Attacks of September 11, 2001

The attacks of September 11, 2001, also commonly known by the numeronyms 11S in Spanish and 9/11 in English, were a series of four suicide terrorist attacks committed in the United States on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, allegedly by the terrorist group Al Qaeda.

That morning, four commercial airliners traveling from the northeastern United States to Los Angeles and San Francisco were hijacked mid-flight by 19 al Qaeda terrorists. The kidnappers were organized into three groups of five kidnappers and one group of four. Each group had a hijacker who had received flight training and took over control of the aircraft. Their explicit objective was to crash each plane into a prominent building, causing massive casualties and partial or complete destruction of the buildings attacked.

The first plane to reach its target was American Airlines Flight 11. It was crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center complex in New York City's Lower Manhattan at 8:46 a.m. m. Seventeen minutes later, at 9:03 a.m. m., the South Tower of the World Trade Center was hit by United Airlines Flight 175. Both 110-story towers collapsed in one hour and forty-two minutes, leading to the collapse of the other World Trade Center structures, including 7 World Trade Center, and significantly damaging surrounding buildings.

A third flight, American Airlines Flight 77, which had taken off from hijacked Dulles International Airport over Ohio, crashed at 9:37 a.m. m. against the west side of the Pentagon (the headquarters of the US military) in Arlington County, Virginia, causing a partial collapse of that side of the building. The fourth and final hijacked plane was United Airlines Flight 93, bound for Washington, D.C. The plane's passengers attempted to regain control of the aircraft away from the hijackers, eventually diverting the flight from its intended target; crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at 10:03 a.m. m. Investigators determined that Flight 93's target was either the White House or the United States Capitol.

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, suspicion quickly fell on al Qaeda. The United States under the George W. Bush administration responded by formally launching the War on Terror and invading Afghanistan to depose the Taliban, which had failed to comply with US demands to expel al Qaeda from Afghanistan and extradite the leader. of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden escaped to the White Mountains, where he was attacked by US-led forces, but managed to escape. Although bin Laden initially denied any involvement, in 2004 he formally claimed responsibility for the attacks. Al Qaeda and bin Laden cited US support for Israel, US troop presence in Saudi Arabia, and sanctions against Iraq as reasons. After evading capture for nearly a decade, bin Laden was tracked down in a hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and later killed during Operation Neptune's Spear on May 2, 2011.

The destruction of the World Trade Center and nearby infrastructure seriously damaged New York City's economy and created a global economic recession. Many countries have strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation and expanded the powers of law enforcement and intelligence agencies to prevent terrorist attacks. Civilian airspace in the United States and Canada was closed until September 13, while Wall Street trading was closed until September 17. Many closures, evacuations and cancellations followed, out of respect or fear of further attacks. The cleanup of the World Trade Center site was completed in May 2002, and the Pentagon was repaired within a year. Construction on the replacement World Trade Center complex began in November 2006, and the building opened in November 2014.

The attacks resulted in 2,996 deaths, more than 25,000 injuries, and substantial long-term health consequences, in addition to at least $10 billion in damage to infrastructure and property. It remains the deadliest terrorist attack in human history and the deadliest incident for firefighters and law enforcement officers in the history of the United States, with 340 victims, and 72 deaths, and the largest air disasters involving any aircraft in the history of the aviation. Although being intentionally provoked events, they are not considered accidents.

Numerous monuments have been built, including the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City, the Pentagon Memorial in Arlington County, Virginia, and the Flight 93 National Memorial at the Pennsylvania crash site.

Background

Al Qaeda

Al-Qaeda's origins date back to 1979 when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden traveled to the Central Asian country as a volunteer, viewing the war as a holy cause to help his fellow Muslims (in Afghanistan) defeat the communist invaders (the Soviets). He organized his fellow Arab mujahideen (the "Afghan Arabs") to resist the Soviets until that country left Afghanistan in 1988. Under the leadership of Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden became more radical.

In 1996, bin Laden issued his first fatwa, calling on US soldiers to leave Saudi Arabia. In a second fatwa in 1998, bin Laden outlined his objections to US foreign policy regarding Israel, as well as the presence continued US troops in Saudi Arabia after the Gulf War. Bin Laden used Islamic texts to exhort Muslims to attack the Americans until stated grievances were reversed. Muslim jurists commented "throughout Islamic history they have unanimously agreed that jihad is an individual duty if the enemy destroys Muslim countries", according to bin Laden.

Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Laden

Bin Laden orchestrated the attacks. He initially denied involvement, but later retracted his false statements. Al Jazeera broadcast a statement from 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 his own motivation." In November 2001, US forces recovered a videotape of a destroyed house in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. In the video, bin Laden is seen speaking with Al-Qaeda member Khaled al-Harbi and admits to prior knowledge of the attacks. On December 27, 2001, a second bin Laden video was released. In the video, he said:

It is clear that the West in general and the United States in particular have an indescribable hatred of Islam. [...] It's hate for the crusaders. Terrorism against the United States deserves to be commended because it was a response to injustice, aimed at compelling the United States to stop its support for Israel, which kills our people. [...] We say that the end of the United States is imminent, whether Bin Laden or his followers are alive or dead, because the awakening of the Muslim ummah (nation) has occurred. [...] It is important to hit the economy (of the United States), which is the basis of its military power [...] If the economy is affected, they will revert.

Osama bin Laden

but stopped short of admitting responsibility for the attacks.

Shortly before the 2004 US presidential election, bin Laden used a recorded statement to publicly acknowledge al-Qaeda's involvement in attacks on the United States. He admitted the direct link between him and the attacks and said that they were carried out because:

We are free... and we want to regain freedom for our nation. As you undermine our security, we undermine yours.

Bin Laden said he had personally ordered 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 main planners of the attacks, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, as well as two hijackers, Hamza al-Ghamdi and Wail al-Shehri, as they prepared for the attacks. The United States never formally charged bin Laden for the 9/11 attacks, but he was on the list of the FBI Most Wanted for the bombings of the US embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. After a 10-year manhunt, US President Barack Obama announced that bin Laden had been assassinated by US special forces at their compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 1, 2011.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed after his capture in 2003,

Journalist Yosri Fouda of the Arabic television channel Al Jazeera reported that in April 2002 al-Qaeda member Khalid Sheikh Mohammed admitted to involvement in the attacks, along with Ramzi bin al-Shibh. the 2004 9/11 Commission determined that the animosity toward the United States felt by Mohammed, the main architect of the 9/11 attacks, stemmed from his "violent disagreement with US foreign policy that favors Israel." Mohammed was also an adviser to and financier of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and uncle of Ramzi Yousef, the main attacker of that attack.

Mohammed was arrested on March 1, 2003 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, by Pakistani security officials working with the CIA. He was then held in multiple secret CIA prisons and at Guantanamo Bay, where he was interrogated and tortured using methods including waterboarding. During the US hearings at Guantanamo Bay in March 2007, Mohammed again confessed to his responsibility. in the attacks, stating that he "was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z" and that his statement was not made under duress.

