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41. September 11 Terrorist Attacks on the United States
On September 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaeda-trained terrorists hijacked four U.S. commercial airliners. The hijackers crashed two of the jets into the World Trade Center towers in New York City and crashed the third jet into the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C. Passengers and crew battled the hijackers for control of the fourth jet, and it crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, short of reaching the hijackers’ intended target in Washington, D.C.
The attacks caused the subsequent collapse of the World Trade Center twin towers, damaged the Pentagon, and killed approximately 3,000 people. Included in the death toll were hundreds of firefighters and rescue personnel who responded to the crashes at the World Trade Center site and who were in the process of rescuing those inside when the buildings collapsed.
Al-Qaeda (also known as al-Qaida), and its leader, Osama bin Laden (also spelled Usama Bin Ladin or Osama bin Ladin), subsequently claimed responsibility for the attacks. Al-Qaeda—operating out of Afghanistan under the protection of the fundamentalist Taliban regime—and allied Islamic extremist groups had publicly vowed a terrorist war against the U.S. and Western interests in an effort to establish pro-Islamist governments and fundamentalist Islamist social order throughout the world. Al- Qaeda also directed the 2000 attack on the USS Cole near the port of Aden, Yemen, and claimed responsibility for the bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa. The September 11, 2001 attacks were the most deadly international terrorist attack in history and the largest attack on United States territory since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
According to investigators and transcripts of cellular phone calls made by passengers aboard several of the hijacked planes, the hijackers used box cutter knives as weapons to overpower or kill crew and resisting passengers. The aircraft, all destined for long flights and heavy with jet fuel, exploded as powerful bombs upon impact.
The hijacking of American Airlines flight 11. The terrorist action began when five terrorists hijacked American Airlines flight 11, a Boeing 767 aircraft carrying 92 people that departed Boston bound for Los Angeles at 8:00 A.M. The FBI subsequently identified the hijackers as Satam M.A. al- Suqami (most hijackers had multiple aliases), Waleed M. al-Shehri, Wail M. al-Shehri; Mohamed Atta, and Abdulaziz Alomari. The hijackers flew American Airlines flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City at 8:46 A.M.
The hijacking of United Airlines flight 175. Five terrorists hijacked United Airlines flight 175, a Boeing 767 aircraft that departed Boston for Los Angeles at 8:14 A.M. with 65 people on board. The FBI subsequently identified the hijackers as Marwan al-Shehhi, Fayez Rashid Ahmed Hassan al-Qadi Banihammad, Ahmed Alghamdi, and Mohand al-Shehri. The hijackers piloted United Airlines flight 175 into the South Tower of the World Trade Center at 9:03 A.M., 17 minutes after the crash of American Airlines flight 11 into the North Tower.
The hijacking of American Airlines flight 77. Five terrorists hijacked American Airlines flight 77, a Boeing 757 carrying 64 people that took off from Washington Dulles Airport bound for Los Angeles at 8:21 A.M. The FBI subsequently identified the hijackers as Khalid Almihdhar, Majed Moqed, Nawaf Alhazmi, Salem Alhazmi, and Hani Hanjour. The terrorists crashed the plane into the Pentagon at 9:43 A.M. The crash into the Pentagon—exactly 60 years to the day after construction began on the building—killed more than one hundred personnel working in the building’s outer rings, as well as the people aboard the aircraft. The portion of the Pentagon damaged by the crash had recently been strengthened and remodeled to heighten physical security, and Pentagon officials credit those measures with saving many lives.
The hijacking of United Airlines flight 93. Four terrorists hijacked United Airlines flight 93, a Boeing 757 carrying 44 people that took off from Newark bound for San Francisco at 8:41 A.M. The FBI subsequently identified the hijackers as Saeed Alghamdi, Ahmed Ibrahim A. Al Haznawi, Ahmed Alnami, and Ziad Samir Jarrah. Passengers, made aware of the hijackers’ intentions during cell phone calls to family and authorities, attempted to overpower the hijackers. Minutes prior to the crash of the aircraft, a passenger on the flight used his cell phone to call an emergency operator in Pennsylvania to report that the plane had been hijacked and that passengers and crewmembers were planning to attempt to retake the plane. At the cost of their own lives, the passengers and crew thwarted the hijackers’ plans to crash the plane into a Washington area target. At 10:07 A.M. the aircraft crashed into a field southeast of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, killing everyone on board. Intelligence developed from subsequently captured al-Qaeda terrorists indicated that the terrorists planned to crash the plane into either the U.S. Capitol or White House. As of May, 2003, the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) continues to investigate the actual September 11, 2001 airline crashes associated with the terrorist attacks.
