The September 11 attacks, known prominently as the 9/11 attacks, were a series of airline hijackings and suicide attacks committed in 2001 by 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda against the United States.
Planned well in advance, the militants, most of whom were from Saudi Arabia, travelled to the US beforehand and received commercial flight training.
Working in small groups, they managed to board 4 domestic airliners in groups of 5 (with a 20th participant being alleged). Taking control of the planes soon after takeoff, the first plane was piloted into the north tower of the World Trade Centre in New York City.
A second plane crashed into the south tower some 15 minutes later, with both structures erupting in flames and collapsing. Meanwhile, a third plane crashed into the southwest side of the Pentagon near Washington DC at around 9:40.
The fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania after its passengers, becoming aware of the attacks via cellular telephone, attempted to overpower the militants. Around 2,750 people were killed in New York, 184 at the Pentagon and 40 in Pennsylvania. All 19 terrorists died.
Police and fire departments in New York were especially hard-hit as hundreds of them rushed to the scene of the attacks, leading to the deaths of 400 police officers and fire fighters.
The key operational planner of the attacks was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (often referred to simply as KSM), who had spent his youth in Kuwait. He had become an active member of the Muslim Brotherhood, attending college in the US and receiving a degree from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in 1986.
He spent some years in Pakistan and Afghanistan, waging jihad against the Soviet Union after its invasion of the latter country in 1979. In 1996, KSM met Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora and presented a proposal for an operation that would involve training pilots who would crash planes into buildings in the US.
On the morning of September 11, President Bush had been visiting a second grade classroom in Sarasota, Florida when he was informed that a plane had flown into the World Trade Centre. At 8:30pm, Bush addressed the nation from the Oval Office in a speech that laid out a key doctrine of his administration’s future foreign policy: “We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbour them.”
Bush’s response to the attacks drove his poll ratings from 55% favourable before September 11 to 90% in the days after, the highest ever recorded for a president.
The attacks were an enormous success for al-Qaeda, being broadcast globally for years to come. For the first time in history, NATO invoked Article 5, allowing its members to respond collectively in self-defence. On October 7th, the US and allied military forces launched an attack against Afghanistan. Within months, thousands of militants were killed or captured, with the Taliban and al-Qaeda driven into hiding.
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