A letter filed by Mohammed's attorneys in the United States 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 help the victims and families of the victims of 9/11 in exchange for the United States not seeking the death penalty against them. James Kreindler, one of the victims' attorneys, questioned the usefulness of his testimony.

Other members of Al-Qaeda

In lieu of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's testimony from the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, five individuals are identified who were fully aware of the details of the operation. They are bin Ladens; 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 sentenced Abu Dahdah to 27 years in prison for conspiring in the 9/11 attacks and being a member of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda. At the same time, 17 other al-Qaeda members were sentenced to between 6 and 11 years.On February 16, 2006, the Spanish Supreme Court reduced Abu Dahdah's sentence to 12 years because it considered that his participation in the conspiracy was not proven.

Also in 2006, Moussaoui, who some originally suspected may have been the 20th assigned hijacker, was convicted on the lesser role of conspiring to commit acts of terrorism and air piracy. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole in the US Mounir el-Motassadeq, a Hamburg-based associate of the hijackers, served 15 years in Germany for his role in helping the hijackers prepare for attacks. He was released in October 2018 and deported to Morocco.

The Hamburg cell in Germany included radical Islamists who eventually became key operatives in the 9/11 attacks. Mohamed Atta; Marwan al-Shehhi; Ziad Jarrah; Ramzi bin al-Shibh; and Said Bahaji were all members of al-Qaeda's Hamburg cell.

Reasons

Osama bin Laden's declaration of a holy war against the United States, and a 1998 fatwah 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 the United States, he explicitly stated that al-Qaeda's motives for its attacks include:

• United States support to Israel
• Support for “attacks against Muslims” in Somalia
• Support for the Philippines against Muslims in the Moro conflict
• Support for Israeli “aggression” against Muslims in Lebanon
• Support for Russian «atrocities against Muslims» in Chechnya
• Pro-American governments in the Middle East (which "act as their agents") are against Muslim interests
• Support for the "oppression against Muslims" of India in Kashmir
• The presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia
• Sanctions against Iraq

After the attacks, bin Laden and al-Zawahiri released additional videotapes 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 of bin Laden.

Bin Laden interpreted Muhammad to have prohibited the "permanent presence of infidels in Saudi". In 1996, bin Laden issued a fatwā calling on US troops to leave Saudi Arabia. In 1998, al-Qaeda wrote, "For more than seven years, the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, looting its wealth, dictating its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing to their neighbors and turning their bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight against the neighboring Muslim towns".

In a December 1999 interview, bin Laden said he felt the Americans were "too close to Mecca", and considered this a provocation to the entire Muslim world. An analysis of suicide bombing suggested that without the troops Americans in Saudi Arabia, al-Qaeda probably would not have been able to get people to commit suicide missions.

In the 1998 fatwā, al-Qaeda identified sanctions on Iraq as a reason to kill Americans, condemning the "prolonged blockade, among other actions, which constitute a declaration of war against Allah, his messenger and the Muslims." The fatwā stated that "the decision to kill the Americans and their allies, civilian and military, is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do so in any country in the world." that it is possible to do so, to free the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque of Mecca from their clutches, and for their [American] armies to leave all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim.".

In 2004, bin Laden claimed that the idea to destroy the towers had first occurred to him in 1982, when he witnessed the Israeli bombing of high-rise apartment buildings during the 1982 Lebanon War. Some analysts, including Mearsheimer and Walt, also claimed that US support for Israel was one of the reasons for the attacks. In 2004 and 2010, bin Laden reconnected the 9/11 attacks with US support for Israel. although most of the letter expressed bin Laden's disdain for President Bush and bin Laden's hope to "destroy and break" the United States.

Motives other than those stated by bin Laden and al-Qaeda have been suggested. Some authors proposed the "humiliation" that resulted in the Islamic world falling behind the Western world: this discrepancy was made especially visible by globalization and the desire to provoke the United States into a broader war against the Islamic world with the hope of motivating more allies to support al-Qaeda. Similarly, others have argued that 9/11 was a strategic move aimed at provoking the United States into a war that would incite a pan-Islamic revolution.

Planning

Map showing attacks on the World Trade Center (planes are not drawn on a scale)

The idea for suicide attacks using hijacked airliners came from Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, who first presented it to Osama bin Laden in 1996, after a similar large project aborted by the Philippine police in 1995 called Operation Bojinka failed.. In 1999 a group of radicalized Muslim youth living in Hamburg, Germany, later dubbed the Hamburg cell, traveled to Afghanistan to receive training to fight the Russians in the Second Chechen War. At that point, Osama bin Laden recruited them and in the months that followed funded their training in order to convince them to carry out suicide attacks by flying planes into iconic US buildings. Bin Laden was inspired in part by Egyptair Flight 990 in 1999., in which it is theorized that the pilot may have crashed the plane into the Atlantic Ocean.

The original plan for the attacks of September 11, 2001 was to hijack twelve planes, eleven of which would be crashed into the following buildings:

Figure of the FEMA that shows the impacts on the Twin Towers of both planes, and the trajectory (and point of impact on the street) that followed the landing trains, and one of the engines.

• 2 against the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center (New York)
• The Empire State Building (New York)
• The Pentagon (Arlington)
• The Prudential Tower (Boston)
• The White House (Washington, D.C.)
• The United States Capitol (Washington, D.C.)
• La Torre Sears (Chicago)
• U.S. Bank Tower (Los Angeles)
• La Pirámide Transamerica (San Francisco)
• The Columbia Center (Seattle)

Later, due to the number of targets identified, it was considered an unattainable operation and the targets were reduced from eleven buildings to five: the two Twin Towers (which represented the US capitalist economy and had already suffered an attack in 1993); the Pentagon (representing military power); the Capitol (representing the legislative branch) and the White House (representing the executive branch). However, the fifth plane was never hijacked because the suicide pilot who was to fly it (Zacarias Moussaoui) was fortuitously detained by the FBI on August 16, 2001 on irregular immigration charges.

About three weeks before the attacks, the targets were assigned to four teams. The Capitol had the code name "The Faculty of Law." The Pentagon was called "The Faculty of Fine Arts." The code for the World Trade Center was "The Faculty of Urbanism".

The idea of simultaneously hijacking multiple planes was not new. In September 1970 the Dawson's Field hijackings occurred when members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked, in a few days, four commercial planes (plus a 5th failed hijacking attempt) and diverted them to Jordan and Egypt. The hostages were released days later and the planes were intentionally blown up. of the episodes of the series The Lone Gunmen (broadcast on March 4, 2001) a Boeing 727 was hijacked to crash it into one of the Twin Towers. The authors of the Columbine High School massacre (1999) also planned to hijack a plane and crash it in New York. B-25 against the Empire State Building in 1945, with fourteen fatalities.

