي, '; born May 30, 1968) is a French member of al-Qaeda who pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court to conspiring to kill citizens of the United States as part of the September 11 attacks. He is serv ...
, five people are identified as having been completely aware of the operation's details. They are bin Laden; Khalid Sheikh Mohammed; Ramzi bin al-Shibh;
Abu Turab al-Urduni Abu Turab al-Urduni () was a Jordanian jihadist. He was the son-in-law of Ayman al-Zawahiri,9/11 Commission9/11 Report: Notes to Chapter 7. August 2004 who has been described by the United States government as one of five individuals who were aware ...
; and
Mohammed Atef
Mohammed Atef ( ar, محمد عاطف, ; born Sobhi Mohammed Abu Sitta Al-Gohary, also known as Abu Hafs al-Masri) was the military chief of al-Qaeda, and was considered one of Osama bin Laden's two deputies, the other being Ayman Al Zawahiri, ...
. To date, only peripheral figures have been tried or convicted for the attacks.
On September 26, 2005, the
Spanish high court
The Audiencia Nacional (; en, National Court) is a centralised court in Spain with jurisdiction over all of the Spanish territory. It is specialised in a certain scope of delinquency, having original jurisdiction over major crimes such as those ...
sentenced
Abu Dahdah
Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas alias Abu Dahdah ( ar, أبو الدحداح 'Abū ad-Daḥdāh) is a Syrian-born Spaniard sentenced to a 27-year prison term in Spain for his part in the September 11, 2001, attacks and for his membership in the banned ...
to 27 years in prison for conspiracy on the 9/11 attacks and being a member of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda. At the same time, another 17 al-Qaeda members were sentenced to penalties of between six and eleven years. On February 16, 2006, the Spanish Supreme Court reduced Abu Dahdah's penalty to 12 years because it considered that his participation in the conspiracy was not proven.
Also in 2006 Moussaoui, who some originally suspected might have been the assigned twentieth hijacker, was convicted for the lesser role of conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism and air piracy. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole in the United States.
Mounir el-Motassadeq, an associate of the Hamburg-based hijackers, served 15 years in Germany for his role in helping the hijackers prepare for the attacks. He was released in October 2018 and deported to Morocco.
The
Hamburg cell
The Hamburg cell (german: Hamburger Zelle) or Hamburg terror cell (german: Hamburger Terrorzelle) was, according to U.S. and German intelligence agencies, a group of radical Islamists based in Hamburg, Germany, that included students from dif ...
in Germany included radical Islamists who eventually came to be key operatives in the 9/11 attacks.
Mohamed Atta
Mohamed Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta ( ; ar, محمد محمد الأمير عوض السيد عطا ; September 1, 1968 – September 11, 2001) was an Egyptian hijacker and the ringleader of the September 11 attacks in 2001 in which fo ...
;
Marwan al-Shehhi
Marwan Yousef Mohamed Rashid Lekrab al-Shehhi ( ar, مروان يوسف محمد رشيد لكراب الشحي, , also transliterated as Alshehhi; 9 May 1978 – 11 September 2001) was an Emirati al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist who served as ...
;
Ziad Jarrah
Ziad Samir Jarrah ( ar, زياد سمير جراح, '; May 11, 1975 – September 11, 2001) was a Lebanese terrorist and one of the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks. He was the hijacker-pilot of United Airlines Flight 93, crashing the pla ...
;
Ramzi bin al-Shibh
Ramzi Mohammed Abdullah bin al-Shibh ( ar, رمزي محمد عبدالله بن الشيبة; also transliterated as bin al-Shaibah; born 1 May 1972[Said Bahaji
Said Bahaji ( ar, سعيد بحجي, also Romanization of Arabic, transliterated as Saeed Bahaji, also known as Zuhayr al-Maghribi, 15 July 1975 in Haselünne, Lower Saxony – September 2013), was a citizen of Germany, Electrical Engineering and ...](_bl ...<br></span></div>; and <div class=)
were all members of al-Qaeda's Hamburg cell.
Motives
Osama bin Laden's declaration of a
holy war
A religious war or a war of religion, sometimes also known as a holy war ( la, sanctum bellum), is a war which is primarily caused or justified by differences in religion. In the modern period, there are frequent debates over the extent to wh ...
against the United States, and a
1998 ''fatwā'' signed by bin Laden and others, calling for the killing of Americans,
are seen by investigators as evidence of his motivation.
In bin Laden's November 2002 "Letter to America", he explicitly stated that al-Qaeda's motives for their attacks include:
*
U.S. support of Israel[*Mearsheimer (2007), p. 67.
*Kushner (2003), p. 389.
*Murdico (2003), p. 64.
*Kelley (2006), p. 207.
*Ibrahim (2007), p. 276.
*]
* Support for the "attacks against Muslims" in
Somalia
Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constituti ...
* Support of Philippines against Muslims in the
Moro conflict
The Moro conflict is an insurgency in the Mindanao region of the Philippines, which has involved multiple armed groups, and has been ongoing since March 1968. Peace deals have been signed between the Philippine government and two major arme ...
* Support for Israeli "aggression" against Muslims in
Lebanon
Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...
* Support of Russian "atrocities against Muslims" in
Chechnya
Chechnya ( rus, Чечня́, Chechnyá, p=tɕɪtɕˈnʲa; ce, Нохчийчоь, Noxçiyçö), officially the Chechen Republic,; ce, Нохчийн Республика, Noxçiyn Respublika is a republic of Russia. It is situated in the ...
* Pro-American governments in the Middle East (who "act as your agents") being against Muslim interests
* Support of Indian "oppression against Muslims" in
Kashmir
Kashmir () is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. Today, the term encompas ...
* The
presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia
* The
sanctions against Iraq
The sanctions against Iraq were a comprehensive financial and trade embargo imposed by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Iraq. They began August 6, 1990, four days after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, stayed largely in force until May 22, ...
[*
*]
After the attacks, bin Laden and
Ayman al-Zawahiri
Ayman Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri (June 19, 1951 – July 31, 2022) was an Egyptian-born terrorist and physician who served as the second emir of al-Qaeda from June 16, 2011, until his death.
Al-Zawahiri graduated from Cairo University with ...
released additional
videotapes
Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog or digital signal. Videotape is used in both video tape recorders (VTRs) and, more commonly, videocassette ...
and audio recordings, some of which repeated those reasons for the attacks. Two particularly important publications were bin Laden's 2002 "Letter to America"
and a 2004 videotape by bin Laden.
Bin Laden interpreted
Muhammad
Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 Common Era, CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Muhammad in Islam, Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet Divine inspiration, di ...
as having banned the "permanent presence of infidels in Arabia". In 1996,
bin Laden issued a ''
fatwā
A fatwā ( ; ar, فتوى; plural ''fatāwā'' ) is a legal ruling on a point of Islamic law (''sharia'') given by a qualified '' Faqih'' (Islamic jurist) in response to a question posed by a private individual, judge or government. A jurist i ...
'' calling for American troops to leave Saudi Arabia. In 1998, al-Qaeda wrote "for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples."
In a December 1999 interview, bin Laden said he felt that Americans were "too near to
Mecca
Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red ...
", and considered this a provocation to the entire Muslim world.
One analysis of suicide terrorism suggested that without U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, al-Qaeda likely would not have been able to get people to commit to suicide missions.
In the 1998 ''fatwā'', al-Qaeda identified the Iraq sanctions as a reason to kill Americans, condemning the "protracted blockade" among other actions that constitute a declaration of war against "Allah, his messenger, and Muslims."
The ''fatwā'' declared that "the ruling to kill the Americans and their alliescivilians and militaryis an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the
al-Aqsa Mosque
Al-Aqsa Mosque (, ), also known as Jami' Al-Aqsa () or as the Qibli Mosque ( ar, المصلى القبلي, translit=al-Muṣallā al-Qiblī, label=none), and also is a congregational mosque located in the Old City of Jerusalem. It is situate ...
and the holy mosque of Mecca from their grip, and in order for their
he Americans'
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim."
In 2004, Bin Laden claimed that the idea of destroying the towers had first occurred to him in 1982, when he witnessed Israel's bombardment of high-rise apartment buildings during the
1982 Lebanon War
The 1982 Lebanon War, dubbed Operation Peace for Galilee ( he, מבצע שלום הגליל, or מבצע של"ג ''Mivtsa Shlom HaGalil'' or ''Mivtsa Sheleg'') by the Israeli government, later known in Israel as the Lebanon War or the First L ...
. Some analysts, including political scientists
John Mearsheimer
John Joseph Mearsheimer (; born December 14, 1947) is an American political scientist and international relations scholar, who belongs to the realist school of thought. He is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the Univers ...
and
Stephen Walt
Stephen Martin Walt (born July 2, 1955) is the Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International relations at the Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University and a political scientist.
A member of the realist school of international relations ...
, also claimed that U.S. support of Israel was one motive for the attacks.
In 2004 and 2010, bin Laden again connected the September 11 attacks with U.S. support of Israel, although most of the letter expressed bin Laden's disdain for President Bush and bin Laden's hope to "destroy and bankrupt" the U.S.
Other motives have been suggested in addition to those stated by bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Some authors suggested the "humiliation" that resulted from the Islamic world falling behind the Western worldthis discrepancy was rendered especially visible by globalization and a desire to provoke the U.S. into a broader war against the Islamic world in the hope of motivating more allies to support al-Qaeda. Similarly, others have argued that 9/11 was a strategic move with the objective of provoking America into a war that would incite a
pan-Islamic
Pan-Islamism ( ar, الوحدة الإسلامية) is a political movement advocating the unity of Muslims under one Islamic country or state – often a caliphate – or an international organization with Islamic principles. Pan-Islamism was ...
revolution.
Documents seized during the
2011 operation that killed bin Laden included a few notes handwritten by bin Laden in September 2002 with the heading "The Birth of the Idea of September 11". In these notes he describes how he was inspired by the crash of
EgyptAir Flight 990
EgyptAir Flight 990 (MS990/MSR990) was a regularly scheduled flight from Los Angeles International Airport to Cairo International Airport, with a stop at John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York City. On October 31, 1999, the Boeing 767-3 ...
on October 31, 1999, which was deliberately crashed by co-pilot
Gameel Al-Batouti
Gameel Al-Batouti ( ar, جميل البطوطي; also rendered "Gamil El Batouti" or "El Batouty" in U.S. official reports; 2 February 1940 – 31 October 1999) was a pilot for EgyptAir and a former officer for the Egyptian Air Force. On 31 Octo ...
. "This is how the idea of 9/11 was conceived and developed in my head, and that is when we began the planning" bin Laden continued, adding that no one but
Abu Hafs Abu Hafs may refer to:
* Abu Hafs Umar al-Nasafi, a Muslim scholar of 11th/12th century
* Mohammed Atef (Abu Hafs al-Masri), past military chief of al-Qaeda
* Abu Hafs Umar al-Iqritishi, early ninth-century Andalusian pirate and founder of the Emir ...
and Abu al-Khair knew about it at the time. The 9/11 Commission Report identified Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the architect of 9/11, but he is not mentioned in bin Laden's notes.
Planning
![911 - FEMA - WTC impacts (graphic)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/911_-_FEMA_-_WTC_impacts_%28graphic%29.svg)
The attacks were conceived by
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (sometimes also spelled Shaikh; also known by at least 50 pseudonyms; born March 1, 1964 or April 14, 1965) is a Pakistani Islamist militant held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp under terrorism-re ...
, who first presented it to
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was a Saudi-born extremist militant who founded al-Qaeda and served as its leader from 1988 until Killing of Osama bin Laden, his death in 2011. Ideologically a Pan-Islamism ...
in 1996. At that time, bin Laden and al-Qaeda were in a period of transition, having just relocated back to Afghanistan from
Sudan
Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...
.
[9/11 Commission Report (2004), Chapter 5, pp. ??] The
1998 African embassy bombings and bin Laden's February 1998 fatwā marked a turning point of al-Qaeda's terrorist operation, as bin Laden became intent on attacking the United States.
In late 1998 or early 1999, bin Laden gave approval for Mohammed to go forward with organizing the plot. Mohammed, bin Laden, and
Mohammed Atef
Mohammed Atef ( ar, محمد عاطف, ; born Sobhi Mohammed Abu Sitta Al-Gohary, also known as Abu Hafs al-Masri) was the military chief of al-Qaeda, and was considered one of Osama bin Laden's two deputies, the other being Ayman Al Zawahiri, ...
, the deputy of bin Laden, held a series of meetings in early 1999. Atef provided operational support, including target selections and helping arrange travel for the hijackers.
Bin Laden overruled Mohammed, rejecting potential targets such as the
U.S. Bank Tower
U.S. Bank Tower, known locally as the Library Tower and formerly as the First Interstate Bank World Center, is a skyscraper in downtown Los Angeles, California. It is, by structural height, the third-tallest building in California, the seco ...
in Los Angeles for lack of time.
![World Trade Center, NY - 2001-09-11 - Debris Impact Areas](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/World_Trade_Center%2C_NY_-_2001-09-11_-_Debris_Impact_Areas.svg)
Bin Laden provided leadership and financial support and was involved in selecting participants. He initially selected
Nawaf al-Hazmi
)
, birth_place = Mecca, Saudi Arabia
, death_date =
, death_place = Arlington County, Virginia, U.S.
, death_cause = Plane crash
, nationality = Saudi Arabian
, relatives = Salem al-Hazmi (brothe ...
and
Khalid al-Mihdhar
Khalid al-Mihdar ( ar, خالد المحضار, translit=Khālid al-Miḥḍār was a Saudi terrorist hijacker. He was one of the five hijackers of American Airlines Flight 77, which was flown into the Pentagon as part of the September 11 attac ...
, both experienced jihadists who had fought in
Bosnia
Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and He ...
. Hazmi and Mihdhar arrived in the United States in mid-January 2000. In early 2000, Hazmi and Mihdhar took flying lessons in San Diego, California, but both spoke little English; performed poorly in flying lessons; and eventually served as secondary ("muscle") hijackers.
In late 1999, a group of men from
Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
, timezone1 = Central (CET)
, utc_offset1 = +1
, timezone1_DST = Central (CEST)
, utc_offset1_DST = +2
, postal ...