National emergency responses. At approximately 9:30 A.M., U.S. President George W. Bush, who had been visiting a Florida elementary school, spoke briefly to reporters as the Secret Service whisked him away to the security of Air Force One. Bush, now aware that the crashes into the World Trade Center were deliberate, but speaking ten minutes before the crash into the Pentagon, pledged that United States would find and punish the parties responsible for crashing the hijacked aircraft into the World Trade Center towers.
Minutes later, the crash into the Pentagon put official Washington into a heightened state of alert and lockdown. The U.S. Capitol, White House, State Department, Justice Department, and World Bank were evacuated. For the first time in aviation history the Federal Aviation Administration banned all aircraft flights in United States airspace. In a largely unheralded effort, by 12:15 P.M. the airspace over the continental United States was cleared of more than 4,500 commercial and private aircraft. Pilot and air traffic controllers managed to safely land all planes, many far from their intended destinations. The FAA ban did not reopen airspace until September 13, 2001.
During a tense afternoon and for days afterwards, U.S. military deployed anti-aircraft and anti-missile batteries around New York and Washington. Five destroyers and two aircraft carriers deployed to sea from the Naval Air Station at Norfolk to monitor and protect the U.S. East Coast. Fighter and surveillance aircraft patrolled the skies over major U.S. cites.
The collapse of the World Trade Center towers. On a typical workday, an estimated 50,000 people worked in the World Trade Center complex of six buildings. Built in the 1970s, the complex included 110 -story twin towers. Prior to September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center contained offices for more than 400 companies from more than 25 countries and hosted more than 125,000 visitors each day. Although the full details are not yet known, forensic analysis indicated that the high temperatures of the jet fuel burning in the World Trade Center towers weakened critical supporting beams. As emergency personnel raced into the building to complete the evacuation of those stranded by the fire and to begin the long climb to attack the fire on the upper floors, at 10:05 A.M. the South tower of the World Trade Center suddenly collapsed as the upper floors pancaked into lower floors. The tower collapsed nearly vertically into the deep subfloors and subterranean ground transit station. Above ground, a billowing cloud of pulverized concrete and dust blew through several blocks of lower Manhattan. A mushroom-like plume replaced the South tower in the New York skyline. The slowly clearing air revealed an above ground pile of twisted steel and pulverized wreckage. At 10:28 A.M., the North tower of the World Trade Center collapsed with all the violence of its twin. A third World Trade Center building (the 47-story ”Building 7“), damaged by the falling towers, collapsed approximately seven hours later.
Rescue efforts started immediately as surviving police, firefighters, engineers, construction workers, and other arriving emergency personnel began a determined search for colleagues and civilian survivors. Although intense rescue efforts continued for more than a week, the tremendous force of the collapsing buildings spared few of those trapped inside. The tremendous volume of falling material compacted into a tight and dense mass, providing few spaces that held the possibility of finding survivors. Death for thousands had been swift, and beyond a handful of survivors found in the first hours, no one survived the full fury of the collapse. Despite a 24-hour operation throughout the winter by large and dedicated crews, a full excavation of the site and forensic determinations of human remains would take more than half a year.
The U.S. moves to full alert. Initially unaware of the extent or origin of the attack, following the attack on the Pentagon, the U.S. military was placed on full nuclear alert. In accordance with national security protocols and continuity of government measures, President Bush was taken by Air Force One to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana and then to the headquarters of the U.S. Strategic Air Command at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. The Secret Service did not determine that it was safe for the president to return to Washington for several hours, but President Bush reportedly asked to return to the White House as soon as possible. Arriving at 7:00 P.M., within an hour and a half the president addressed the nation and vowed to find and punish the perpetrators
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