Intelligence services

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 present. The NSA intercepted a phone call mentioning the meeting, Mihdhar, and the name "Nawaf" (Hazmi). While the agency feared that "something nefarious may be afoot," it took no further action.

The CIA had already been alerted by Saudi intelligence to the status of Mihdhar and Hazmi as members of al-Qaeda, and a CIA team broke into Mihdhar's Dubai hotel room and discovered that Mihdhar had a visa US. Although Alec Station alerted intelligence agencies around the world to this fact, he did not share this information with the FBI. The Malaysian Special Branch 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 they asked the State Department to put Mihdhar on its watch list. An FBI liaison to Alec Station asked permission to inform the FBI of the meeting, but was told, "This is not FBI business."

At the end of June, senior counterterrorism official Richard Clarke and CIA Director George Tenet were "convinced that a major series of attacks was about to come," even though the CIA believed the attacks would likely occur in Saudi Arabia or Israel. In early July, Clarke put national 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 the CIA there was information that two known al Qaeda terrorists had entered the United States. Somewhere in the FBI, there was information that strange things had been happening at flight schools in the United States... They had specific information on individual terrorists from which they could have deduced what was about to happen. None of that information reached me or the White House."

On July 13, Tom Wilshire, a CIA agent assigned to the FBI's international terrorism division, sent an email to his superiors at the CIA's Counterterrorism Center (CTC) requesting permission to inform the FBI that Hazmi was in the country and that Mihdhar had a US visa. The CIA never responded.

Bin Ladin is determined to attack in the United States

On the same day in July, Margarette Gillespie, an FBI analyst working at the CTC, was ordered to review material on the Malaysian meeting. She was not informed of the participant's presence in the United States. The CIA gave Gillespie surveillance photos of Mihdhar and Hazmi from the meeting to show to the FBI counterterrorism, but she didn't tell him its significance. The Intelink database informed her not to share intelligence material about the meeting with criminal investigators. When shown the photos, the FBI was denied further details about their significance, and was not given Mihdhar's date of birth or passport number. In late August 2001, Gillespie told the INS, the The State Department, the Customs Service, and the FBI to put Hazmi and Mihdhar on their watch lists, but the FBI was barred from using criminal agents in the search for the duo, hampering their efforts.

Also in July, a Phoenix-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 universities and civil aviation colleges." The agent, Kenneth Williams, suggested the need to interview all flight school managers and identify all Arab students seeking flight training. flight. In July, Jordan alerted the United States that al-Qaeda was planning an attack on the United States; "months later,"Jordan notified the United States that the code name for the attack was "The Big Wedding" and that it involved planes.

On August 6, 2001, the CIA's Presidential Daily Brief ("PDB"), designated "For the President Only", was headlined "Bin Ladin is Determined to Strike in the United States". The memo noted that the FBI information "indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for kidnapping or other types of attacks."

In mid-August, a Minnesota flight school alerted the FBI to Zacarias Moussaoui, who had asked "suspicious questions." The FBI discovered that Moussaoui was a radical who had traveled to Pakistan, and the INS arrested him for overstaying his French visa. His request to search his laptop was denied by FBI headquarters due to a lack of probable cause.

Failures in intelligence sharing were blamed on 1995 Justice Department policies limiting intelligence sharing, combined with CIA and NSA reluctance to reveal "sensitive sources and methods," such as cell phones. intervened. Testifying before the 9/11 Commission in April 2004, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft recalled that the "biggest structural cause for the 9/11 problem was the wall that segregated or separated criminal investigators and law enforcement officers." intelligence". Clarke also wrote: "These were... failures to get information to the right place at the right time."

The attacks

Four planes (2 American Airlines and 2 United Airlines) carrying 265 passengers were hijacked while flying to California from Boston Logan International Airport, Washington-Dulles International Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport. The four planes were destined for the state of California, the first three to Los Angeles and the last to San Francisco, so their fuel tanks were full with about 91,000 liters (about 65,455 kg). The first two planes hit against the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City in Manhattan, the third against the Pentagon, in Arlington County, near Washington D.C., and the fourth in an open field in Shanksville (Pennsylvania).

Testimonies were revealed from the planes themselves, in which the hijackers had taken control of them using simple knives with which they killed flight attendants and at least one pilot or passenger. According to the investigations of the 9/11 Commission, there is also evidence that they used some type of aerosol to retain the passengers in the First Class cabin. Likewise, the presence of a bomb in three of the planes was threatened, but not in the flight that hit the Pentagon. According to the conclusions of this commission, the bomb warnings were probably false.

On the fourth plane, United Airlines Flight 93, the black box revealed that the passengers, after learning that the other planes had been deliberately crashed, tried to regain control of the plane. The hijackers reacted by moving the plane in a failed attempt to subdue the passengers. According to the 9-1-1 recording, one of the passengers, Todd Beamer, asked the person he was speaking to on the phone to pray with him and when he finished he simply said "Let's roll". Shortly thereafter, the plane crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at 10:03 a.m. m. local time. There is debate about the exact moment the plane hit the ground, as seismic records put the impact at 10:06 AM. m. Subsequently, captured al Qaeda terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohamed said that Flight 93 was targeting the United States Capitol.

Beamer's posthumous exclamation became widely used in the United States after the attacks. Neil Young composed a song with that title as a tribute to the victims, and for his part, Beamer's widow patented the phrase as a trademark.

The attacks spread confusion throughout the country. All sorts of conflicting reports and unconfirmed news were published throughout the day. One of the most recurrent was that a car bomb had exploded at the headquarters of the United States Department of State in Washington D.C. This false news went through the news agencies and was published by several newspapers that same day. Another report, released by the Associated Press, claimed that Delta Air Lines Flight 1989, a Boeing 757, had also been hijacked. The news also turned out to be a mistake: the plane had been briefly considered at risk of hijacking, but it finally responded to air traffic controllers and landed normally at the Cleveland, Ohio airport.

9/11 Timeline

09:02. Seconds after the second impact against the South Tower. This attack was observed live by millions of people around the world through television.

09:39. Video broadcast by the U.S. government of the moment of the impact on the Pentagon of American Airlines flight 77.

9:59. Moment when the south tower collapses.

10:28. The North Tower collapses. The Twin Towers disappear from the New York skyline and become the Zero Zone.

Remains of the collapsed buildings.

Awesome after the attack.

Times are based on local Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). To establish universal time (UTC), four hours must be added to local time.