, Germany, arrived in Afghanistan. The group included
Mohamed Atta
Mohamed Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta ( ; ar, محمد محمد الأمير عوض السيد عطا ; September 1, 1968 – September 11, 2001) was an Egyptian hijacker and the ringleader of the September 11 attacks in 2001 in which fo ...
;
Marwan al-Shehhi
Marwan Yousef Mohamed Rashid Lekrab al-Shehhi ( ar, مروان يوسف محمد رشيد لكراب الشحي, , also transliterated as Alshehhi; 9 May 1978 – 11 September 2001) was an Emirati al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist who served as ...
;
Ziad Jarrah
Ziad Samir Jarrah ( ar, زياد سمير جراح, '; May 11, 1975 – September 11, 2001) was a Lebanese terrorist and one of the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks. He was the hijacker-pilot of United Airlines Flight 93, crashing the pla ...
; and Ramzi bin al-Shibh. Bin Laden selected these men because they were educated, could speak English, and had experience living in the West. New recruits were routinely screened for special skills and al-Qaeda leaders consequently discovered that
Hani Hanjour
)
, birth_place = Taif, Saudi Arabia
, death_date =
, death_place = Arlington County, Virginia, U.S.
, death_cause = Plane crash, suicide
, known_for = Hijacker-pilot of American Airlines Flight 77 (as ...
already had a commercial pilot's license. Mohammed later said that he helped the hijackers blend in by teaching them how to order food in restaurants and dress in Western clothing.
Hanjour arrived in San Diego on December 8, 2000, joining Hazmi.
They soon left for Arizona, where Hanjour took refresher training.
Marwan al-Shehhi arrived at the end of May 2000, while Atta arrived on June 3, 2000, and Jarrah arrived on June 27, 2000.
Bin al-Shibh applied several times for a visa to the United States, but as a Yemeni, he was rejected out of concerns he would overstay his visa.
Bin al-Shibh stayed in Hamburg, providing coordination between Atta and Mohammed.
The three
Hamburg cell
The Hamburg cell (german: Hamburger Zelle) or Hamburg terror cell (german: Hamburger Terrorzelle) was, according to U.S. and German intelligence agencies, a group of radical Islamists based in Hamburg, Germany, that included students from dif ...
members all took pilot training in South Florida at
Huffman Aviation
Huffman Aviation was a flight-training school in Venice, Florida at Venice Municipal Airport.
Background
Huffman Aviation Florida was established in 1972 as ''Venice Flying Service'', and was reorganized in 1987 and renamed as ''Huffman Aviation' ...
.
In the spring of 2001, the secondary hijackers began arriving in the United States. In July 2001, Atta met with bin al-Shibh in Spain, where they coordinated details of the plot, including final target selection. Bin al-Shibh also passed along bin Laden's wish for the attacks to be carried out as soon as possible.
Some of the hijackers received passports from corrupt Saudi officials who were family members or used fraudulent passports to gain entry.
There have been a few theories that 9/11 was selected by the hijackers as the date of the attack because of its resemblance to
9-1-1
, usually written 911, is an emergency telephone number for the United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Palau, Argentina, Philippines, Jordan, as well as the North American Numbering Plan (NANP), one of eight N11 codes. Like other emergency nu ...
, the
phone number used to report emergencies in the United States. However,
Lawrence Wright
Lawrence Wright (born August 2, 1947) is an American writer and journalist, who is a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' magazine, and fellow at the Center for Law and Security at the New York University School of Law. Wright is best known as th ...
wrote that the hijackers chose the date when
John III Sobieski
John III Sobieski ( pl, Jan III Sobieski; lt, Jonas III Sobieskis; la, Ioannes III Sobiscius; 17 August 1629 – 17 June 1696) was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1674 until his death in 1696.
Born into Polish nobility, Sobie ...
, the
King of Poland
Poland was ruled at various times either by dukes and princes (10th to 14th centuries) or by kings (11th to 18th centuries). During the latter period, a tradition of free election of monarchs made it a uniquely electable position in Europe (16t ...
and
Grand Duke of Lithuania
The monarchy of Lithuania concerned the monarchical head of state of Lithuania, which was established as an absolute and hereditary monarchy. Throughout Lithuania's history there were three ducal dynasties that managed to stay in power—House ...
, began the
battle
A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and force ...
which turned back the
Ottoman Empire's Muslim armies that were attempting to capture Vienna on 11 September 1683. During 1683, Vienna was the seat of the
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a Polity, political entity in Western Europe, Western, Central Europe, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, dissolution i ...
and
Habsburg monarchy
The Habsburg monarchy (german: Habsburgermonarchie, ), also known as the Danubian monarchy (german: Donaumonarchie, ), or Habsburg Empire (german: Habsburgerreich, ), was the collection of empires, kingdoms, duchies, counties and other polities ...
, both major powers in Europe at the time. For Osama bin Laden, this was a date when the West gained some dominance over Islam, and by attacking on this date, he hoped to make a step in Islam "winning" the war for worldwide power and influence.
Prior intelligence
In late 1999, al-Qaeda associate
Walid bin Attash
Walid Muhammad Salih bin Mubarak bin Attash ( ar, وليد محمد صالح بن مبارك بن عتش; born 1978) is a Yemeni prisoner held in extrajudicial detention at the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camp and is suspected of pla ...
("Khallad") contacted Mihdhar, telling him to meet him in
Kuala Lumpur
, anthem = '' Maju dan Sejahtera''
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, pushpin_map = Malaysia#Southeast Asia#Asia
, pushpin_map_caption =
, coordinates =
, su ...
, Malaysia; Hazmi and
Abu Bara al Yemeni
According to the 9-11 Commission Report, Abu Bara al Yemeni was a citizen of Yemen who was slated to participate in al Qaeda's attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.
Abu Bara al Yemeni did not end up participating in the 9-11 a ...
would also be in attendance. The
NSA
The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collectio ...
intercepted a telephone call mentioning the meeting, Mihdhar, and the name "Nawaf" (Hazmi). While the agency feared "Something nefarious might be afoot", it took no further action.
The CIA had already been alerted by Saudi intelligence about the status of Mihdhar and Hazmi as al-Qaeda members, and a CIA team broke into Mihdhar's
Dubai
Dubai (, ; ar, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 emirates of the United Arab Emirates.The Government and Politics of ...
hotel room and discovered that Mihdhar had a U.S. visa. While
Alec Station
The Bin Laden Issue Station, also known as Alec Station, was a standalone unit of the Central Intelligence Agency in operation from 1996 to 2005 dedicated to tracking Osama bin Laden and his associates, both before and after the 9/11 attacks. It ...
alerted intelligence agencies worldwide about this fact, it did not share this information with the FBI. The
Malaysian Special Branch
The Special Branch or SB (Malay: ''Cawangan Khas'') is an intelligence agency attached to the Royal Malaysia Police. The SB is empowered to acquire and develop intelligence on internal and external threats to the nation, subversive activities, ...
observed the January 5, 2000, meeting of the two al-Qaeda members and informed the CIA that Mihdhar, Hazmi, and Khallad were flying to
Bangkok
Bangkok, officially known in Thai language, Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estima ...
, but the CIA never notified other agencies of this, nor did it ask the
State Department
The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...
to put Mihdhar on its watchlist. An FBI liaison to Alec Station asked permission to inform the FBI of the meeting but was told: "This is not a matter for the FBI."
By late June, senior counter-terrorism official
Richard Clarke and CIA director
George Tenet
George John Tenet (born January 5, 1953) is an American intelligence official and academic who served as the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, as well as a Distinguished Professor in the P ...
were "convinced that a major series of attacks was about to come", although the CIA believed the attacks would likely occur in Saudi Arabia or Israel. In early July, Clarke put domestic agencies on "full alert", telling them "Something really spectacular is going to happen here. soon." He asked the FBI and the State Department to alert the embassies and police departments, and the
Defense Department to go to "Threat Condition Delta". Clarke later wrote: "Somewhere in CIA there was information that two known al Qaeda terrorists had come into the United States. Somewhere in FBI, there was information that strange things had been going on at flight schools in the United States... They had specific information about individual terrorists from which one could have deduced what was about to happen. None of that information got to me or the White House."
On July 13, Tom Wilshire, a CIA agent assigned to the FBI's international terrorism division, emailed his superiors at the CIA's
Counterterrorism Center
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's Mission Center for Counterterrorism (often referred to as the Counterterrorism Mission Center or CTMC, formerly the Counterterrorism Center, or simply CTC) was established in 1986, and is a division of the CI ...
(CTC) requesting permission to inform the FBI that Hazmi was in the country and that Mihdhar had a U.S. visa. The CIA never responded.
The same day in July, Margarette Gillespie, an FBI analyst working in the CTC, was told to review material about the Malaysia meeting. She was not told of the participant's presence in the U.S. The CIA gave Gillespie surveillance photos of Mihdhar and Hazmi from the meeting to show to FBI counterterrorism but did not tell her their significance. The Intelink database informed her not to share intelligence material on the meeting with criminal investigators. When shown the photos, the FBI were refused more details on their significance, and they were not given Mihdhar's date of birth nor passport number. In late August 2001, Gillespie told the
INS INS or Ins or ''variant'', may refer to:
Places
* Ins, Switzerland, a municipality
* Creech Air Force Base (IATA airport code INS)
* Indonesia, ITF and UNDP code INS
Biology
*'' Ins'', a New World genus of bee flies
* INS, the gene for the insul ...
, the State Department, the
Customs Service
Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out of a country. Traditionally, customs ...
, and the FBI to put Hazmi and Mihdhar on their watchlists, but the FBI was prohibited from using criminal agents in searching for the duo, hindering their efforts.
Also in July, a
Phoenix
Phoenix most often refers to:
* Phoenix (mythology), a legendary bird from ancient Greek folklore
* Phoenix, Arizona, a city in the United States
Phoenix may also refer to:
Mythology
Greek mythological figures
* Phoenix (son of Amyntor), a ...
-based FBI agent sent a message to FBI headquarters, Alec Station, and FBI agents in New York alerting them to "the possibility of a coordinated effort by Osama bin Laden to send students to the United States to attend civil aviation universities and colleges". The agent, Kenneth Williams, suggested the need to interview all flight school managers and identify all Arab students seeking flight training. In July, Jordan alerted the U.S. that al-Qaeda was planning an attack on the U.S.; "months later", Jordan notified the U.S. that the attack's codename was "The Big Wedding" and that it involved aeroplanes.
On August 6, 2001, the CIA's Presidential Daily Brief ("PDB"), designated "For the President Only", was entitled
"Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in U.S." The memo noted that FBI information "indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks".
In mid-August, one
Minnesota
Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...
flight school alerted the FBI about
Zacarias Moussaoui
Zacarias Moussaoui (Arabic: زكريا موسوي, '; born May 30, 1968) is a French member of al-Qaeda who pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court to conspiring to kill citizens of the United States as part of the September 11 attacks. He is serv ...
, who had asked "suspicious questions". The FBI found that Moussaoui was a radical who had traveled to Pakistan, and the INS arrested him for overstaying his French visa. Their request to search his laptop was denied by FBI headquarters due to the lack of
probable cause
In United States criminal law, probable cause is the standard by which police authorities have reason to obtain a warrant for the arrest of a suspected criminal or the issuing of a search warrant. There is no universally accepted definition or f ...
.
The failures in intelligence-sharing were attributed to 1995
Justice Department
A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...
policies limiting intelligence sharing, combined with CIA and NSA reluctance to reveal "sensitive sources and methods" such as tapped phones. Testifying before the
9/11 Commission
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission, was set up on November 27, 2002, "to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11 attacks", includin ...
in April 2004, then-
Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general.
In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...
John Ashcroft
John David Ashcroft (born May 9, 1942) is an American lawyer, lobbyist and former politician who served as the 79th U.S. Attorney General in the George W. Bush administration from 2001 to 2005. A former U.S. Senator from Missouri and the 50th ...
recalled that the "single greatest structural cause for the September 11th problem was the wall that segregated or separated criminal investigators and intelligence agents". Clarke also wrote: "
ere were... failures to get information to the right place at the right time."
Attacks
![Flight paths of hijacked planes-September 11 attacks](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/Flight_paths_of_hijacked_planes-September_11_attacks.jpg)
Early on the morning of September 11, 2001,
19 hijackers
The hijackers in the September 11 attacks, who were often referred to as the 9/11 hijackers, were 19 men affiliated with the militant Islamist group al-Qaeda. They hailed from four countries; 15 of them were citizens of Saudi Arabia, two were from ...
took control of four commercial airliners (two
Boeing 757
The Boeing 757 is an American narrow-body airliner designed and built by Boeing Commercial Airplanes.
The then-named 7N7, a twinjet successor for the 727 (a trijet), received its first orders in August 1978.
The prototype completed its mai ...
s and two
Boeing 767
The Boeing 767 is an American wide-body aircraft developed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes.
The aircraft was launched as the 7X7 program on July 14, 1978, the prototype first flew on September 26, 1981, and it was certified on ...
s) en route to California (three of them headed to
LAX
Los Angeles International Airport , commonly referred to as LAX (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary international airport serving Los Angeles, California and its surrounding metropolitan area. LAX is located in the W ...
in Los Angeles and one to
SFO
San Francisco International Airport is an international airport in an unincorporated area of San Mateo County, south of Downtown San Francisco. It has flights to points throughout North America and is a major gateway to Europe, the Middle ...
in San Francisco) after takeoffs from
Logan International Airport
General Edward Lawrence Logan International Airport , also known as Boston Logan International Airport and commonly as Boston Logan, Logan Airport or simply Logan, is an international airport that is located mostly in East Boston and partially ...
in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, Massachusetts;
Newark Liberty International Airport
Newark Liberty International Airport , originally Newark Metropolitan Airport and later Newark International Airport, is an international airport straddling the boundary between the cities of Newark in Essex County and Elizabeth in Union Count ...
in
Newark, New Jersey
Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.[Washington Dulles International Airport
Washington Dulles International Airport , typically referred to as Dulles International Airport, Dulles Airport, Washington Dulles, or simply Dulles ( ), is an international airport in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Eastern United States, loc ...]
in
Loudoun
Loudoun ( gd, Lughdan) is a parish in East Ayrshire, Scotland and lies between five and ten miles east of Kilmarnock. The parish roughly encompasses the northern half of the Upper-Irvine Valley and borders Galston Parish (which encompasses the ...
and
Fairfax counties in
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
.
Large planes with long coast-to-coast flights were selected for hijacking because they would have more fuel.
