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The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated
suicide terrorist attacks carried out by
al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning,
nineteen terrorists hijacked 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 ai ...
scheduled to travel from the
Northeastern United States to
California. The hijackers crashed the first two planes into the Twin Towers of the
World Trade Center in New York City, and the third plane into
the Pentagon (the headquarters of the
United States military) in
Arlington County, Virginia. The fourth plane was intended to hit a
federal government 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 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 Towe ...
. It was crashed into the
North Tower of the World Trade Center complex in
Lower Manhattan 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, ...
. 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, and damaging nearby buildings. A third flight,
American Airlines Flight 77, crashed into the west side of the Pentagon in
Arlington County, Virginia, 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 S ...
, 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 ...
.
Within hours of the attacks, the
Central Intelligence Agency determined that al-Qaeda was responsible. The United States formally
responded by launching the war on terror and
invading Afghanistan to depose the
Taliban, which had not complied with U.S. demands to expel al-Qaeda from Afghanistan and extradite its leader,
Osama bin Laden. 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 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, prose ...
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 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" 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 bounded by Vesey Street to the north ...
(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 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 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 invaders (the Soviets).
Bin Laden organized fellow Arab
mujahideen (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 volu ...
") to resist the Soviets until that country's exit from Afghanistan in 1989. The U.S.
Central Intelligence Agency (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 ...
'', calling for
American soldiers to leave Saudi Arabia. In a second ''fatwā'' in 1998, bin Laden outlined his objections to
American foreign policy 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 Coalition of the Gulf War, 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Ba'athist Iraq, ...
.
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 is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries", according to bin Laden.
Osama bin Laden
Bin Laden orchestrated the attacks. He initially denied involvement, but later recanted his false statements.
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 list of cities in Afghanistan, 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 ...
. In the video, bin Laden is seen talking to
Khaled al-Harbi 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, and
Nairobi, Kenya. After a
10-year manhunt, U.S. President
Barack Obama 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 struc ...
in
Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 1, 2011.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
Journalist
Yosri Fouda of the Arabic television channel
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 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, Pakistan, by Pakistani security officials working with the CIA. He was then held at multiple
CIA secret prisons and
Guantanamo Bay where he was interrogated and tortured with methods including
waterboarding. 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 se ...
, 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; and
Mohammed Atef. 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 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 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 f ...
;
Marwan al-Shehhi;
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 pl ...
;
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 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 engineer, and an alleged member of the ...](_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
* Support of Philippines against Muslims in the
Moro conflict
* Support for Israeli "aggression" against Muslims in
Lebanon
* Support of Russian "atrocities against Muslims" in
Chechnya
* Pro-American governments in the Middle East (who "act as your agents") being against Muslim interests
* Support of Indian "oppression against Muslims" in
Kashmir
* 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 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 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 ...
'' 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", 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'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. Some analysts, including political scientists
John Mearsheimer and
Stephen Walt, 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 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 Octob ...
. "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 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
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 in 1996. At that time, bin Laden and al-Qaeda were in a period of transition, having just relocated back to Afghanistan from
Sudan.
[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, 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 in Los Angeles for lack of time.
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, both experienced jihadists who had fought in
Bosnia. 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 f ...
;
Marwan al-Shehhi;
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 pl ...
; 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 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 members all took pilot training in South Florida at
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, 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, the
King of Poland and
Grand Duke of Lithuania, began the
battle 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 and
Habsburg monarchy, 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 ("Khallad") contacted Mihdhar, telling him to meet him in
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Hazmi and
Abu Bara al Yemeni would also be in attendance. The
NSA 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 hotel room and discovered that Mihdhar had a U.S. visa. While
Alec Station 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 activiti ...
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, but the CIA never notified other agencies of this, nor did it ask the
State Department 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 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, the State Department, the
Customs Service, 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 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 se ...
, 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 o ...
.
The failures in intelligence-sharing were attributed to 1995
Justice Department 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 in April 2004, then-
Attorney General 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
Early on the morning of September 11, 2001,
19 hijackers took control of four commercial airliners (two
Boeing 757s and two
Boeing 767s) en route to California (three of them headed to
LAX in Los Angeles and one to
SFO in San Francisco) after takeoffs from
Logan International Airport 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 in
Newark, New Jersey; and
Washington Dulles International Airport 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 Towe ...
: 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, ...
: 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: 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 S ...
: 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 el ...
was extensive during the attacks and aftermath, beginning moments after the first crash into the World Trade Center.
*
Eastern Daylight Time (UTC-04:00)
† Excluding hijackers
§ Including emergency workers
‡ Including hijackers
The four crashes
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 Towe ...
took off from
Logan International Airport 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, ...
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 F ...]
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 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 S ...
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 in Essex County and Elizabeth in Union Cou ...
in
New Jersey;
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 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. 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 ...
.
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-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 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 (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 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) 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 f ...](_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 (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.
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 warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...
or the
United States Navy. 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 (DIA) civilian employees died, and one
Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) contractor.
Lieutenant General 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, was left intact after Flight 175 hit, allowing 14 people located on the floors of impact (including
Stanley Praimnath, a man who saw the plane coming at him) and four more from the floors above to escape. New York City
9-1-1 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, head of security at
Morgan Stanley, 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, 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'' 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 upp ...
''), 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. The
New York City Police Department (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 t ...
(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 (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, 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
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 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 and the
Verizon Building) 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 ...
, the
Millenium Hilton, 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 maintaining a backup transmitter on the
Empire State Building, 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, were flooded with water. The station was rebuilt as the $4billion
World Trade Center Transportation Hub, which reopened in March 2015. The
Cortlandt Street station on the
New York City Subway'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
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 crimes;
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
At 8:32 a.m.,
FAA 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 ...
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 in Virginia at 9:30 a.m.
At 10:20 a.m., Vice President
Dick Cheney 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 (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, 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 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 Rudy Giuliani'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 befo ...
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 of 2002, creating the
Department of Homeland Security. Congress also passed the
USA PATRIOT Act, 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 (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 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 and
hate crimes against
Muslims 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.
Sikhs were also subject to targeting due to the use of
turbans 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), 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.
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 were as likely to be victims of hate crimes as followers of
Islam during this time. The study also found a similar increase in hate crimes against people who may have been perceived as Muslims,
Arabs, 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 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 Ins ...
, 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 identified themselves as Indians to avoid potential discrimination and obtain jobs (Pakistan was created as a result of the
partition of India in 1947).
By May 2002, there were 488 complaints of
employment discrimination 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, 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,
Islamic Circle of North America, 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 (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,
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. 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 individu ...
condemned the attacks and expressed readiness to take all necessary steps to respond and combat all forms of terrorism in accordance with their
Charter.
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 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).
The U.S. set up the
Guantanamo Bay detention camp to hold inmates they defined as "
illegal enemy combatants". 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 de ...
and human rights organizations.
On September 25, 2001,
Iran's
fifth president,
Mohammad Khatami, 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 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 ...
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
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