• 08.00: American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767 with 92 people on board, takes off from Boston Logan International Airport to Los Angeles.
• 08.14: United Airlines flight 175, a Boeing 767 with 65 people on board, takes off from Boston Logan International Airport to Los Angeles.
• 08.19: The overcharge Betty Ong of American Airlines flight 11 communicates with the company's booking office to report that the plane appears to be being hijacked.
• 08.21: American Airlines flight 77, a Boeing 757 with 64 people on board, takes off from Washington D.C. International Airport to Los Angeles.
• 08.37: FAA (The Federal Aviation Administration) notifies NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense CommandNorth American Air Defense Command) that there is a suspicion of hijacking American flight 11.
• 08.41: United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757 with 44 people on board, takes off Newark International Airport from New Jersey to San Francisco.
• 08.46.30: American Flight 11 hits the North Tower of the World Trade Center (WTC).
• 09.02.59: United's flight 175 packed the World Trade Center's South Tower. The event is covered live by various television cameras that focused on the Twin Towers because of the dense humareda that emerged from the North Tower.
• 09.03: FAA notifies NORAD that there is a suspicion of hijacking United Flight 175.
• 09.07: The White House Chief of Employees warns President George W. Bush who packed the second tower and the United States is under attack. The president was meeting with children from a primary school in Sarasota (Florida).
• 09.08: FAA prohibits all take-offs that are directed towards or passing over New York's space.
• 09.10-09.25: Richard Clarke, in charge of the anti-terrorist office, organizes a video conference from the White House among the highest military chiefs to organize an answer.
• 09.21: All the tunnels and bridges on Manhattan Island are closed.
• 09.26: FAA prohibits the taking off of all civilian planes.
• 09.31: President George W. Bush gave a speech from the primary school he was in, reporting that it was apparently a terrorist act.
• 09.34: FAA notifies NORAD that there is a suspicion of hijacking American flight 77.
• 09.34: President George W. Bush departs from Sarasota's primary school to the airport.
• 09.37.46: American Flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon.
• 09.45: The FAA (with orders from the President) orders all aircraft flying to land immediately at the nearest airport.
• 09.48: Congress and the White House are evacuated.
• 09.57: President Bush leaves Florida.
• 09.59.00: The South Tower collapses.
• 10.03.11: United Flight 93 falls in open field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. It appears that there would have been a fight between the crew and the passengers with the hijackers to regain control of the apparatus.
• 10.06: FAA notifies NORAD that there is a suspicion of hijacking United Flight 93.
• 10.28.23: Fall the North Tower.
• 11.04: The United Nations building in New York is evacuated.
• 11.45: President Bush lands at the base of the Barksdale Air Force in Louisiana.
• 13.04: President Bush declares "maximum alert" at all U.S. facilities around the world and addresses the nation through the media from the Barksdale Air Base.
• 13.37: President Bush leaves Air Force One at the Barksdale base.
• 14.51: The Navy sends missile-armed destroyers to New York.
• 15.07: President Bush lands at Offutt Air Base in Nebraska.
• 16.36: President Bush leaves Air Force One at the Offutt base and orders to be taken to the White House.
• 17.25: The 47-story building of the World Trade Center collapses.
• 19: President Bush arrives at the White House.
• 20.30: President Bush speaks to the nation from the Oval Office in the White House.

Victims

Deaths numbered in the thousands, with exactly 2,996 deaths, including 265 killed in the four crashed planes (none of the occupants survived); 2,606 in New York, both inside the Twin Towers and at their base, and 125 dead inside the Pentagon building. The victims included 343 firefighters from the New York City Fire Department, 23 police officers from the New York Police Department, and 37 police officers from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. As of 2013, 24 more people remained. among the list of disappeared.

The Cantor Fitzgerald investment bank, which was located on floors 101 to 105 of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, lost 658 employees, significantly more than other employers. Howard Lutnick, president of Cantor Fitzgerald, escaped death in the attacks because he took his son to his first day of school that morning, but lost his 36-year-old younger brother Gary, who worked for Cantor at the plant, in the attacks. 104.

Marsh & McLennan, an insurance company that was located immediately below Cantor Fitzgerald, on floors 93-100 in the North Tower, lost 358 employees and Aon Corporation in the South Tower lost 175 employees who were also killed. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) estimated that some 17,400 civilians were in the World Trade Center complex at the time of the attacks. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey suggests that 14,154 people were at the Twin Towers at 8:46 a.m. m., when the first plane, American Airlines Flight 11 hit the North Tower. Most of the people below the impact zones evacuated the buildings safely.

Weeks after the attacks, the death toll was estimated to be more than 6,000, more than double the number of deaths finally confirmed. New York City was only able to identify the remains of around 1,600 World Trade Center victims. The coroner's office collected "about 10,000 unidentified bone fragments and tissues that cannot be compared with the list of dead." In 2006, workers preparing to demolish the damaged Deutsche Bank building found bone fragments on the roof of the building. In 2010, a team of anthropologists and archaeologists searched the Fresh Kills landfill for human remains and personal items, where they recovered 72 more human remains, bringing the total to 1,845. DNA analysis continues in an attempt to identify additional victims. The remains are being stored at the New York City Medical Examiner's Facility. The remains of the victims were expected to be moved in 2013 to a repository behind a wall at the 9/11 museum. As of July 2011, a team of scientists from the Office of the Medical Examiner were still trying to identify human remains, hoping that improved technology would allow them to identify other victims. On August 7, 2017, the 1,641 victim was identified as a result of newly available DNA technology, and the 1,642 victim was identified on July 26, 2018. In 2021, 20 years after the attacks, two more victims were identified. A woman, number 1,646, and a man, number 1,647. The remains of 1,100 people remain to be identified.

According to the figures presented by the Department of Health in January 2002, 139 Latin Americans were among the dead in the terrorist attack by Al Qaeda against the Twin Towers, representing 16% of the total. Of these, 25 were nationals of the Dominican Republic, 21 of Argentina, 18 of Colombia, 13 of Venezuela, 11 of Ecuador, 7 of El Salvador, 6 of Cuba, 3 of Bolivia, 3 of Brazil and 2 of Chile. Elsewhere, there is talk of 15 deaths from Mexico, as well as others from Honduras, Jamaica, Peru, Paraguay, Uruguay and Guyana.

Foreigners killed in the attacks (They are placed in the order of the number of deaths in each country)

Country	Dead
United Kingdom	69
India	41
South Africa	32
South Korea	28
Dominican Republic	25
Canada	24
Japan	24
Argentina	21
Colombia	18
Indonesia	17
Philippines	16
Jamaica	16
Mexico	15
Trinidad and Tobago	14
Venezuela	13
Germany	11
Ecuador	11
Australia	10
Italy	10
Russia	9
El Salvador	7
Bangladés	6
Cuba	6
Ireland	6
Pakistan	6
Peru	6
Poland	6
Israel	5
China	4
France	4
Honduras	4
Lebanon	4
Netherlands	4
Portugal	4
Romania	4
Bolivia	3
Brazil	3
Malaysia	3
Bermuda	2
Chile	2
Ethiopia	2
Ghana	2
Guyana	2
Haiti	2
Hong Kong	2
Jordan	2
New Zealand	2
Paraguay	2
Democratic Republic of the Congo	2
R. F. of Yugoslavia	2
Switzerland	2
Spain	1
Belgium	1
Belarus	1
Ivory Coast	1
Kenya	1
Lithuania	1
Moldova	1
Nigeria	1
Sri Lanka	1
Sweden	1
Taiwan	1
Ukraine	1
Uruguay	1
Uzbekistan	1

The attacks were the largest terrorist attack against the United States, surpassing the Oklahoma City bombing by far-right terrorists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, which killed 168, and attacks carried out by cells of Al Qaeda in 1998 against the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Survivors

According to the 9/11 Commission, approximately 16,000 people were in the impact zones of the World Trade Center complex at the time of the attacks. The vast majority of them survived thanks to the evacuation efforts before the collapse of the towers.