The four flights were:
*
American Airlines Flight 11
American Airlines Flight 11 was a domestic passenger flight that was hijacked by five al-Qaeda terrorists on September 11, 2001 as part of the September 11 attacks. Lead hijacker Mohamed Atta deliberately crashed the plane into the North Tower ...
: a Boeing 767 aircraft, departed Logan Airport at 7:59a.m. en route to Los Angeles with a crew of 11 and 76 passengers, not including five hijackers. The hijackers flew the plane into the northern façade of the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City at 8:46a.m.
*
United Airlines Flight 175
United Airlines Flight 175 was a domestic passenger flight that was hijacked by five al-Qaeda terrorists on September 11, 2001, as part of the September 11 attacks. The flight's scheduled plan was from Logan International Airport, in Boston, M ...
: a Boeing 767 aircraft, departed Logan Airport at 8:14a.m. en route to Los Angeles with a crew of nine and 51 passengers, not including five hijackers. The hijackers flew the plane into the southern façade of the South Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City at 9:03a.m.
*
American Airlines Flight 77
American Airlines Flight 77 was a scheduled American Airlines domestic transcontinental passenger flight from Washington Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Virginia, to Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles, California. The Boe ...
: a Boeing 757 aircraft, departed Washington Dulles International Airport at 8:20a.m. en route to Los Angeles with a crew of six and 53 passengers, not including five hijackers. The hijackers flew the plane into the western façade of the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, at 9:37a.m.
*
United Airlines Flight 93
United Airlines Flight 93 was a domestic scheduled passenger flight that was hijacked by four al-Qaeda attackers aboard the plane on the morning of September 11, 2001, as part of the September 11 attacks. The plane eventually crashed in Som ...
: a Boeing 757 aircraft, departed Newark International Airport at 8:42a.m. en route to San Francisco, with a crew of seven and 33 passengers, not including four hijackers. As passengers attempted to subdue the hijackers, the aircraft crashed into a field in Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania, near Shanksville, at 10:03a.m.
Media coverage
Media may refer to:
Communication
* Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data
** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising
** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass e ...
was extensive during the attacks and aftermath, beginning moments after the first crash into the World Trade Center.
*
Eastern Daylight Time
The Eastern Time Zone (ET) is a time zone encompassing part or all of 23 states in the eastern part of the United States, parts of eastern Canada, the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico, Panama, Colombia, mainland Ecuador, Peru, and a small por ...
(UTC-04:00)
† Excluding hijackers
§ Including emergency workers
‡ Including hijackers
The four crashes
![September 11 2001 just collapsed](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/September_11_2001_just_collapsed.jpg)
At 7:59 a.m.,
American Airlines Flight 11
American Airlines Flight 11 was a domestic passenger flight that was hijacked by five al-Qaeda terrorists on September 11, 2001 as part of the September 11 attacks. Lead hijacker Mohamed Atta deliberately crashed the plane into the North Tower ...
took off from
Logan International Airport
General Edward Lawrence Logan International Airport , also known as Boston Logan International Airport and commonly as Boston Logan, Logan Airport or simply Logan, is an international airport that is located mostly in East Boston and partially ...
in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
. Fifteen minutes into the flight, five hijackers armed with boxcutters took over the plane, injuring at least three people (and possibly killing one) before forcing their way into the cockpit. The terrorists also displayed an apparent explosive device in order to frighten the hostages into submission, while additionally spraying
mace into the cabin to further hinder any efforts to resist. Back at Logan,
United Airlines Flight 175
United Airlines Flight 175 was a domestic passenger flight that was hijacked by five al-Qaeda terrorists on September 11, 2001, as part of the September 11 attacks. The flight's scheduled plan was from Logan International Airport, in Boston, M ...
took off at 8:14 a.m., more or less the same time as Flight 11’s hijacking.
[Dulles International Airport
Washington Dulles International Airport , typically referred to as Dulles International Airport, Dulles Airport, Washington Dulles, or simply Dulles ( ), is an international airport in the Eastern United States, located in Loudoun County and Fai ...]
in
Fairfax and
Loudoun
Loudoun ( gd, Lughdan) is a parish in East Ayrshire, Scotland and lies between five and ten miles east of Kilmarnock. The parish roughly encompasses the northern half of the Upper-Irvine Valley and borders Galston Parish (which encompasses the ...
Counties,
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
,
American Airlines Flight 77
American Airlines Flight 77 was a scheduled American Airlines domestic transcontinental passenger flight from Washington Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Virginia, to Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles, California. The Boe ...
left the runway at 8:20 a.m.
Flight 175’s journey proceeded normally for 28 minutes until 8:42 a.m., when another group of five hijacked the plane, murdering both pilots and stabbing several crew members before assuming control of the aircraft. As was the case with Flight 11, the hijackers used bomb threats to instill fear into the passengers and crew and sprayed chemical weapons to disable any opposition. Concurrently,
United Airlines Flight 93
United Airlines Flight 93 was a domestic scheduled passenger flight that was hijacked by four al-Qaeda attackers aboard the plane on the morning of September 11, 2001, as part of the September 11 attacks. The plane eventually crashed in Som ...
departed from
Newark International Airport
Newark Liberty International Airport , originally Newark Metropolitan Airport and later Newark International Airport, is an international airport straddling the boundary between the cities of Newark, New Jersey, Newark in Essex County, New Jerse ...
in
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
;
originally scheduled to pull away from the gate at 8:00 a.m., the plane was running 42 minutes late. At 8:46 a.m., Flight 11 was deliberately crashed into the north face of the World Trade Center's North Tower (1 WTC). At 8:51 a.m., shortly after the North Tower was struck and only minutes following the hijacking of Flight 175,
American Airlines Flight 77
American Airlines Flight 77 was a scheduled American Airlines domestic transcontinental passenger flight from Washington Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Virginia, to Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles, California. The Boe ...
was also taken over by another group of five who forcibly entered the cockpit 31 minutes after takeoff. Although the hijackers were equipped with knives that they threatened their victims with, there were no reports of anyone on board actually being stabbed unlike the first two planes, nor did the two people who made phone calls mention the use of mace or a bomb threat of any kind. At 9:03 a.m., seventeen minutes after the first plane crashed into the North Tower, Flight 175 was flown into the South Tower's southern facade (2WTC). After waiting 46 minutes to make their move—a holdup which proved disastrous for the terrorists when combined with the delayed takeoff from the runway—four men aboard Flight 93 struck suddenly, killing at least one passenger before storming the cockpit and seizing control of the plane at 9:28 a.m., turning the plane east and setting course for Washington D.C. Much like their counterparts on the first two flights, the fourth team also used bomb threats to get their way and again filled the cabin with mace. Nine minutes after Flight 93's hijacking, Flight 77 was crashed into
the Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase ''The Pentagon'' is often used as a metony ...
. Because of the two delays, the passengers and crew of Flight 93 had time to be made aware of the previous attacks through phone calls to the ground. Knowing their lives were forfeited rendered the bomb threat moot, and an uprising was hastily organized in the hopes of gaining control of the aircraft, with an assault on the hijackers being launched at 9:57 a.m.
Within minutes, they had fought their way to the front of the cabin and began breaking down the cockpit door. Fearing their captives would gain the upper hand, the hijackers rolled the plane and pitched it into a nosedive,
crashing it into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, southeast of Pittsburgh, at 10:03 a.m. The plane was around 20 minutes away from reaching D.C. at the time of the crash, and its target is believed to have been either the
Capitol Building or the
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...
.
Some passengers and crew members who called from the aircraft using the cabin air phone service and mobile phones provided details: several hijackers were aboard each plane; they used
mace, tear gas, or pepper spray to overcome attendants; and some people aboard had been stabbed.
[*
*
* Summers and Swan (2011), pp. 58, 463n, 476n.
*
*
*
* ] Reports indicated hijackers stabbed and killed pilots, flight attendants, and one or more passengers.
[9/11 Commission Report, pp. 4–14.] According to the 9/11 Commission's final report, the hijackers had recently purchased multi-function hand tools and assorted
Leatherman
Leatherman is an American brand of multitools and knives made by Leatherman Tool Group of Portland, Oregon. The company was founded in July 1983 by Timothy S. Leatherman and Steve Berliner in order to market his idea of a capable, eas ...
-type utility knives with locking blades (which were not forbidden to passengers at the time), but were not found among the possessions left behind by the hijackers.
A flight attendant on Flight 11, a passenger on Flight 175, and passengers on Flight 93 said the hijackers had bombs, but one of the passengers said he thought the bombs were fake. The FBI found no traces of explosives at the crash sites, and the 9/11 Commission concluded that the bombs were probably fake.
On at least two of the hijacked flights―American 11 and United 93―the terrorists tried to ensure nobody would resist by claiming over the PA system that they were taking hostages and were returning to the airport to have a ransom demand met, an obvious attempt to deceive those on-board into staying put by way of a false hope. Both of these attempts fell on deaf ears, however, as the hijacker pilots in both instances (Mohamed Atta and Ziad Jarrah, respectively) keyed the wrong switch and mistakenly transmitted their messages to ATC instead of the people on the plane as intended, in the process tipping off the flight controllers that the planes had been hijacked.
Three buildings in the World Trade Center collapsed due to fire-induced structural failure. The South Tower collapsed at 9:58a.m., having burned for 55minutes in a fire caused by the impact of United Airlines Flight 175 and the explosion of its fuel. The North Tower collapsed at 10:28 a.m. after burning for 102 minutes.
When the North Tower collapsed, debris fell on the nearby
7 World Trade Center
7 World Trade Center (7 WTC, WTC-7, or Tower 7) refers to two buildings that have existed at the same location within the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The original structure, part of the original World Trade Ce ...
building (7WTC), damaging the building and starting fires. These fires burned for nearly seven hours, compromising the building's structural integrity, and 7WTC collapsed at 5:21p.m. The west side of the Pentagon sustained significant damage.
At 9:42 a.m., the
Federal Aviation Administration
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...
(FAA) grounded all civilian aircraft within the continental U.S., and civilian aircraft already in flight were told to land immediately. All international civilian aircraft were either turned back or redirected to airports in Canada or Mexico, and were banned from landing on
United States territory
In the United States, a territory is any extent of region under the sovereign jurisdiction of the federal government of the United States, including all waters (around islands or continental tracts). The United States asserts sovereign rights for ...
for three days. The attacks created widespread confusion among news organizations and air traffic controllers. Among the unconfirmed and often contradictory news reports aired throughout the day, one of the most prevalent said a car bomb had been detonated at the U.S. State Department's headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Another jet (
Delta Air Lines Flight 1989
Delta Air Lines Flight 1989 was a regularly scheduled flight offering nonstop morning service on September 11, 2001, from Logan International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport on a Boeing 767-300ER aircraft. This flight was one ...
) was suspected of having been hijacked, but the aircraft responded to controllers and landed safely in Cleveland, Ohio.
In an April 2002 interview,
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (sometimes also spelled Shaikh; also known by at least 50 pseudonyms; born March 1, 1964 or April 14, 1965) is a Pakistani Islamist militant held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp under terrorism-re ...
and
Ramzi bin al-Shibh
Ramzi Mohammed Abdullah bin al-Shibh ( ar, رمزي محمد عبدالله بن الشيبة; also transliterated as bin al-Shaibah; born 1 May 1972[Mohamed Atta
Mohamed Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta ( ; ar, محمد محمد الأمير عوض السيد عطا ; September 1, 1968 – September 11, 2001) was an Egyptian hijacker and the ringleader of the September 11 attacks in 2001 in which fo ...](_bl ...<br></span></div>, who are believed to have organized the attacks, said Flight 93's intended target was the United States Capitol, not the White House. During the planning stage of the attacks, <div class=)
(Flight 11's hijacker and pilot) thought the White House might be too tough a target and sought an assessment from
Hani Hanjour
)
, birth_place = Taif, Saudi Arabia
, death_date =
, death_place = Arlington County, Virginia, U.S.
, death_cause = Plane crash, suicide
, known_for = Hijacker-pilot of American Airlines Flight 77 (as ...
(who hijacked and piloted Flight 77).
[Summers and Swan (2011), p. 323.] Mohammed said al-Qaeda initially planned to target nuclear installations rather than the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but decided against it, fearing things could "get out of control".
Final decisions on targets, according to Mohammed, were left in the hands of the pilots.
If any pilot could not reach his intended target, he was to crash the plane.
Casualties
The attacks are the
deadliest terrorist attacks in world history,
causing the deaths of 2,996 people (including the hijackers) and injuring thousands of others.
The death toll included 265 on the four planes (from which there were no survivors); 2,606 in the World Trade Center and in the surrounding area; and 125 at the Pentagon.
Most who died were civilians; the rest included 343 firefighters, 72 law enforcement officers, 55 military personnel, and the 19 terrorists. After New York, New Jersey lost the most state citizens.
More than 90 countries lost citizens in the attacks;
for example, the 67 Britons who died were more than in any other terrorist attack anywhere.
![US Navy 010911-N-6157F-006 Pentagon damage, Sept](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/US_Navy_010911-N-6157F-006_Pentagon_damage%2C_Sept._11%2C_2001.jpg)
In Arlington County, Virginia, 125 Pentagon workers died when Flight 77 crashed into the building's western side. Seventy were civilians and 55 were military personnel, many of whom worked for the
United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
or the
United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
. The Army lost 47 civilian employees; six civilian contractors; and 22 soldiers, while the Navy lost six civilian employees; three civilian contractors; and 33 sailors. Seven
Defense Intelligence Agency
The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is an intelligence agency and combat support agency of the United States Department of Defense, specializing in defense and military intelligence.
A component of the Department of Defense (DoD) and the I ...
(DIA) civilian employees died, and one
Office of the Secretary of Defense
The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) is a headquarters-level staff of the United States Department of Defense. It is the principal civilian staff element of the U.S. Secretary of Defense, and it assists the Secretary in carrying out aut ...
(OSD) contractor.
Lieutenant General
Lieutenant general (Lt Gen, LTG and similar) is a three-star military rank (NATO code OF-8) used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages, where the title of lieutenant general was held by the second-in-command on the ...
Timothy Maude
Timothy Joseph "Tim" Maude (November 18, 1947 – September 11, 2001) was a United States Army officer who was killed in the September 11 attacks at The Pentagon.
Maude, a lieutenant general, was the highest ranking U.S. military officer killed ...
, an Army Deputy Chief of Staff, was the highest-ranking military official killed at the Pentagon.
In New York City, more than 90% of the workers and visitors who died in the towers had been at or above the points of impact. In the North Tower, between 1,344 and 1,402 people were at, above or one floor below the point of impact and all died. Hundreds were killed instantly the moment the plane struck. The estimated 800 people
who survived the impact were trapped and died in the fires or from smoke inhalation; fell or jumped from the tower to escape the smoke and flames; or were killed in the building's collapse. The destruction of all three staircases in the tower when Flight 11 hit made it impossible for anyone from the impact zone upwards to escape. 107 people below the point of impact died,
including every single occupant of Floor 92, which was right underneath the plane's impact zone.
In the South Tower, around 600 people were on or above the 77th floor with Flight 175 crashed into the building. As with the North Tower, hundreds were killed at the moment of impact. The estimated 300 people
above the impact zone who survived the crash were unware that, unlike in the North Tower, escape was still possible. One stairway,
Stairwell A
The collapse of the World Trade Center occurred during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, after the Twin Towers were struck by two hijacked commercial airliners. One World Trade Center (WTC 1, or the North Tower) was hit at 8:46 ...
, was left intact after Flight 175 hit, allowing 14 people located on the floors of impact (including
Stanley Praimnath
Stanley Praimnath (born October 27, 1956) is a survivor of the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. He worked as an executive for Fuji Bank on the 81st floor of the South Tower (WTC 2), the second tower struck that day. He wa ...
, a man who saw the plane coming at him) and four more from the floors above to escape. New York City
9-1-1
, usually written 911, is an emergency telephone number for the United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Palau, Argentina, Philippines, Jordan, as well as the North American Numbering Plan (NANP), one of eight N11 codes. Like other emergency nu ...
operators who received calls from people inside the tower were not well informed of the situation as it rapidly unfolded and as a result, told callers not to descend the tower on their own. In total 630 people died in the South Tower, fewer than half the number killed in the North Tower.
In stark contrast to the North Tower, where nearly 200 people fell to their deaths from above the impact zone, only three people were spotted jumping or falling from the upper floors of the South Tower. Casualties in the South Tower were significantly reduced because some occupants decided to leave the building as soon as the North Tower was struck, and because
Rick Rescorla
Cyril Richard Rescorla (May 27, 1939 – September 11, 2001) was a British-American soldier, police officer, educator and private security specialist. He served as a British Army paratrooper during the Cyprus Emergency and a commissioned officer ...
, head of security at
Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment management and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in more than 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the fir ...
, defied an order to remain in place and evacuated almost all of the company's 2,700 employees in the
South Tower to safety after Flight 11 had struck the North Tower.
Eric Eisenberg, an executive at
AON Insurance, similarly made the decision to evacuate the floors occupied by AON in the moments following the impact of Flight 11, although the company still lost 175 employees in the South Tower. Other pre-impact evacuations were carried out companies such as
Fiduciary Trust,
CSC CSC, Csc or CSc may refer to:
Awards
* Conspicuous Service Cross (disambiguation)
** Conspicuous Service Cross (Australia)
** Conspicuous Service Cross (New York)
** Conspicuous Service Cross (United Kingdom)
Science and industry
* Cancer ...
, and Euro Brokers―all of whom had offices on floors above the point of impact. The failure to order a full evacuation of the South Tower after the first jet crash into the North Tower was described by ''
USA Today
''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgini ...
'' as "one of the day's great tragedies".
At least 200 people fell or jumped to their deaths from the burning towers (as exemplified in the photograph ''
The Falling Man
''The Falling Man'' is a photograph taken by Associated Press photographer Richard Drew of a man falling from the World Trade Center during the September 11 attacks in New York City. The Unidentified Man in the image was trapped on the uppe ...
''), landing on the streets and rooftops of adjacent buildings hundreds of feet below.
Some occupants of each tower above the point of impact made their way toward the roof in the hope of helicopter rescue, but the roof access doors were locked. No plan existed for helicopter rescues, and the combination of roof equipment, thick smoke, and intense heat prevented helicopters from approaching.
A total of 411 emergency workers died as they tried to rescue people and fight fires. The
New York City Fire Department
The New York City Fire Department, officially the Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY), is an American department of the government of New York City that provides fire protection services, technical rescue/special operations services, ...
(FDNY) lost 343 firefighters, including a chaplain and two
paramedics
A paramedic is a registered healthcare professional who works autonomously across a range of health and care settings and may specialise in clinical practice, as well as in education, leadership, and research.
Not all ambulance personnel are p ...
. The
New York City Police Department
The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in ...
(NYPD) lost 23 officers. The
Port Authority Police Department
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police Department, or Port Authority Police Department (PAPD), is a law enforcement agency in New York and New Jersey, the duties of which are to protect and to enforce state and city laws at all th ...
(PAPD) lost 37 officers. Eight emergency medical technicians (EMTs) and paramedics from private emergency medical services (EMS) units were killed.
Cantor Fitzgerald
Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P. is an American financial services firm that was founded in 1945. It specializes in institutional equity, fixed income sales and trading, and serving the middle market with investment banking services, prime brokerage, an ...
L.P. (an investment bank on the North Tower's 101st–105th floors) lost 658 employees, considerably more than any other employer.
Marsh Inc., located immediately below Cantor Fitzgerald on floors 93–100, lost 358 employees, and 175 employees of
Aon Corporation
Aon PLC () is a British-American multinational financial services firm that sells a range of risk-mitigation products, including Commercial Risk, Investment, Wealth and Reinsurance solutions, as well as boutique strategy consulting through Aon ...
were also killed. The
National Institute of Standards and Technology
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical sci ...
(NIST) estimated that about 17,400 civilians were in the World Trade Center complex at the time of the attacks. Turnstile counts from the Port Authority suggest 14,154 people were typically in the Twin Towers by 8:45a.m. Most people below the impact zone safely evacuated the buildings.
Weeks after the attack, the death toll was estimated to be over 6,000, more than twice the number of deaths eventually confirmed. The city was only able to identify remains for about 1,600 of the World Trade Center victims. The medical examiner's office collected "about 10,000 unidentified bone and tissue fragments that cannot be matched to the list of the dead".
Bone fragments were still being found in 2006 by workers who were preparing to demolish the damaged
Deutsche Bank Building
The Deutsche Bank Building (formerly Bankers Trust Plaza) was a 39-story office building located at 130 Liberty Street in Manhattan, New York City, adjacent to the World Trade Center site. The building opened in 1974 and closed following the ...
.
In 2010, a team of anthropologists and archaeologists searched for human remains and personal items at the
Fresh Kills Landfill
The Fresh Kills Landfill was a landfill covering in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Staten Island in the United States. The name comes from the landfill's location along the banks of the Fresh Kills estuary in western State ...
, where 72 more human remains were recovered, bringing the total found to 1,845. DNA profiling continues in an attempt to identify additional victims.
The remains are being held in storage in Memorial Park, outside the New York City Medical Examiner's facilities. It was expected that the remains would be moved in 2013 to a repository behind a wall at the 9/11 museum.
In July 2011, a team of scientists at the Office of Chief Medical Examiner was still trying to identify remains, in the hope that improved technology will allow them to identify other victims.
On August 7, 2017, the 1,641st victim was identified as a result of newly available DNA technology, and a 1,642nd on July 26, 2018.
Three more victims were identified in 2019 and further two in 2021. As of September 2021, 1,106 victims are yet to be identified.
Damage
![Aerial view of the Pentagon during rescue operations post-September 11 attack](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Aerial_view_of_the_Pentagon_during_rescue_operations_post-September_11_attack.JPEG)
Along with the 110-floor
Twin Towers, numerous other buildings at the World Trade Center site were destroyed or badly damaged, including WTC buildings 3through7 and
St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church
The St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, officially the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine, is a church and shrine in the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, New York City. It is administered by the Greek Orthodox Archdi ...
.
The North Tower, South Tower, the
Marriott Hotel (3WTC), and 7WTC were destroyed. The U.S. Customs House (
6 World Trade Center),
4World Trade Center,
5 World Trade Center, and both pedestrian bridges connecting buildings were severely damaged. The
Deutsche Bank Building
The Deutsche Bank Building (formerly Bankers Trust Plaza) was a 39-story office building located at 130 Liberty Street in Manhattan, New York City, adjacent to the World Trade Center site. The building opened in 1974 and closed following the ...
(still popularly referred to as the Bankers Trust Building) on 130 Liberty Street was partially damaged and demolished some years later, starting in 2007.
[Summers and Swan (2011), p. 75.] The two buildings of the
World Financial Center also suffered damage.
The last fires at the World Trade Center site were extinguished on December 20, exactly 100 days after the attacks.
The Deutsche Bank Building across Liberty Street from the World Trade Center complex was later condemned as uninhabitable because of toxic conditions inside the office tower, and was
deconstructed. The
Borough of Manhattan Community College
The Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) is a public community college in New York City. Founded in 1963 as part of the City University of New York (CUNY) system, BMCC grants associate degrees in a wide variety of vocational, busines ...
's Fiterman Hall at 30 West Broadway was condemned due to extensive damage from the attacks, and was reopened in 2012.
Other neighboring buildings (including
90 West Street
90 West Street (previously known as the West Street Building and the Brady Building) is a 23-story residential building in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Located on West Street just south of the World Trade Cen ...
and the
Verizon Building
The Verizon Building (also known as 100 Barclay, the Barclay–Vesey Building, and the New York Telephone Company Building) is an office and residential building at 140 West Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The 32-story building was d ...
) suffered major damage but have been restored.
World Financial Center buildings,
One Liberty Plaza
One Liberty Plaza, formerly the U.S. Steel Building, is a skyscraper in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is situated on a block bounded by Broadway, Liberty Street, Church Street, and Cortlandt Street, on the si ...
, the
Millenium Hilton
The Millennium Downtown New York is a hotel in Lower Manhattan, New York City, located at the southeast corner of Fulton Street (Manhattan), Fulton Street and Church Street (Manhattan), Church Street. The hotel is adjacent to 195 Broadway, with ...
, and 90 Church Street had moderate damage and have since been restored. Communications equipment on top of the North Tower was also destroyed, with only
WCBS-TV
WCBS-TV (channel 2) is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the CBS network. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside Riverhead, New York–licensed independent station WL ...
maintaining a backup transmitter on the
Empire State Building
The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The building was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and built from 1930 to 1931. Its name is derived from "Empire State", the nickname of the st ...
, but media stations were quickly able to reroute the signals and resume their broadcasts.
The
PATH
A path is a route for physical travel – see Trail.
Path or PATH may also refer to:
Physical paths of different types
* Bicycle path
* Bridle path, used by people on horseback
* Course (navigation), the intended path of a vehicle
* Desire p ...
train system's
World Trade Center station was located under the complex. As a result, the entire station was demolished completely when the towers collapsed, and the tunnels leading to
Exchange Place station in
Jersey City, New Jersey
Jersey City is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, after Newark.[World Trade Center Transportation Hub
World Trade Center is a terminal station on the PATH system, within the World Trade Center complex in the Financial District of Manhattan, New York City. It is served by the Newark–World Trade Center line at all times, as well as by the Hob ...]
, which reopened in March 2015. The
Cortlandt Street station Cortlandt Street may refer to:
Streets
* Cortlandt Street (Manhattan), street in Lower Manhattan, most of which became part of the World Trade Center in the 1970s
Subway stations
* Cortlandt Street (BMT Broadway Line), a New York City Subway stati ...
on the
New York City Subway
The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, an affiliate agency of the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Opened on October 2 ...
's
IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line
The IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line (also known as the IRT Seventh Avenue Line or the IRT West Side Line) is a New York City Subway line. It is one of several lines that serves the A Division, stretching from South Ferry in Lower Manhatta ...
was also in close proximity to the World Trade Center complex, and the entire station, along with the surrounding track, was reduced to rubble. The latter station was rebuilt and reopened to the public on September 8, 2018.
The Pentagon was severely damaged by the impact of American Airlines Flight 77 and the ensuing fires, causing one section of the building to collapse. As the airplane approached the Pentagon, its wings knocked down light poles and its right engine hit a power generator before crashing into the western side of the building.
[''American Airlines Flight 77 FDR Report'', pp. ??] The plane hit the Pentagon at the first-floor level. The front part of the fuselage disintegrated on impact, while the mid and tail sections kept moving for another fraction of a second. Debris from the tail section penetrated the furthest into the building, breaking through of the three outermost of the building's five rings.
Rescue efforts
![FEMA - 3886 - Photograph by Andrea Booher taken on 09-13-2001 in New York](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/FEMA_-_3886_-_Photograph_by_Andrea_Booher_taken_on_09-13-2001_in_New_York.jpg)
The New York City Fire Department deployed 200 units (half of the department) to the World Trade Center. Their efforts were supplemented by numerous off-duty firefighters and emergency medical technicians.
[''McKinsey Report'', "Emergency Medical Service response", pp. ??][''McKinsey Report'', "Executive Summary", pp. ??] The New York City Police Department sent Emergency Service Units and other police personnel and deployed its aviation unit. Once on the scene, the FDNY, the NYPD, and the PAPD did not coordinate efforts and performed redundant searches for civilians.
As conditions deteriorated, the NYPD aviation unit relayed information to police commanders, who issued orders for its personnel to evacuate the towers; most NYPD officers were able to safely evacuate before the buildings collapsed.
[''McKinsey Report'', "NYPD", pp. ??] With separate command posts set up and incompatible radio communications between the agencies, warnings were not passed along to FDNY commanders.
After the first tower collapsed, FDNY commanders issued evacuation warnings. Due to
technical difficulties with malfunctioning radio repeater systems, many firefighters never heard the evacuation orders. 9-1-1 dispatchers also received information from callers that was not passed along to commanders on the scene.
Within hours of the attack, a substantial search and rescue operation was launched. After months of around-the-clock operations, the World Trade Center site was cleared by the end of May 2002.
Aftermath
The 9/11 attacks resulted in immediate responses to the event, including
domestic reactions;
closings and cancellations;
hate crime
A hate crime (also known as a bias-motivated crime or bias crime) is a prejudice-motivated crime which occurs when a perpetrator targets a victim because of their membership (or perceived membership) of a certain social group or racial demograph ...
s;
Muslim-American responses to the event;
international responses to the attack; and
military responses to the events. An
extensive compensation program was quickly established by Congress in the aftermath to compensate the victims and families of victims of the 9/11 attacks as well.