The Spanish Alicia Esteve posed as a survivor of the attack. She adopted a false identity (Tania Head) and even became president of the Survivors' Network of the World Trade Center disaster. Thanks to The New York Times, her fraud was discovered, and thanks to the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia, her true identity was revealed.

The World Trade Center Collapse

Buildings around the World Trade Center seriously damaged by the fall of the Twin Towers. 17 September 2001.

Air photo of the Zero Zone with the original location of the buildings.

Three buildings in the World Trade Center complex collapsed due to structural failure on the day of the attacks. The South Tower fell at 9:59 a.m. (GMT-4 New York local time), after burning for 56 minutes in a fire caused by the impact of United Airlines Flight 175 at 9:03 a.m. The North Tower fell at 10:28 a.m., after burning for approximately 102 minutes in a fire caused by the impact of American Airlines Flight 11 at 8:46 a.m. A third building, the 7 World Trade Center (7 WTC), collapsed at 5:20 p.m., apparently having been heavily damaged by debris from the falling Twin Towers, along with a series of fires. Numerous buildings adjacent to the complex also suffered substantial damage, caught fire and had to be demolished. The Deutsche Bank building was the only large structure to suffer damage and fire at ground zero that as of 2006 had not yet been completely demolished. The demolition took place in February 2011.^[update]

A federal technical investigation of the building and safety of the collapses of the Twin Towers and WTC 7 was conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) of the United States Department of Commerce Joined. The objectives of this investigation, which took into account the construction of the building, the materials used, and the technical conditions that contributed to the collapse, were fulfilled on April 6, 2005. The investigation established a series of bases for:

• Improve the criteria with which buildings are designed, built, maintained and used.
• Improvements in tools and indications for the construction industry and for security managers.
• Revisions of building fire regulations, standards and practices.
• Improvements in public security.

The report concludes that the fire protection of the Twin Towers' steel infrastructure was dislodged by the initial impact of the aircraft and that had this not occurred, the towers would likely have remained upright. The fires weakened the trusses that supported the floors, causing the floors to sag. In turn, the sagging floors pulled on the exterior steel columns to the point that the exterior columns leaned inward. With the damage to the main columns, the crooked outer columns could not support the weight of the buildings, causing the collapse. In addition, the report states that the stairwells of the towers were not adequately reinforced to provide an emergency exit for people above the impact zones. NIST stated that the final report on the WTC 7 collapse would appear in a separate report.

Apart from the collapse of the Twin Towers and WTC 7, 23 other buildings were damaged. Currently, the area occupied by the material remains of the Twin Towers is known as Ground Zero and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum a memorial and museum that contains two pools of water, in the foundations that were formerly occupied by the Twin Towers, which has around it bronze panels with the names of the victims who died in the attacks of February 26, 1993 and 11 September 2001 and The new building that replaces the missing Twin Towers called One World Trade Center was officially inaugurated on November 3, 2014.

Damage

September 13, 2001: A New York firefighter observes what remains of the South Tower.

Aside from the two 110-story Twin Towers, five World Trade Center buildings were destroyed or seriously damaged, including WTC 7 and the Marriott Hotel, four New York subway stations, and the Orthodox Christian Church of Saint Nicholas. In all, 32 buildings in Manhattan were damaged. Later, the Deutsche Bank Building located on Liberty Street and Borough of Manhattan Community College's Fiterman Hall at 30 West Broadway had to be demolished due to their condition, which made them uninhabitable. Currently, they are waiting to be rebuilt. Various communications equipment was also damaged. Without going any further, the telecommunications antenna of the North Tower fell with its collapse, while other radio antennas on neighboring towers were also seriously damaged.

In Arlington County, a portion of the Pentagon was badly damaged by fire and the plane's impact. After a while, an entire section of the building collapsed.

The kidnappers

The Statue of Liberty and, in the background, the World Trade Center's "small towers" burning before collapse.

World Trade Center.

Nineteen Arab men boarded the four planes, five each except United Airlines Flight 93, which carried four hijackers. Of the attackers, 15 were from Saudi Arabia, 2 from the United Arab Emirates, 1 from Egypt and 1 from Lebanon. In general, they were educated people from wealthy families. The complete list is:

On American Airlines Flight 11:

• Mohammed Atta (egipcio and supposed pilot)
• Waleed al-Shehri (Saudi)
• Wail al-Shehri (Saudi)
• Abdulaziz al-Omari (Saudi)
• Satam al-Suqami (Saudi)

On United Airlines Flight 175:

• Marwan al-Shehhi (emirati and supposed pilot)
• Fayez Banihammad (emirati)
• Mohand al-Shehri (Saudi)
• Hamza al-Ghamdi (Saudi)
• Ahmed al-Ghamdi (Saudi)

On American Airlines Flight 77:

• Hani Hanjour (Saudi and supposed pilot)
• Khalid al-Mihdhar (Saudi)
• Majed Moqed (Saudi)
• Nawaf al-Hazmi (Saudi)
• Salem al-Hazmi (Saudi)

On United Airlines Flight 93:

• Ziad Jarrah (Lebanese and Suspected Pilot)
• Ahmed al-Haznawi (Saudi)
• Ahmed al-Nami (Saudi)
• Saeed al-Ghamdi (Saudi)

Other potential hijackers

Twenty-seven members of the terrorist organization Al Qaeda tried to enter the United States to take part in the attacks, but many of them were arrested or their visas to enter the country were denied. Ultimately, only 19 al Qaeda members were successful in applying for their visas and were the ones who participated in the attacks. The other eight are often called "the 20th hijacker":

• Ramzi Binalshibh allegedly wanted to be part of the attacks, but he was denied the visa to enter the country.
• Mohamed al-Kahtani, a citizen of Saudi Arabia, may also have planned to join the kidnappers, but United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities at Orlando International Airport denied their entry into the country. He was later captured in Afghanistan and taken prisoner in Guantanamo.
• Zacarias Moussaoui, reportedly, was considered a possible replacement of Ziad Jarrah when he threatened to leave due to tensions among the kidnappers. Al Qaeda's address was not supposed to trust him and the idea was rejected. He was arrested on 16 August 2001, four weeks before immigration attacks, although FBI agents believed he had violent intentions. He'd received flight training that same year. In April 2005, he pleaded guilty to plotting for the hijacking of planes and participation in Al Qaeda, but refused to be aware of the 11-S attacks. Moussaoui stated in March 2006 that under the personal direction of Osama bin Laden, and in collaboration with Richard Reid, he had to hijack a fifth plane and crash it against the White House. His defense lawyers said it was a fantasy of Moussaoui, who was never operative of Al Qaeda. In a May 2006 video, Osama bin Laden stated that Moussaoui had no connection with the events of September 11, and that he knew it because "I was responsible for the confidence of the 19 brothers who carried out the attack."