Immediate response
![President George W](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/President_George_W._Bush_Receives_Information_Regarding_Terrorist_Attacks.jpg)
At 8:32 a.m.,
FAA
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...
officials were notified Flight11 had been hijacked and they, in turn, notified the
North American Aerospace Defense Command
North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD ), known until March 1981 as the North American Air Defense Command, is a combined organization of the United States and Canada that provides aerospace warning, air sovereignty, and protection ...
(NORAD). NORAD scrambled two
F-15s from
Otis Air National Guard Base
Otis Air National Guard Base is an Air National Guard installation located within Joint Base Cape Cod, a military training facility located on the western portion of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. It was known a ...
in Massachusetts and they were airborne by 8:53 a.m. Because of slow and confused communication from FAA officials, NORAD had nine minutes' notice, and no notice about any of the other flights before they crashed.
After both of the Twin Towers had already been hit, more fighters were scrambled from
Langley Air Force Base
Langley Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located in Hampton, Virginia, adjacent to Newport News, Virginia, Newport News. It was one of List of airfields of the Training Section of the United States Army Air Service, thirty-two ...
in Virginia at 9:30 a.m.
At 10:20 a.m., Vice President
Dick Cheney
Richard Bruce Cheney ( ; born January 30, 1941) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 46th vice president of the United States from 2001 to 2009 under President George W. Bush. He is currently the oldest living former U ...
issued orders to shoot down any commercial aircraft that could be positively identified as being hijacked. These instructions were not relayed in time for the fighters to take action.
Some fighters took to the air without live ammunition, knowing that to prevent the hijackers from striking their intended targets, the pilots might have to intercept and crash their fighters into the hijacked planes, possibly ejecting at the last moment.
For the first time in U.S. history, the emergency preparedness plan called
Security Control of Air Traffic and Air Navigation Aids
The Plan for the Security Control of Air Traffic and Air Navigation Aids (SCATANA) is an emergency preparedness plan of the United States which prescribes the joint action to be taken by appropriate elements of the Department of Defense, Federal A ...
(SCATANA) was invoked, thus stranding tens of thousands of passengers across the world.
Ben Sliney
Benedict L. Sliney (born 1945) is an American retired lawyer, air traffic controller, and former Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) National Operations Manager. His first day in this position was on September 11, 2001, and he was responsible ...
, in his first day as the National Operations Manager of the
FAA
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...
, ordered that American airspace would be closed to all international flights, causing about 500 flights to be turned back or redirected to other countries. Canada received 226 of the diverted flights and launched
Operation Yellow Ribbon
Operation Yellow Ribbon (french: Opération ruban jaune) was commenced by Canada to handle the diversion of civilian airline flights in response to the September 11 attacks in 2001 on the United States. Canada's goal was to ensure that potential ...
to deal with the large numbers of grounded planes and stranded passengers.
The 9/11 attacks had immediate effects on the American people. Police and rescue workers from around the country took a leave of absence from their jobs and traveled to New York City to help recover bodies from the twisted remnants of the Twin Towers. Blood donations across the U.S. surged in the weeks after 9/11.
The deaths of adults in the attacks resulted in over 3,000 children losing a parent. Subsequent studies documented children's reactions to these actual losses and to feared losses of life, the protective environment in the attacks' aftermath, and the effects on surviving caregivers.
Domestic reactions
Following the attacks, President George W. Bush's approval rating soared to 90%. On September 20, 2001, he addressed the nation and a joint session of Congress regarding the events of September 11 and the subsequent nine days of rescue and recovery efforts, and described his intended response to the attacks.
New York City mayor
The mayor of New York City, officially Mayor of the City of New York, is head of the executive branch of the government of New York City and the chief executive of New York City. The mayor's office administers all city services, public property ...
Rudy Giuliani
Rudolph William Louis Giuliani (, ; born May 28, 1944) is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 107th Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001. He previously served as the United States Associate Attorney General from 1981 to 198 ...
's
highly visible role won him high praise in New York and nationally.
Many relief funds were immediately set up to assist the attacks' victims, with the task of providing
financial assistance to the
survivors of the attacks and to the victims' families. By the deadline for victims' compensation on September 11, 2003, 2,833 applications had been received from the families of those who were killed.
Contingency plans for the
continuity of government
Continuity of government (COG) is the principle of establishing defined procedures that allow a government to continue its essential operations in case of a catastrophic event such as nuclear war.
COG was developed by the British government bef ...
and the evacuation of leaders were implemented soon after the attacks.
Congress was not told that the United States had been under a continuity of government status until February 2002.
In the largest restructuring of the U.S. government in contemporary history, the United States enacted the
Homeland Security Act
The Homeland Security Act (HSA) of 2002, () was introduced in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks and subsequent mailings of anthrax spores. The HSA was cosponsored by 118 members of Congress. The act passed the U.S. Senate by a vote of ...
of 2002, creating the
Department of Homeland Security
The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries. Its stated missions involve anti-terr ...
. Congress also passed the
USA PATRIOT Act
The USA PATRIOT Act (commonly known as the Patriot Act) was a landmark Act of Congress, Act of the United States Congress, signed into law by President of the United States, President George W. Bush. The formal name of the statute is the Uniti ...
, saying it would help detect and prosecute terrorism and other crimes.
Civil liberties groups have criticized the PATRIOT Act, saying it allows law enforcement to invade citizens' privacy and that it eliminates judicial oversight of law enforcement and domestic intelligence.
In an effort to effectively combat future acts of terrorism, the
National Security Agency
The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...
(NSA) was given broad powers. NSA commenced
warrantless surveillance of telecommunications, which was sometimes criticized since it permitted the agency "to eavesdrop on telephone and e-mail communications between the United States and people overseas without a warrant". In response to requests by various intelligence agencies, the
United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
The United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), also called the FISA Court, is a U.S. federal court established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) to oversee requests for surveillance warrants aga ...
permitted an expansion of powers by the U.S. government in seeking, obtaining, and sharing information on U.S. citizens as well as non-U.S. people from around the world.
Hate crimes
Six days after the attacks, President Bush made a public appearance at
Washington, D.C.'s largest Islamic Center and acknowledged the "incredibly valuable contribution" that millions of
American Muslims made to their country and called for them "to be treated with respect". Numerous incidents of
harassment
Harassment covers a wide range of behaviors of offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behavior that demeans, humiliates or embarrasses a person, and it is characteristically identified by its unlikelihood in terms of social and moral ...
and
hate crime
A hate crime (also known as a bias-motivated crime or bias crime) is a prejudice-motivated crime which occurs when a perpetrator targets a victim because of their membership (or perceived membership) of a certain social group or racial demograph ...
s against
Muslims
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abraha ...
and
South Asians
South Asian ethnic groups are an ethnolinguistic grouping of the diverse populations of South Asia, including the nations of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, the Maldives, and Sri Lanka. While Afghanistan is variously considered to b ...
were reported in the days following the attacks.
Sikh
Sikhs ( or ; pa, ਸਿੱਖ, ' ) are people who adhere to Sikhism, Sikhism (Sikhi), a Monotheism, monotheistic religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Gu ...
s were also subject to targeting due to the use of
turban
A turban (from Persian دولبند, ''dulband''; via Middle French ''turbant'') is a type of headwear based on cloth winding. Featuring many variations, it is worn as customary headwear by people of various cultures. Communities with promine ...
s in the
Sikh faith
Sikhism (), also known as Sikhi ( pa, ਸਿੱਖੀ ', , from pa, ਸਿੱਖ, lit=disciple', 'seeker', or 'learner, translit=Sikh, label=none),''Sikhism'' (commonly known as ''Sikhī'') originated from the word ''Sikh'', which comes fro ...
, which are stereotypically associated with Muslims. There were reports of attacks on mosques and other religious buildings (including the firebombing of a
Hindu temple
A Hindu temple, or ''mandir'' or ''koil'' in Indian languages, is a house, seat and body of divinity for Hindus. It is a structure designed to bring human beings and gods together through worship, sacrifice, and devotion.; Quote: "The Hind ...
), and assaults on individuals, including one murder:
Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh mistaken for a Muslim, who was fatally shot on September 15, 2001, in
Mesa, Arizona
Mesa ( ) is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, Maricopa County, in the U.S. state of Arizona. It is the most populous city in the East Valley (Phoenix metropolitan area), East Valley section of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area. It is bordered by ...
.
Two dozen members of Osama bin Laden's family were urgently evacuated out of the country on a private charter plane under FBI supervision three days after the attacks.
According to an academic study, people perceived to be
Middle Eastern
The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (European ...
were as likely to be victims of hate crimes as followers of
Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
during this time. The study also found a similar increase in hate crimes against people who may have been perceived as Muslims,
Arabs
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Wester ...
, and others thought to be of Middle Eastern origin. A report by the South Asian American advocacy group known as South Asian Americans Leading Together documented media coverage of 645 bias incidents against Americans of South Asian or Middle Eastern descent between September 11 and 17 2001. Various crimes such as vandalism, arson, assault, shootings, harassment, and threats in numerous places were documented. Women wearing
hijab
In modern usage, hijab ( ar, حجاب, translit=ḥijāb, ) generally refers to headcoverings worn by Muslim women. Many Muslims believe it is obligatory for every female Muslim who has reached the age of puberty to wear a head covering. While ...
were also targeted.
Discrimination and racial profiling
A poll of
Arab-Americans
Arab Americans ( ar, عَرَبٌ أَمْرِيكِا or ) are Americans of Arab ancestry. Arab Americans trace ancestry to any of the various waves of immigrants of the countries comprising the Arab World.
According to the Arab American Inst ...
, conducted in May 2002, found that 20% had personally experienced discrimination since September 11. A July 2002 poll of Muslim Americans found that 48% believed their lives had changed for the worse since September 11, and 57% had experienced an act of bias or discrimination.
Following the September 11 attacks, many
Pakistani Americans
Pakistani Americans ( ur, ) are Americans who originate from Pakistan. The term may also refer to people who also hold a dual Pakistani and U.S. citizenship. Educational attainment level and household income are much higher in the Pakistani-Am ...
identified themselves as Indians to avoid potential discrimination and obtain jobs (Pakistan was created as a result of the
partition of India
The Partition of British India in 1947 was the Partition (politics), change of political borders and the division of other assets that accompanied the dissolution of the British Raj in South Asia and the creation of two independent dominions: ...
in 1947).
By May 2002, there were 488 complaints of
employment discrimination
Employment discrimination is a form of illegal discrimination in the workplace based on legally protected characteristics. In the U.S., federal anti-discrimination law prohibits discrimination by employers against employees based on age, race, g ...
reported to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). 301 of those were complaints from people fired from their jobs. Similarly, by June 2002, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) had investigated 111 September 11th-related complaints from airline passengers purporting that their religious or ethnic appearance caused them to be singled out at security screenings. DOT investigated an additional 31 complaints from people who alleged they were completely blocked from boarding airplanes on the same grounds.
Muslim American response
Muslim organizations in the United States were swift to condemn the attacks and called "upon
Muslim Americans to come forward with their skills and resources to help alleviate the sufferings of the affected people and their families". These organizations included the
Islamic Society of North America
The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) is a nonprofit organization based in Plainfield, Indiana. It provides a number of programs and services to the Muslim community and broader society. ISNA holds an annual convention which is generally re ...
, American Muslim Alliance,
American Muslim Council
The American Muslim Council (AMC) is an Islamic organization and registered charity in the United States. Its headquarters is located in Chicago, Illinois.
An earlier organization with the same name was founded in 1990 by Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi ...
,
Council on American-Islamic Relations
A council is a group of people who come together to consult, deliberate, or make decisions. A council may function as a legislature, especially at a town, city or county/shire level, but most legislative bodies at the state/provincial or natio ...
,
Islamic Circle of North America
Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) is an Islamic North American grassroots umbrella organization.
History
ICNA is an offshoot of the Muslim Students' Association (MSA), and was founded by immigrants from South Asia. In 1971, a number of South ...
, and the Shari'a Scholars Association of North America. Along with monetary donations, many Islamic organizations launched blood drives and provided medical assistance, food, and shelter for victims.
Interfaith efforts
Curiosity about Islam increased after the attacks. As a result, many mosques and Islamic centers began holding open houses and participating in outreach efforts to educate non-Muslims about the faith. In the first 10 years after the attacks,
interfaith
Interfaith dialogue refers to cooperative, constructive, and positive interaction between people of different religious traditions (i.e. "faiths") and/or spiritual or humanistic beliefs, at both the individual and institutional levels. It is ...
community service increased from 8 to 20 percent. and the percentage of U.S. congregations involved in interfaith worship doubled from 7 to 14 percent.
International reactions
The attacks were denounced by mass media and governments worldwide. Across the globe, nations offered pro-American support and solidarity. Leaders in most Middle Eastern countries, as well as Libya and Afghanistan, condemned the attacks. Iraq was a notable exception, with an immediate official statement that, "the American cowboys are reaping the fruit of their crimes against humanity". The government of Saudi Arabia officially condemned the attacks, but privately many Saudis favored bin Laden's cause.
Although
Palestinian Authority
The Palestinian National Authority (PA or PNA; ar, السلطة الوطنية الفلسطينية '), commonly known as the Palestinian Authority and officially the State of Palestine, (PA) president
Yasser Arafat
Mohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf al-Qudwa al-Husseini (4 / 24 August 1929 – 11 November 2004), popularly known as Yasser Arafat ( , ; ar, محمد ياسر عبد الرحمن عبد الرؤوف عرفات القدوة الحسيني, Mu ...
also condemned the attacks, there were reports of celebrations of disputed size in the
West Bank
The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
,
Gaza Strip
The Gaza Strip (;The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza.. ...
, and
East Jerusalem
East Jerusalem (, ; , ) is the sector of Jerusalem that was held by Jordan during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, as opposed to the western sector of the city, West Jerusalem, which was held by Israel.
Jerusalem was envisaged as a separat ...
. Palestinian leaders discredited news broadcasters that justified the attacks or showed celebrations,
and the Authority claimed such celebration do not represent the Palestinians' sentiment, adding that it would not allow "a few kids" to "smear the real face of the Palestinians".
Footage by CNN and other news outlets were suggested by a report originating at a Brazilian university to be from 1991; this was later proven to be a false accusation, resulting in a statement being issued by CNN. As in the United States, the aftermath of the attacks saw tensions increase in other countries between Muslims and non-Muslims.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1368
United Nations Security Council resolution 1368, adopted unanimously on 12 September 2001, after expressing its determination to combat threats to international peace and security caused by acts of terrorism and recognising the right of individua ...
condemned the attacks and expressed readiness to take all necessary steps to respond and combat all forms of terrorism in accordance with their
Charter
A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the rec ...
.
Numerous countries introduced anti-terrorism legislation and froze bank accounts they suspected of al-Qaeda ties. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies in a number of countries arrested alleged terrorists.
British Prime Minister
Tony Blair
Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...
said Britain stood "shoulder to shoulder" with the United States. A few days later, Blair flew to Washington, D.C., to affirm British solidarity with the United States. In a speech to Congress nine days after the attacks, which Blair attended as a guest, President Bush declared "America has no truer friend than Great Britain." Subsequently, Prime Minister Blair embarked on two months of diplomacy to rally international support for military action; he held 54 meetings with world leaders and traveled more than 40,000 miles (60,000km).
![Vladimir Putin in the United States 13-16 November 2001-54](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Vladimir_Putin_in_the_United_States_13-16_November_2001-54.jpg)
The U.S. set up the
Guantanamo Bay detention camp
The Guantanamo Bay detention camp ( es, Centro de detención de la bahía de Guantánamo) is a United States military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, also referred to as Guantánamo, GTMO, and Gitmo (), on the coast of Guant ...
to hold inmates they defined as "
illegal enemy combatants
An unlawful combatant, illegal combatant or unprivileged combatant/belligerent is a person who directly engages in armed conflict in violation of the laws of war and therefore is claimed not to be protected by the Geneva Conventions.
The Internati ...
". The legitimacy of these detentions has been questioned by the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
and human rights organizations.
On September 25, 2001,
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
's
fifth president,
Mohammad Khatami
Sayyid Mohammad Khatami ( fa, سید محمد خاتمی, ; born 14 October 1943) is an Iranian politician who served as the fifth president of Iran from 3 August 1997 to 3 August 2005. He also served as Iran's Minister of Culture from 1982 to ...
, meeting British Foreign Secretary
Jack Straw
John Whitaker Straw (born 3 August 1946) is a British politician who served in the Cabinet from 1997 to 2010 under the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He held two of the traditional Great Offices of State, as Home Secretary ...
, said: "Iran fully understands the feelings of the Americans about the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on September 11." He said although the American administrations had been at best indifferent about terrorist operations in Iran (since 1979), the Iranians felt differently and had expressed their sympathetic feelings with bereaved Americans in the tragic incidents in the two cities. He also stated that "Nations should not be punished in place of terrorists."
According to
Radio Farda
Radio Farda ( fa, راديو فردا, lit=Radio Tomorrow, ''Radio Farda'') is the Iranian branch of the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) external broadcast service for providing "factual, objective and profession ...
's website, when the news of the attacks was released, some Iranian citizens gathered in front of the Embassy of Switzerland in Tehran, which serves as the protecting power of the United States in Iran (U.S. interests-protecting office in Iran), to express their sympathy, and some of them lit candles as a symbol of mourning. This piece of news at Radio Farda's website also states that in 2011, on the anniversary of the attacks, the
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other n ...
published a post at its blog, in which the Department thanked the Iranian people for their sympathy and stated that it would never forget Iranian people's kindness on those harsh days. After the attacks, both the President and the Supreme Leader of Iran, condemned the attacks. The
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...
and ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' magazine published reports on holding candlelit vigils for the victims by Iranian citizens on their websites. According to ''
Politico Magazine
''Politico'' (stylized in all caps), known originally as ''The Politico'', is an American, German-owned political journalism newspaper company based in Arlington County, Virginia, that covers politics and policy in the United States and intern ...
'', following the attacks,
Sayyed Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, "suspended the usual '
Death to America
Death to America ( fa, مرگ بر آمریکا, translit=Marg bar Āmrikā; ) is an anti-American political slogan. It is used in Iran,Arash KaramiKhomeini Orders Media to End 'Death to America' Chant, Iran Pulse, October 13, 2013 Afghanistan, ...
' chants at
Friday prayers
In Islam, Friday prayer or Congregational prayer ( ar, صَلَاة ٱلْجُمُعَة, ') is a prayer ('' ṣalāt'') that Muslims hold every Friday, after noon instead of the Zuhr prayer. Muslims ordinarily pray five times each day according ...
" temporarily.
In September 2001, shortly after the attacks, some fans of
AEK Athens
A.E.K ( el, AEK , formally Αθλητική Ένωσις Κωνσταντινουπόλεως; Athlitikí Énosis Konstantinoupόleos, ''Athletic Union of Constantinople''), known as A.E.K, is a major Greece, Greek multi-sport club based in Nea ...
burned an Israeli flag and unsuccessfully tried to burn an American flag. Though the American flag did not catch fire, the fans booed during a
moment of silence
A moment of silence (also referred to as a minute's silence or a one-minute silence) is a period of silent contemplation, prayer, reflection, or meditation. Similar to flying a flag at half-mast, a moment of silence is often a gesture of ...
for victims of the attacks.
Effects in Afghanistan
Most of the
Afghan population was already going hungry at the time of the September 11 attacks. In the aftermath of the attacks, tens of thousands of people attempted to flee Afghanistan due to the possibility of military retaliation by the United States. Pakistan, already
home to many Afghan refugees from previous conflicts, closed its border with Afghanistan on September 17, 2001.
Thousands of Afghans also fled to the frontier with
Tajikistan
Tajikistan (, ; tg, Тоҷикистон, Tojikiston; russian: Таджикистан, Tadzhikistan), officially the Republic of Tajikistan ( tg, Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон, Jumhurii Tojikiston), is a landlocked country in Centr ...
, although were denied entry. The
Taliban
The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state (polity), state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalist, m ...
leaders in Afghanistan themselves pleaded against military action, saying "We appeal to the United States not to put Afghanistan into more misery because our people have suffered so much.", referring to
two decades of conflict and the humanitarian crisis attached to it.
All United Nations expatriates had left Afghanistan after the attacks and no national or international aid workers were at their post. Workers were instead preparing in bordering countries like Pakistan, China and Uzbekistan to prevent a potential "humanitarian catastrophe", amid a critically low food stock for the Afghan population. The
World Food Programme
The World Food Programme; it, Programma alimentare mondiale; es, Programa Mundial de Alimentos; ar, برنامج الأغذية العالمي, translit=barnamaj al'aghdhiat alealami; russian: Всемирная продовольствен ...
stopped importing wheat to Afghanistan on September 12 due to security risks. ''
The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'' suggested the creation of a
buffer zone
A buffer zone is a neutral zonal area that lies between two or more bodies of land, usually pertaining to countries. Depending on the type of buffer zone, it may serve to separate regions or conjoin them.
Common types of buffer zones are demil ...
in an inevitable war, similarly as in the
Bosnian War
The Bosnian War ( sh, Rat u Bosni i Hercegovini / Рат у Босни и Херцеговини) was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. The war is commonly seen as having started ...
.
Approximately one month after the attacks, the United States led a broad
coalition of international forces to overthrow the Taliban regime from Afghanistan for their harboring of al-Qaeda.
Though Pakistani authorities were initially reluctant to align themselves with the United States against the Taliban, they permitted the coalition access to their military bases, and arrested and handed over to the U.S. over 600 suspected al-Qaeda members.
In a speech by the
Nizari
The Nizaris ( ar, النزاريون, al-Nizāriyyūn, fa, نزاریان, Nezāriyān) are the largest segment of the Ismaili Muslims, who are the second-largest branch of Shia Islam after the Twelvers. Nizari teachings emphasize independent ...
Ismaili Imam at the Nobel Institute in 2005,
Aga Khan IV
Shāh Karim al-Husayni (born 13 December 1936), known by the religious title Mawlānā Hazar Imam by his Ismaili followers and elsewhere as Aga Khan IV, is the 49th and current Imam of Nizari Ismailis, a denomination within Shia Islam. He ha ...
stated that the "9/11 attack on the United States was a direct consequence of the international community ignoring the human tragedy that was Afghanistan at that time".
Military operations
At 2:40 p.m. on September 11,
Secretary of Defense
A defence minister or minister of defence is a cabinet official position in charge of a ministry of defense, which regulates the armed forces in sovereign states. The role of a defence minister varies considerably from country to country; in som ...
Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Henry Rumsfeld (July 9, 1932 – June 29, 2021) was an American politician, government official and businessman who served as Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under president Gerald Ford, and again from 2001 to 2006 under Presi ...
was issuing rapid orders to his aides to look for evidence of Iraqi involvement. According to notes taken by senior policy official
Stephen Cambone
Stephen Anthony Cambone (born June 22, 1952) was the first United States Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, a post created in March 2003. Cambone first came to the attention of the public at large during the testimony of Major General An ...
, Rumsfeld asked for, "Best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H.
addam Husseinat same time. Not only UBL"
sama bin Laden
Sama or SAMA may refer to:
Places
* Sama, Burkina Faso, a town in the Kouka Department, Banwa Province, Burkina Faso
* Sama, China (Sanya), a city in Hainan, China
* Sama, Chalus, a village in Mazandaran Province, Iran
* Sama, Nowshahr, a vill ...
Cambone's notes quoted Rumsfeld as saying, "Need to move swiftlyNear term target needsgo massivesweep it all up. Things related and not."
In a meeting at
Camp David
Camp David is the country retreat for the president of the United States of America. It is located in the wooded hills of Catoctin Mountain Park, in Frederick County, Maryland, near the towns of Thurmont and Emmitsburg, about north-northwe ...
on September 15 the Bush administration rejected the idea of attacking
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
in response to 9/11. Nonetheless, they later
invaded the country with allies, citing "Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism". At the time, as many as seven in ten Americans believed the Iraqi president played a role in the 9/11 attacks. Three years later, Bush conceded that he had not.
![US Army Afghanistan 2006](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/US_Army_Afghanistan_2006.jpg)
The
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
council declared that the terrorist attacks on the United States were an attack on all NATO nations that satisfied
Article 5 of the NATO charter. This marked the first invocation of Article 5, which had been written during the
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
with an attack by the Soviet Union in mind. Australian Prime Minister
John Howard
John Winston Howard (born 26 July 1939) is an Australian former politician who served as the 25th prime minister of Australia from 1996 to 2007, holding office as leader of the Liberal Party. His eleven-year tenure as prime minister is the s ...
, who was in Washington, D.C. during the attacks, invoked Article IV of the
ANZUS
The Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty (ANZUS or ANZUS Treaty) is a 1951 non-binding collective security agreement between Australia and New Zealand and, separately, Australia and the United States, to co-operate on military ...
treaty. The Bush administration announced a
War on Terror
The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is an ongoing international Counterterrorism, counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks. The main targets of the campa ...
, with the stated goals of bringing bin Laden and al-Qaeda to justice and preventing the emergence of other terrorist networks. These goals would be accomplished by imposing economic and military sanctions against states harboring terrorists, and increasing global surveillance and intelligence sharing.
On September 14, 2001, the
U.S. Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is Bicameralism, bicameral, composed of a lower body, the United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives, and an upper body, ...
passed the
Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists
The Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) (, ) is a joint resolution of the United States Congress which became law on September 18, 2001, authorizing the use of the United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the September ...
. It is still in effect, and grants the President the authority to use all "necessary and appropriate force" against those whom he determined "planned, authorized, committed or aided" the September 11 attacks or who harbored said persons or groups.
On October 7, 2001, the
War in Afghanistan
War in Afghanistan, Afghan war, or Afghan civil war may refer to:
*Conquest of Afghanistan by Alexander the Great (330 BC – 327 BC)
*Muslim conquests of Afghanistan (637–709)
*Conquest of Afghanistan by the Mongol Empire (13th century), see als ...
began when U.S. and British forces initiated aerial bombing campaigns targeting
Taliban
The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state (polity), state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalist, m ...
and al-Qaeda camps, then later invaded Afghanistan with ground troops of the
Special Forces
Special forces and special operations forces (SOF) are military units trained to conduct special operations. NATO has defined special operations as "military activities conducted by specially designated, organized, selected, trained and equip ...
. This eventually led to the overthrow of the Taliban's rule of Afghanistan with the
Fall of Kandahar
The Fall of Kandahar took place in 2001 during the War in Afghanistan. After the fall of Mazar-i-Sharif, Kabul and Herat, Kandahar was the last major city under Taliban control. Kandahar was where the Taliban movement had originated and where it ...
on December 7, 2001, by U.S.-led
coalition forces
' ps, کمک او همکاري '
, allies = Afghanistan
, opponents = Taliban Al-Qaeda
, commander1 =
, commander1_label = Commander
, commander2 =
, commander2_label =
, commander3 =
, command ...
. Osama bin Laden, who went into hiding in the
White Mountains, was targeted by U.S. coalition forces in the
Battle of Tora Bora
The Battle of Tora Bora was a military engagement that took place in the cave complex of Tora Bora, eastern Afghanistan, from December 6–17, 2001, during the opening stages of the United States invasion of Afghanistan. It was launched by the ...
, but he escaped across the
Pakistani border and would remain out of sight for almost ten years.
The
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
and
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
, among other nations with their own internal conflicts with
Islamic terrorism
Islamic terrorism (also known as Islamist terrorism or radical Islamic terrorism) refers to terrorist acts with religious motivations carried out by fundamentalist militant Islamists and Islamic extremists.
Incidents and fatalities f ...
, also increased their military readiness. The military forces of the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran cooperated with each other to overthrow the
Taliban regime
The government of Afghanistan, officially called the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is the central government of Afghanistan, a unitary state. Under the leadership of the Taliban, the government is a theocracy and an emirate with political powe ...
which had had conflicts with the government of Iran.
Iran's
Quds Force
The Quds Force ( fa, نیروی قدس, niru-ye qods, Jerusalem Force) is one of five branches of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) specializing in unconventional warfare and military intelligence operations. U.S. Army's Iraq War ...
helped U.S. forces and Afghan rebels in the
2001 uprising in Herat
The 2001 uprising in Herat was a coordinated insurrection and uprising in the Afghan city of Herat as part of the United States war in Afghanistan. The city was captured on November 12 by Northern Alliance forces as well as Special Forces of t ...