On May 3, 2006, a federal jury rejected the death penalty for the defendants and sentenced them to six life terms in prison without parole.

At his trial, FBI agent Greg Jones testified that prior to the attacks he had already advised his supervisor, Michael Maltbie, to "stop Zacarias Moussaoui from crashing a plane into the World Trade Center." Maltbie had refused to act on 70 requests from another agent, Harry Samit, to be able to search Moussaoui's computer.

Other al Qaeda members who tried but failed to participate included Saeed al-Ghamdi (not to be confused with the hijacker of the same name who did intervene), Mushabib al-Hamlan, Zakariyah Essabar, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, and Tawfiq bin Attash. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind the attack, wanted to kick out at least one member of the team (Khalid al-Mihdhar) but Osama bin Laden was against it.

Anthrax attacks

Card sent to Senator Daschle. The message said: "11-09-01. You can't stop us. We have anthrax. You die now. Are you afraid? Death to the United States. Death to Israel. Allah is great." The letter was processed by the Brentwood postal centre (Washington D.C.) where two postal workers died due to anthrax inhalation, Joseph Curseen Jr. and Thomas Morris Jr.

A week after 9/11, on September 18, a series of terrorist attacks began using anthrax, or anthrax, a deadly bacterium. Over the course of several weeks, up to October 9, terrorists used the mail to expose the anthrax to journalists, politicians, and civilian employees in New York, New Jersey, Washington D.C. and Florida. A total of 22 people were contaminated with anthrax, of which five died.

These attacks accentuated citizen insecurity and the climate of terror produced by the attacks of September 11.

The perpetrators of the attacks could never be identified. US Vice President Dick Cheney stated that he would not be surprised to find Osama bin Laden behind these attacks and maintained that:

The only way to show responsibility is to act considering there might be a link. We know that Bin Laden has tried over the years to obtain weapons of mass destruction, both biological and chemical.

While US law enforcement was unable to identify the terrorists, Attorney General John Ashcroft named Steven Hatfill, a physician and biological weapons expert, as a "person of interest" potentially associated with them, though no charges were filed. Years later, Hatfill won a lawsuit against the State for $5.6 million for non-pecuniary damage caused by the accusations.

It was later shown that the spores came from a United States Army laboratory. The FBI accused investigator Bruce Edwards Ivins of having been the terrorist who carried out the attack, but he could not be tried because he died in a apparent suicide.

Long-term effects

Economic effects

The attacks had a significant impact on US and global markets. The Federal Reserve temporarily reduced its contacts with banks due to the lack of the lost equipment in the financial district of New York. Within hours, control over the money supply was regained, with consequent liquidity for the banks. The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), American Stock Exchange, and NASDAQ stock indices did not open on September 11 and remained closed until 3:37 p.m. on September 17. The NYSE's systems were not damaged by the attack, but damage to the World Trade Center financial system's telephone networks prevented it from working.

When markets reopened on September 17, 2001, after the biggest standstill since the Great Depression, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 684 points (7.1%), to 8,920, its biggest drop in a single day. At the end of the week, the Dow had lost 1,369.7 points (14.3%), its biggest drop in a week. Since then Wall Street has remained protected against a terrorist attack.

Manhattan under the smoke after the attack, seen from space.

The economy of Lower Manhattan, the third economic district of the United States, was devastated. 35% of the office land (2.7 million m³), much of it class A, was destroyed or damaged. The Deutsche Bank building, a neighbor of the Twin Towers, had to be closed due to damage and demolished. Electricity, telephone and gas were cut off. The entry of people in Soho and Lower Manhattan was restricted. The relocation of many of the jobs previously located here to Midtown and New Jersey has accelerated. Various opinions claimed that the area's tax revenue would not be recovered.

Reconstruction has faced a lack of agreement on priorities. For example, Mayor Bloomberg made New York's bid for the 2012 Olympics the lynchpin of his 2002-2005 development plan, while Governor Pataki delegated the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, heavily criticized by few achievements obtained with the extensive funds received. On the lots of the adjoining buildings (WTC 7) construction began on a new office complex in 2006. One World Trade Center was completed in 2014 and reaches 541 m of height, making it the tallest building in New York City. Three more towers were built on the east side of the World Trade Center, which were completed between 2007 and 2012.

Losses in the aviation sector were significant: US airspace was closed for several days for the first time in its history, and in several countries such as Canada. After its reopening, airlines suffered a decrease in traffic. It is estimated that the business lost 20% of its size, and the financial problems of the American airlines worsened, giving rise to an economic crisis.

2008 economic crisis

After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States opted for the deregulation of the markets, the lowering of taxes and interest rates, and the expansion of credit, which caused a housing bubble in the so-called subprime mortgages. To this must be added the multimillion-dollar expenses in the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq, which could have cost from 2 billion dollars to 6 billion in total. The bubble finally began to unravel in August 2007 and collapsed brutally in September 2008 when Lehman Brothers bank failed.

Impact of 9/11 on the economy

The US economy has entered a recessionary phase since 2001 as a result of insecurity and growing distrust of security in the Western world after a decade of virtually uninterrupted growth, despite the fact that economic activity had already shown signs of slowing down. depletion since 1998, effect of the Asian crisis, with the loss of more than a million jobs in the industrial sector between 1999 and 2000.

The terrorist attacks aggravated the situation by sharply reducing consumption as a result of the state of psychosis of the population, which avoided visiting crowded places or traveling. The aviation sector was one of the most affected, as the demand for commercial flights fell drastically, mainly due to the fear of a repeat of terrorist actions, and also to the resistance of the public to submit to the rigorous security measures in the airports. In an attempt to alleviate this situation, Congress approved a financial package of 15 billion dollars for the airline industry, while the Bush government advanced an additional tax cut to revitalize consumption; this measure had negative effects on the budget, already depleted by war expenses.

Smoke around the World Trade Center, seen by a weather radar.

Potential Health Effect

The thousands of tons of toxic debris resulting from the fall of the Twin Towers are made up of: 50% non-fibrous material and construction debris; 41% glass and fiber; 9.2% cellulose and 0.8% asbestos, lead and mercury. In addition, unprecedented levels of dioxins and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons were released in the fires that burned for the next three months. This caused several illnesses among rescue and reconstruction teams working at ground zero, including the death of Agent James Zadroga. The effects have also extended to the health of the inhabitants of Lower Manhattan and nearby Chinatown. According to scientific speculation, exposure to various toxic products and pollutants from the air surrounding the Towers after the collapse of the WTC could have effects negative in fetal development.