.
[Qassem Soleimani and Iran's Unique Regional StrategyCombating Terrorism Center at West Point](_blank)
''Ali Soufan
Ali H. Soufan (born 1971) is a Lebanese-American former FBI agent who was involved in a number of high-profile anti-terrorism cases both in the United States and around the world. A 2006 ''New Yorker'' article described Soufan as coming close ...
''. ''CTC Sentinel''. November 2018, Vol. 11, Issue 10. Combating Terrorism CenterCTC at West Point
Permanent link and archived version at Wayback Machine
Permanent link and archived version at archive.is
Retrieved and archived on November 19, 2018
Permanent link
at WebCite
WebCite was an on-demand archive site, designed to digitally preserve scientific and educationally important material on the web by taking snapshots of Internet contents as they existed at the time when a blogger or a scholar cited or quoted ...
(November 30, 2018. 14:42:35 UTC).'
Permanent link and Archived Version at Perma.cc
(August 5, 2021). "In the months after 9/11, Soleimani saw an opportunity to defeat the Taliban once and for all by unconventional meansnamely, cooperation with the United States. Early in the war, he directed Iranian diplomats to share intelligence on Taliban military positions with their U.S. counterparts. The Americans, in return, told the Iranians what they knew about an al-Qa`ida fixer hiding out in eastern Iran."''
Effects
Health issues
![Dust covered 911 victims](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Dust_covered_911_victims.jpg)
Hundreds of thousands of tons of toxic debris containing more than 2,500 contaminants, including known carcinogens, were spread across Lower Manhattan due to the Twin Towers' collapse. Exposure to the toxins in the debris is alleged to have contributed to
fatal or debilitating illnesses among people who were at Ground Zero.
The Bush administration ordered the
Environmental Protection Agency
A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale f ...
(EPA) to issue reassuring statements regarding air quality in the aftermath of the attacks, citing national security, but the EPA did not determine that air quality had returned to pre-September 11 levels until June 2002.
Health effects extended to residents, students, and office workers of Lower Manhattan and nearby
Chinatown
A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...
. Several deaths have been linked to the toxic dust, and the victims' names were included in the World Trade Center memorial. Approximately 18,000 people have been estimated to have developed illnesses as a result of the toxic dust. There is also scientific speculation that exposure to various toxic products in the air may have negative effects on fetal development. A notable children's environmental health center is currently analyzing the children whose mothers were pregnant during the WTC collapse and were living or working nearby. A study of rescue workers released in April 2010 found that all those studied had impaired lung functions, and that 30%–40% were reporting little or no improvement in persistent symptoms that started within the first year of the attack.
Years after the attacks, legal disputes over the costs of illnesses related to the attacks were still in the court system. On October 17, 2006, a federal judge rejected New York City's refusal to pay for health costs for rescue workers, allowing for the possibility of numerous suits against the city. Government officials have been faulted for urging the public to return to lower Manhattan in the weeks shortly after the attacks. Christine Todd Whitman, administrator of the EPA in the attacks' aftermath, was heavily criticized by a U.S. District Judge for incorrectly saying that the area was environmentally safe. Mayor Giuliani was criticized for urging financial industry personnel to return quickly to the greater
Wall Street
Wall Street is an eight-block-long street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs between Broadway in the west to South Street and the East River in the east. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for t ...
area.
On December 22, 2010, the
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
passed the
James L. Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, which President
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
signed into law on January 2, 2011. It allocated $4.2billion to create the
World Trade Center Health Program
The World Trade Center Health Program (WTC Health Program) provides medical benefits to specific groups of individuals who were affected by the September 11 attacks in 2001 against the United States. The WTC Health Program was established by Title ...
, which provides testing and treatment for people suffering from long-term health problems related to the 9/11 attacks.
The WTC Health Program replaced preexisting 9/11-related health programs such as the Medical Monitoring and Treatment Program and the WTC Environmental Health Center program.
In 2020, the NYPD confirmed that 247 NYPD police officers had died due to 9/11-related illnesses. In September 2022, the FDNY confirmed that the total number of firefighters that died due to 9/11-related illnesses was 299. Both agencies believe that the death toll will rise dramatically in the coming years. The
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police Department
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police Department, or Port Authority Police Department (PAPD), is a law enforcement agency in New York and New Jersey, the duties of which are to protect and to enforce state and city laws at all t ...
(PAPD), which is the law enforcement agency which has jurisdiction over the World Trade Center due to the
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, PANYNJ; stylized, in logo since 2020, as Port Authority NY NJ, is a joint venture between the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, established in 1921 through an interstate compact authorized ...
owning the site, has confirmed that four of its police officers have died of 9/11-related illnesses. The chief of the PAPD at the time, Joseph Morris, made sure that industrial-grade respirators were provided to all PAPD police officers within 48 hours and decided that the same 30 to 40 police officers would be stationed at the World Trade Center pile, drastically lowering the number of total PAPD personnel who would be exposed to the air. The FDNY and NYPD had rotated hundreds, if not thousands, of different personnel from all over New York City to the pile which exposed so many of them to dust that would give them cancer or other diseases years or decades later. Also, they were not given adequate respirators and breathing equipment that could have prevented future diseases.
Economic
The attacks had a significant economic impact on United States and world markets.
The stock exchanges did not open on September 11 and remained closed until September 17. Reopening, the
Dow Jones Industrial Average
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), Dow Jones, or simply the Dow (), is a stock market index of 30 prominent companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States.
The DJIA is one of the oldest and most commonly followed equity inde ...
(DJIA) fell 684 points, or 7.1%, to 8921, a record-setting one-day point decline. By the end of the week, the DJIA had fallen 1,369.7 points (14.3%), at the time its largest one-week point drop in history. In 2001 dollars, U.S. stocks lost $1.4trillion in valuation for the week.
In New York City, about 430,000 job-months and $2.8billion in wages were lost in the first three months after the attacks. The economic effects were mainly on the economy's export sectors. The city's GDP was estimated to have declined by $27.3billion for the last three months of 2001 and all of 2002. The U.S. government provided $11.2billion in immediate assistance to the
Government of New York City
The government of New York City, headquartered at New York City Hall in Lower Manhattan, is organized under the New York City Charter and provides for a mayor-council system. The mayor is elected to a four-year term and is responsible for the ...
in September 2001, and $10.5billion in early 2002 for economic development and infrastructure needs.
![Deficits vs](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/Deficits_vs._Debt_Increases_-_2008.png)
Also hurt were small businesses in
Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan (also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York) is the southernmost part of Manhattan, the central borough for business, culture, and government in New York City, which is the most populated city in the United States with ...
near the World Trade Center (18,000 of which were destroyed or displaced), resulting in lost jobs and their consequent wages. Assistance was provided by
Small Business Administration
The United States Small Business Administration (SBA) is an independent agency of the United States government that provides support to entrepreneurs and small businesses. The mission of the Small Business Administration is "to maintain and stren ...
loans; federal government Community Development Block Grants; and Economic Injury Disaster Loans.
Some of Lower Manhattan office space was damaged or destroyed. Many wondered whether these jobs would return, and if the damaged tax base would recover. Studies of 9/11's economic effects show the Manhattan office real-estate market and office employment were less affected than first feared, because of the financial services industry's need for face-to-face interaction.
North American air space was closed for several days after the attacks and air travel decreased upon its reopening, leading to a nearly 20% cutback in air travel capacity, and exacerbating financial problems in the struggling
U.S. airline industry.
The September 11 attacks also led to the U.S.
wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
, as well as additional
homeland security
Homeland security is an American national security term for "the national effort to ensure a homeland that is safe, secure, and resilient against terrorism and other hazards where American interests, aspirations, and ways of life can thrive" to ...
spending, totaling at least $5trillion.
Cultural influence
The impact of 9/11 extends beyond geopolitics and into society and culture in general. Immediate responses to 9/11 included greater focus on home life and time spent with family, higher church attendance, and increased expressions of patriotism such as the flying of American flags.
The radio industry responded by removing certain songs from playlists, and the attacks have subsequently been used as background, narrative, or thematic elements in
film
A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...
,
music
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...
,
literature
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...
, and
humor
Humour (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humorism, humoral medicine of the ancient Gre ...
. Already-running television shows as well as programs developed after 9/11 have reflected
post-9/11
The post-9/11 period is the time after the September 11 attacks, characterized by heightened suspicion of non-Americans in the United States, increased government efforts to address terrorism, and a more aggressive American foreign policy.
Pol ...
cultural concerns.
9/11 conspiracy theories
9/11 conspiracy theories attribute the preparation and execution of the September 11 attacks against the United States to parties other than, or in addition to, al-Qaeda. These include the theory that high-level government officials had adv ...
have become social phenomena, despite lack of support from expert scientists, engineers, and historians. 9/11 has also had a major impact on the religious faith of many individuals; for some it strengthened, to find
consolation
Consolation, consolement, and solace are terms referring to psychological comfort given to someone who has suffered severe, upsetting loss, such as the death of a loved one. It is typically provided by expressing shared regret for that loss and ...
to cope with the loss of loved ones and overcome their grief; others started to question their faith or lose it entirely, because they
could not reconcile it with their view of religion.
The culture of America succeeding the attacks is noted for heightened security and an increased demand thereof, as well as
paranoia
Paranoia is an instinct or thought process that is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concer ...
and
anxiety
Anxiety is an emotion which is characterized by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil and includes feelings of dread over anticipated events. Anxiety is different than fear in that the former is defined as the anticipation of a future threat wh ...
regarding future terrorist attacks that includes most of the nation. Psychologists have also confirmed that there has been an increased amount of national anxiety in commercial air travel. Anti-Muslim hate crimes rose nearly ten-fold in 2001 and have subsequently remained "roughly five times higher than the pre-9/11 rate."
Government policies toward terrorism
![CIA illegal flights](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/CIA_illegal_flights.svg)
As a result of the attacks, many governments across the world passed legislation to combat terrorism. In Germany, where several of the 9/11 terrorists had resided and taken advantage of that country's liberal asylum policies, two major anti-terrorism packages were enacted. The first removed legal loopholes that permitted terrorists to live and raise money in Germany. The second addressed the effectiveness and communication of intelligence and law enforcement. Canada passed the
Canadian Anti-Terrorism Act
The Canadian ''Anti-terrorism Act'' (french: Loi antiterroriste) (the ''Act'') was passed by the Parliament of Canada in response to the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. It received Royal Assent on December 18, 2001, as Bill C-36. ...
, their first anti-terrorism law. The United Kingdom passed the
Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 and the
Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005
The Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 (c 2) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, intended to deal with the Law Lords' ruling of 16 December 2004 that the detention without trial of eight foreigners (known as the 'Belmarsh 8') at H ...
. New Zealand enacted the
Terrorism Suppression Act 2002
The Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 is New Zealand counter-terrorism legislation passed under the Clark-led Labour government. Enacted following the September 11 attacks in the United States, the Act was designed to better address contemporary ...
.
In the United States, the
Department of Homeland Security
The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries. Its stated missions involve anti-terr ...
was created by the
Homeland Security Act of 2002
The Homeland Security Act (HSA) of 2002, () was introduced in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks and subsequent mailings of anthrax spores. The HSA was cosponsored by 118 members of Congress. The act passed the U.S. Senate by a vote of ...
to coordinate domestic anti-terrorism efforts. The
USA Patriot Act
The USA PATRIOT Act (commonly known as the Patriot Act) was a landmark Act of Congress, Act of the United States Congress, signed into law by President of the United States, President George W. Bush. The formal name of the statute is the Uniti ...
gave the federal government greater powers, including the authority to detain foreign terror suspects for a week without charge; to monitor terror suspects' telephone communications, e-mail, and Internet use; and to prosecute suspected terrorists without time restrictions. The FAA ordered that airplane cockpits be reinforced to prevent terrorists gaining control of planes, and assigned
sky marshals
A sky marshal is a covert law enforcement or counter-terrorist agent on board a commercial aircraft to counter aircraft hijackings. Such an agent is also known as an air marshal, a flight marshal, or an in-flight security officer (IFSO). Sky marsh ...
to flights.
Further, the Aviation and Transportation Security Act made the federal government, rather than airports, responsible for airport security. The law created the Transportation Security Administration to inspect passengers and luggage, causing long delays and concern over passenger privacy.
After suspected abuses of the USA Patriot Act were brought to light in June 2013 with articles about the collection of American call records by the National Security Agency, NSA and the PRISM (surveillance program), PRISM program (see Global surveillance disclosures (2013–present)), Representative Sensenbrenner, Jim Sensenbrenner,(R- Wisconsin) who introduced the Patriot Act in 2001, said that the NSA overstepped its bounds.
Criticism of the war on terror has focused on its morality, efficiency, and cost. According to a 2021 study conducted under the auspices of the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, the several post-9/11 wars participated in by the United States in its
War on Terror
The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is an ongoing international Counterterrorism, counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks. The main targets of the campa ...
have caused the displacement, conservatively calculated, of 38 million people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, and the Philippines.
The study estimated these wars caused the deaths of 897,000 to 929,000 people and cost $8 trillion dollars.
The U.S. Constitution and U.S. law prohibits the use of Torture in the United States, torture, yet such Human rights violations by the CIA, human rights violations occurred during the War on Terror under the euphemism Enhanced interrogation techniques, Enhanced interrogation. In 2005, ''The Washington Post'' and Human Rights Watch (HRW) published revelations concerning CIA flights and "CIA black sites, black sites", covert prisons operated by the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA. The term "torture by proxy" is used by some critics to describe situations in which the CIA and other U.S. agencies have Extraordinary rendition, transferred suspected terrorists to countries known to employ torture.
Investigations
FBI
Immediately after the attacks, the Federal Bureau of Investigation started PENTTBOM, the largest criminal inquiry in United States history. At its height, more than half of the FBI's agents worked on the investigation and followed a half-million leads.
The FBI concluded that there was "clear and irrefutable" evidence linking al-Qaeda and bin Laden to the attacks.
![Mohamed Atta](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Mohamed_Atta.jpg)
The FBI was quickly able to identify the hijackers, including leader Mohamed Atta, when his luggage was discovered at Boston's Logan Airport. Atta had been forced to check two of his three bags due to space limitations on the 19-seat commuter flight he took to Boston. Due to a new policy instituted to prevent flight delays, the luggage failed to make it aboard American Airlines Flight 11 as planned. The luggage contained the hijackers' names, assignments, and al-Qaeda connections. "It had all these Arab-language papers that amounted to the Rosetta stone of the investigation", said one FBI agent.
Within hours of the attacks, the FBI released the names and in many cases the personal details of the suspected pilots and hijackers.
Abu Jandal, who served as bin Laden's chief bodyguard for years, confirmed the identity of seven hijackers as al-Qaeda members during interrogations with the FBI on September 17. He had been jailed in a Yemeni prison since 2000. On September 27, 2001, photos of all 19 hijackers were released, along with information about possible nationalities and aliases. Fifteen of the men were from Saudi Arabia, two were from the United Arab Emirates, one was from Egypt, and one was from Lebanon.
By midday, the U.S. National Security Agency and German intelligence agencies had intercepted communications pointing to Osama bin Laden. Two of the hijackers were known to have traveled with a bin Laden associate to Malaysia in 2000 and hijacker Mohammed Atta had previously gone to Afghanistan. He and others were part of a terrorist cell in
Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
, timezone1 = Central (CET)
, utc_offset1 = +1
, timezone1_DST = Central (CEST)
, utc_offset1_DST = +2
, postal ...
. One of the members of the
Hamburg cell
The Hamburg cell (german: Hamburger Zelle) or Hamburg terror cell (german: Hamburger Terrorzelle) was, according to U.S. and German intelligence agencies, a group of radical Islamists based in Hamburg, Germany, that included students from dif ...
in Germany was discovered to have been in communication with Khalid Sheik Mohammed who was identified as a member of
al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremism, Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arab, Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military ta ...
.
Authorities in the United States and United Kingdom also obtained electronic intercepts, including telephone conversations and electronic bank transfers, which indicated that
Mohammed Atef
Mohammed Atef ( ar, محمد عاطف, ; born Sobhi Mohammed Abu Sitta Al-Gohary, also known as Abu Hafs al-Masri) was the military chief of al-Qaeda, and was considered one of Osama bin Laden's two deputies, the other being Ayman Al Zawahiri, ...
, a bin Laden deputy, was a key figure in the planning of the 9/11 attacks. Intercepts were also obtained that revealed conversations that took place days before September 11 between bin Laden and an associate in Pakistan. In those conversations, the two referred to "an incident that would take place in America on, or around, September 11" and they discussed potential repercussions. In another conversation with an associate in Afghanistan, bin Laden discussed the "scale and effects of a forthcoming operation." These conversations did not specifically mention the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, or other specifics.
The FBI did not record the 2,977 deaths from the attacks in their annual violent crime index for 2001. In a disclaimer, the FBI stated that "the number of deaths is so great that combining it with the traditional crime statistics will have an outlier effect that falsely skewness, skews all types of measurements in the program's analyses." New York City also did not include the deaths in their annual crime statistics for 2001.
CIA
In 2004, John L. Helgerson, the Inspector General of the
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
(CIA), conducted an internal review of the agency's pre-9/11 performance and was harshly critical of senior CIA officials for not doing everything possible to confront terrorism.
According to Philip Giraldi in ''The American Conservative'', Helgerson criticized their failure to stop two of the 9/11 hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, as they entered the United States and their failure to share information on the two men with the FBI.
In May 2007, senators from both major U.S. political parties drafted legislation to make the review public. One of the backers, Senator Ron Wyden said, "The American people have a right to know what the Central Intelligence Agency was doing in those critical months before 9/11." The report was released in 2009 by President
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
.
Congressional inquiry
In February 2002, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence formed a joint inquiry into the performance of the U.S. Intelligence Community. Their 832-page report released in December 2002 detailed failings of the FBI and CIA to use available information, including about terrorists the CIA knew were in the United States, in order to disrupt the plots.
The joint inquiry developed its information about possible involvement of Saudi Arabian government officials from non-classified sources.
Nevertheless, the Bush administration demanded 28 related pages remain classified.
In December 2002, the inquiry's chair Bob Graham (D-FL) revealed in an interview that there was "evidence that there were foreign governments involved in facilitating the activities of at least some of the terrorists in the United States." September 11 victim families were frustrated by the unanswered questions and redacted material from the congressional inquiry and demanded an independent commission.
September 11 victim families, members of Congress and the Saudi Arabian government are still seeking release of the documents. In June 2016, CIA chief John O. Brennan, John Brennan said that he believes 28 redacted pages of a congressional inquiry into 9/11 will soon be made public, and that they will prove that the government of Saudi Arabia had no involvement in the September 11 attacks.
In September 2016, the Congress passed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act that would allow relatives of victims of the September 11 attacks to sue
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
for its government's Alleged Saudi government role in the September 11 attacks, alleged role in the attacks.
9/11 Commission
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (9/11 Commission), chaired by Thomas Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, was formed in late 2002 to prepare a thorough account of the circumstances surrounding the attacks, including preparedness for and the immediate response to the attacks. On July 22, 2004, the Commission issued the ''
9/11 Commission Report
''The 9/11 Commission Report'' (officially the ''Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States)'' is the official report into the events leading up to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. It was prepa ...
''. The report detailed the events of 9/11, found the attacks were carried out by members of al-Qaeda, and examined how security and intelligence agencies were inadequately coordinated to prevent the attacks.
Formed from an independent bipartisan group of mostly former senators, representatives, and governors, the commissioners explained, "We believe the 9/11 attacks revealed four kinds of failures: in imagination, policy, capabilities, and management." The Commission made numerous recommendations on how to prevent future attacks, and in 2011 was dismayed that several of its recommendations had yet to be implemented.
National Institute of Standards and Technology
![WTC-Wreckage-exterior shell of south tower](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/WTC-Wreckage-exterior_shell_of_south_tower.jpg)
The U.S.
National Institute of Standards and Technology
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical sci ...
(NIST) investigated the collapses of the Twin Towers and 7WTC. The investigations examined why the buildings collapsed and what fire protection measures were in place, and evaluated how fire protection systems might be improved in future construction.
The investigation into the collapse of 1WTC and 2WTC was concluded in October 2005 and that of 7WTC was completed in August 2008.
NIST found that the fireproofing on the Twin Towers' steel infrastructures was blown off by the initial impact of the planes and that had this not occurred, the towers likely would have remained standing.
A 2007 study of the north tower's collapse published by researchers of Purdue University determined that since the plane's impact had stripped off much of the structure's thermal insulation, the heat from a typical office fire would have softened and weakened the exposed girders and columns enough to initiate the collapse regardless of the number of columns cut or damaged by the impact.
The director of the original investigation stated that "the towers really did amazingly well. The terrorist aircraft didn't bring the buildings down; it was the fire which followed. It was proven that you could take out two-thirds of the columns in a tower and the building would still stand."
The fires weakened the trusses supporting the floors, making the floors sag. The sagging floors pulled on the exterior steel columns causing the exterior columns to bow inward.
With the damage to the core columns, the buckling exterior columns could no longer support the buildings, causing them to collapse. Additionally, the report found the towers' stairwells were not adequately reinforced to provide adequate Fire escape, emergency escape for people above the impact zones.
NIST concluded that uncontrolled fires in 7WTC caused floor beams and girders to heat and subsequently "caused a critical support column to fail, initiating a fire-induced progressive collapse that brought the building down".
Alleged Saudi government role
In July 2016, the Obama administration released a document compiled by U.S. investigators Dana Lesemann and Michael Jacobson, known as "File 17", which contains a list naming three dozen people, including the suspected General Intelligence Presidency, Saudi intelligence officers attached to Saudi Arabia's embassy in Washington, D.C., which connects Saudi Arabia to the hijackers.
In September 2016, Congress passed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act.
The practical effect of the legislation was to allow the continuation of a longstanding civil lawsuit brought by families of victims of the September 11 attacks against Saudi Arabia for its government's alleged role in the attacks. In March 2018, a U.S. judge formally allowed a suit to move forward against the government of Saudi Arabia brought by 9/11 survivors and victims' families.
In 2022, the families of some 9/11 victims obtained two videos and a notepad seized from Saudi national Omar al-Bayoumi by the British courts. The first video showed him hosting a party in San Diego for Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, the first two hijackers to arrive in the U.S. The other video showed al-Bayoumi greeting the cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was blamed for radicalizing Americans and later killed in a CIA drone strike. The notepad depicted a hand-drawn airplane and some mathematical equations that, according to a pilot's court statement, might have been used to calculate the rate of descent to get to a target. According to a 2017 FBI memo, from the late 1990s up until the 9/11 attack, al-Bayoumi was a paid cooptee of the Saudi General Intelligence Presidency. he is believed to be living in Saudi Arabia, which has denied any involvement in 9/11.
Rebuilding
![OneWorldTradeCenter](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/OneWorldTradeCenter.jpg)
On the day of the attacks, New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani stated: "We will rebuild. We're going to come out of this stronger than before, politically stronger, economically stronger. The skyline will be made whole again."
The damaged section of the Pentagon was rebuilt and occupied within a year of the attacks. The temporary World Trade Center (PATH station), World Trade Center PATH station opened in late 2003 and construction of the new 7World Trade Center was completed in 2006. Work on rebuilding the main World Trade Center site was delayed until late 2006 when leaseholder Larry Silverstein and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey agreed on financing. The construction of
One World Trade Center
One World Trade Center (also known as One World Trade, One WTC, and formerly Freedom Tower) is the main building of the rebuilt World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Designed by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Mer ...
began on April 27, 2006, and reached its full height on May 20, 2013. The spire was installed atop the building at that date, putting 1WTC's height at 1,776 feet (541m) and thus claiming the title of the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. One WTC finished construction and opened on November 3, 2014.
On the World Trade Center site, three more office towers were to be built one block east of where the original towers stood. 4WTC, meanwhile, opened in November 2013, making it the second tower on the site to open behind 7World Trade Center, as well as the first building on the Port Authority property. 3WTC opened on June 11, 2018, becoming the fourth skyscraper at the site to be completed.
On the 16th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, a writer for ''Curbed New York'' said that although "there is a World Trade Center again", it was not finished, as 2and 5WTC did not have definite completion dates, among other things.
Christopher O. Ward, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Executive Director from 2008–2011, is a survivor of the attacks and is credited with getting the construction of the 9/11 site back on track.
Memorials
![Lower Manhattan from Jersey City September 2020 HDR panorama](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Lower_Manhattan_from_Jersey_City_September_2020_HDR_panorama.jpg)
In the days immediately following the attacks, many memorials and vigils were held around the world, and photographs of the dead and missing were posted around World Trade Center site, Ground Zero. A witness described being unable to "get away from faces of innocent victims who were killed. Their pictures are everywhere, on phone booths, street lights, walls of subway stations. Everything reminded me of a huge funeral, people quiet and sad, but also very nice. Before, New York gave me a cold feeling; now people were reaching out to help each other."
One of the first memorials was the ''Tribute in Light'', an installation of 88 searchlights at the footprints of the World Trade Center towers. In New York City, the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition was held to design an appropriate memorial on the site. The winning design, ''National September 11 Memorial & Museum, Reflecting Absence'', was selected in August 2006, and consists of a pair of reflecting pools in the footprints of the towers, surrounded by a list of the victims' names in an underground memorial space. The memorial was completed on September 11, 2011; a museum also opened on site on May 21, 2014.
''The Sphere'' by the German sculptor Fritz Koenig is the world's largest bronze sculpture of modern times, and stood between the Twin Towers on the Austin J. Tobin Plaza of the
World Trade Center
World Trade Centers are sites recognized by the World Trade Centers Association.
World Trade Center may refer to:
Buildings
* List of World Trade Centers
* World Trade Center (2001–present), a building complex that includes five skyscrapers, a ...
in New York City from 1971 until the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The sculpture, weighing more than 20 tons, was the only remaining work of art to be recovered largely intact from the ruins of the collapsed Twin Towers after the attacks. Since then, the work of art, known in the U.S. as ''The Sphere,'' has been transformed into an important symbolic monument of 9/11 commemoration. After being dismantled and stored near a hangar at John F. Kennedy International Airport, the sculpture was the subject of the 2001 documentary ''Koenig's Sphere'' by filmmaker Percy Adlon. On August 16, 2017, the work was reinstated, installed at the Liberty Park close to the new World Trade Center arial and the 9/11 Memorial.
In Arlington County, the
Pentagon Memorial
The Pentagon Memorial, formally the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial, located just southwest of The Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., is a permanent outdoor memorial to the 184 people who di ...
was completed and opened to the public on the seventh anniversary of the attacks in 2008. It consists of a landscaped park with 184 benches facing the Pentagon.
When the Pentagon was repaired in 2001–2002, a private chapel and indoor memorial were included, located at the spot where Flight 77 crashed into the building.
In Shanksville, a Flight 93 National Memorial, concrete-and-glass visitor center was opened on September 10, 2015,
situated on a hill overlooking the crash site and the white marble ''Wall of Names''.
An observation platform at the visitor center and the white marble wall are both aligned beneath the path of Flight 93.
A temporary memorial is located from the crash site. New York City firefighters donated a cross made of steel from the World Trade Center and mounted on top of a platform shaped like the Pentagon.
It was installed outside the firehouse on August 25, 2008. Many other permanent memorials are elsewhere. Scholarships and charities have been established by the victims' families and by many other organizations and private figures.
On every anniversary in New York City, the names of the victims who died there are read out against a background of somber music. The President of the United States attends a memorial service at the Pentagon,
and asks Americans to observe Patriot Day with a moment of silence. Smaller services are held in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, which are usually attended by the First Lady.
See also
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External links
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States''official commission website''
List of victimsSeptember 11, 2001, Documentary Projectfrom the U.S. Library of Congress, ''Memory.loc.gov''
September 11, 2001, Web Archivefrom the U.S. Library of Congress, ''Minerva''
National Security ArchiveSeptember 11 Digital Archive: Saving the Histories of September 11, 2001 from the ''Center for History and New Media'' and the ''American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning''
* s:Verbatim Transcript of Combatant Status Review Tribunal Hearing for ISN 10024, DoD: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Verbatim Transcript of Combatant Status Review Tribunal Hearing for ISN 10024, from Wikisource
The 9/11 Legacies Project ''Oriental Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague''
9/11 at 20: A Week of Reflection ''Responsible Statecraft, The Quincy Institute''
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