Because of this potential risk, a notable children's health center is currently testing the children of mothers who were pregnant during the WTC collapse and who lived or worked near the towers. The staff of this study evaluate the children using psychological tests every year and interview the mothers every six months. The purpose of the study is to determine if there are significant differences in the development and health of children of mothers who were exposed to toxic products, compared to children whose mothers were not exposed to contamination.

In May 2007, New York City Chief Medical Examiner Charls F. Hirst admitted that a female lawyer's death was due to exposure to the toxic cloud, marking the first official acknowledgment of a death as a result of the Dust after the fall of the Twin Towers. Stating that: "Almost certainly, beyond a reasonable doubt, exposure to dust from the World Trade Center contributed to the death of Dunn-Jones". A total of 7,300 workers from ground zero filed a complaint and demand compensation from the city for the exposure and handling of toxic substances from the Towers.

Authorship

Responsibilities

The involvement of Al Qaeda

Zone zero, still on fire

The FBI, working with the United States Department of Justice, identified 19 dead hijackers in just 72 hours. Few had tried to hide their names or credit cards, and they were almost the only passengers of Arab origin on the flights. Thus, the FBI was able to determine their names and in many cases details, such as date of birth, known or possible residences, visa status, and the specific identity of the suspected pilots. The FBI released photos of the 19 hijackers, along with information about possible nationalities and their nicknames.

The United States government investigations included the FBI operation PENTTBOM, the largest in history involving more than 7,000 agents. The results of this determined that Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden were responsible for the attacks. Studies commissioned by the British government came to the same conclusion. His declaration of a holy war against the United States, and a fatwa signed by bin Laden and others calling for the killing of American civilians in 1998 from Afghanistan, are considered by many to be evidence. of their motivation to commit these acts.

On September 16, 2001, Bin Laden denied any involvement in the attacks, reading a statement that was broadcast by the Qatari satellite channel Al Jazeera and later broadcast on numerous American networks:

"I insist that I did not carry out this act, which seems to have been executed by individuals with their own motives."

Osama bin Laden

However, in November 2001, United States forces found a home videotape of a destroyed house in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, of Osama bin Laden speaking with Khaled al-Harbi. In various sections of the tape, as in the paragraph quoted below, Bin Laden admits to having planned the attacks:

We calculated in advance the amount of casualties of the enemy, which would die because of their location in the tower. We calculate that the floors to be packed were three or four floors. I was the most optimistic of all (inaudible) because of my experience in this field. I thought the gas fire on the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and would only collapse the area where the plane crashes and the floors above. That was all we expected.

On December 27, 2001, another video of bin Laden was released in which he states:

The West in general, and the United States in particular, have an indecent hatred of Islam... Terrorism against the US is beneficial and justified.

Shortly before the 2004 US presidential election, in a video statement, bin Laden publicly acknowledged al Qaeda's responsibility for the US attacks, and admitted direct involvement in the attacks.

In an audiotape broadcast on Al Jazeera on May 21, 2006, bin Laden said he personally led the 19 hijackers. Another video obtained by Al Jazeera in September 2006 shows Osama bin Laden with Ramzi Binalshibh, as well as two hijackers, Hamza al-Ghamdi and Wail al-Shehri, making preparations for the attacks.

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States was formed by the United States government and is commonly known as the 9/11 Commission. He published his report on July 22, 2004, concluding that the attacks were conceived and carried out by members of al-Qaeda. The Commission report states that:

The 11-S conspirators finally spent between $400,000 and $500,000 to plan and drive their attack, but the specific origins of the money used to execute the attacks remain unknown.

Support Groups Within the United States

About 1,200 foreigners have been secretly arrested and imprisoned in connection with the investigation into the 9/11 attacks, though the government has not released the exact number.

The methods used by the state to investigate and detain suspects have been severely criticized by human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and heads of government such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

So far, the United States government has not found any of the participants in the conspiracy that carried out the operations on the ground.

A support cell in Spain

On September 26, 2005, the Spanish National Court led by Judge Baltasar Garzón sentenced Abu Dahdah to 27 years in prison for conspiring in the 9/11 attacks and for being part of the terrorist organization Al Qaeda. At the same time, 17 other members of Al Qaeda were sentenced to between 6 and 12 years.On February 16, 2006, the Supreme Court reduced Abu Dahdah's sentence to 12 years because it considered that his participation in the conspiracy it was not proven.

Reasons

According to the conclusions of official US government investigations, the attacks fulfilled al Qaeda's stated intent, expressed in the 1998 fatwa of Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Abu-Yasir Rifa'i Ahmad Taha, Shaykh Mir Hamzah, and Fazlur Rahman (emir of the Bangladesh Jihadist Movement, Fazlur Rahman).

The letter listing the three "crimes and sins" committed by the Americans in the opinion of their perpetrators contained the following motives for the attacks:

• U.S. military support for Israel.
• Military occupation of the Arabian peninsula by the United States.
• U.S. aggression against the people of Iraq.

In the same letter it was established that the United States:

• Remove the resources of the Arabian Peninsula.
• It dictates the policy to follow the rulers of those countries.
• It supports abusive regimes and monarchies that oppress their own people.
• It has military bases and facilities on the Arabian peninsula, thus violating its Holy Land, in order to terrorize the neighbouring states.
• It tries to divide the Arab states in order to weaken them as a political force.
• It supported Israel, and wished to distract the world view of the occupation of the Palestinian Territories.

The First Gulf War, the subsequent embargo on Iraq, and the US bombing of this country are cited in the 1998 letter as evidence of those allegations. To the disapproval of moderate Muslims, the fatwa cites Islamic texts as calling for violent action against the US military and citizens until the alleged grievances are resolved: stating that "ulama throughout history have agreed that Jihad is an individual duty if enemies destroy Muslim countries."

Al Qaeda's recorded statements after 9/11 confirmed American assumptions about authorship. In a 2004 video, apparently acknowledging responsibility for the attacks, bin Laden claimed that the 1982 Lebanon War, for which he views the United States as responsible, prompted him to carry out the attacks. In the video, he also made it known that, with them, he wanted to "restore our nation's freedom." to "punish the aggressor" and inflict damage on the US economy. He stated that one of the goals of his holy war was to "bleed the United States to bankruptcy." Bin Laden also said:

We swear that Americans will not live safe until we live in Palestine. This has shown the reality of the United States, which puts Israel's interests above those of its own people. The United States will get nothing from this crisis until it leaves the Arabian Peninsula and ceases to support Israel.

The 9/11 Commission report finds that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's animosity against the United States, the main architect of the attacks, stemmed "not from his experiences as a student, but from his violent disagreement with US foreign policy in favor of the United States." From Israel". The same motives have been attributed to the two suicide pilots who crashed the planes into the World Trade Center: Mohamed Atta, who was described by Ralph Bodenstein (his work and travel colleague) as "mainly imbued with the protection of the United States to Israeli policies in the region. Marwan al-Shehhi is said to have explained his mood with the words "how can people laugh when there are people dying in Palestine?"

In contrast to these conclusions, the Bush administration reduced the motives for the attack to "hatred of freedom and democracy, exemplified by the United States".

According to counterterrorism expert Richard A. Clarke, internal conflicts in the Muslim world are the cause of the 9/11 attacks. Specifically, bin Laden and other residents of Saudi Arabia and Egypt believe that most Middle Eastern governments are apostate, not following their model of Islamic piety, since neither is a caliphate. Inspired by Egyptian theologian Sayyid Qutb, bin Laden and his followers hold that it is a duty for Muslims to establish a caliphate in the Middle East.

From those beliefs, bin Laden devised a plan to establish this caliphate, beginning with an attack on the United States. This would force them to increase military and economic pressure on the Middle East, thus uniting all Muslims. The popular religious surge would lead to conservative Muslims taking control.

According to Michale Doran, this goal is demonstrated by the frequent use of "spectacular" by bin Laden in his statements. According to her hypothesis, bin Laden hoped to provoke a visceral and emotional reaction from the United States, in order to ensure a counter-response from Arab citizens.

The American Response

The then President of the United States, George W. Bush, giving a speech to the New York firefighters and police in the remains of the World Trade Center, September 14, 2001.

Search for survivors, recovery of bodies and compensation

In the hours following the attacks, a large-scale search and rescue operation involving more than 350 specially trained dogs was launched. Only 20 badly injured survivors were brought out alive from under the rubble of the World Trade Center and in In the weeks that followed it became clear that they were not to be found any more.

The recovery of bodies took months. Simply putting out all the fires that burned among the rubble took weeks, while the complete removal of rubble was not completed until May 2002. Temporary lookouts were installed to observe the work of the teams, which were removed on May 30, 2002.

In addition, many fundraisers began to help the survivors of the attacks and the relatives of the deceased. Once the deadline for requesting compensation had expired (September 11, 2003), 2,833 people had received the payment.

Public Response

The attacks of September 11 had an overwhelming effect on the population. The bodies and security forces (known as "first responders") that intervened in the rescue and relief efforts, especially the firefighters, were hailed as heroes. Police and members of rescue teams from all over the country concentrated in New York to recover bodies. Blood donations boomed.

Another apparently patriotic response was the rise of racism and hatred against people of Arab origin. Other groups originating from the Middle East were frequently confused with Arabs and were victims of this xenophobia, particularly the Sikhs, who have a tradition of wearing turbans, a sign that in the West is usually associated with Islam. Balbir Singh Sodhi was shot to death on September 15, mistaken for a Muslim. At least eight other people suffered the same fate.

Politically, the population massively supported the government in its anti-terrorism efforts. Thus, the approval rating of President George W. Bush reached 86%. On September 20, the president spoke before the nation and the joint session of the United States Congress, explaining the events of the day, the actions of his government in the past 9 days and their response plans. New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani drew acclaim both in New York and across the country for his reaction to the terrorist catastrophe.

In response to the attacks, in a speech, President Bush declared the War on Terrorism on September 20, 2001.

Internal Security Measures in the United States

Following the attacks, 80,000 Arabs and Muslims were fingerprinted under the Alien Registration Act of 1940. Of these, 8,000 were interviewed and 5,000 aliens were detained under United States Congress Joint Resolution 107-40, which authorized the use of military force to stop and prevent international terrorism in the United States.

Because of the attacks, public opinion focused mainly on matters of national security, and a new federal agency was even created at the cabinet level, the Department of Homeland Security of the United States, thus reorganizing the fight against terrorism.

The USA PATRIOT Act was also approved, suspending and limiting some liberties and constitutional rights in order to increase the internal security of the United States. This measure has been harshly criticized by defenders of civil rights, who see it as a violation of the privacy of citizens, as well as a relaxation of judicial control over intelligence bodies.

9/11 was also the argument used by the Bush administration to initiate a new operation by the National Security Agency with the aim of recording the communications of US citizens abroad.

The changes in the daily life of the population and the demand for a direct commitment to security have been considerable. Billboards and loudspeakers repeating the slogan "If you see something, say something" ("If you see something, say something") have been placed on each means of transport.

Report of the Commission of 9/11

9/11 Commission

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States and more vulgarly the 9/11 Commission, chaired by former New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean, was formed in end of 2002 to prepare a comprehensive report on the attacks and the circumstances related to them, including everything from the preparation to the immediate response of the US authorities. Said report was finally published on July 22, 2004.

International repercussions

The attacks had global ramifications. Governments, associations and the media condemned it all over the world. Especially famous was the headline of the French newspaper Le Monde: Nous sommes tous Américains (We are all Americans), in reference to the United States.

Following the attacks, the Bush administration declared the so-called war on terror, with the goals of bringing Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda to justice and preventing the action of anti-American terrorist networks. These objectives would be achieved through economic and military sanctions against states perceived as protectors of terrorists and increased surveillance and global intelligence.

About a month after the attacks, the United States of America, with the collaboration of an international coalition, invaded Afghanistan, whose government had supported Al Qaeda forces. Particularly important was the support of the Pakistani government, which after the attacks, he aligned himself with the United States, ceding bases for the war in Afghanistan and arresting more than 600 suspected collaborators with Al Qaeda.

International response

After 9/11, many governments passed anti-terrorism laws or toughened existing ones, particularly in the face of Islamic terrorism. Among them were the United Kingdom, Spain, India, Australia, France, Germany, Indonesia, China, Canada, Russia, Pakistan, Jordan, Mauritius, Uganda and Zimbabwe. One consequence of these measures was the freezing of bank accounts associated with Al Qaeda.

The security and intelligence services of several countries (Italy, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines...) arrested people related to several Al Qaeda cells after the attacks. These measures have been the subject of various criticisms, which they see them as an attack on individual liberties, as a reduction in rights and, in general, as an increase in State interference in the privacy of citizens.

Particularly well known is the Guantánamo detention camp, a US base in Cuba, where many prisoners captured as "illegal combatants" are held. Said center, criticized by Amnesty International, the European Union, the UN and numerous other organizations, has been repeatedly denounced as a violation of Human Rights.

In Mexico, the President of the Republic, Vicente Fox Quesada, declared the total cancellation of the national celebrations of September 15, corresponding to National Independence Day; he also strongly rejected the terrorist attacks targeting the United States and expressed his support for President George W. Bush.

For their part, the governments of Guatemala and Chile declared national mourning in solidarity with the families of the victims.

In Rome, Italy, the Holy Father John Paul II offered a prayer in memory of the victims of the attack.

Soldiers of the 10th U.S. Army Mountain Division in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan War

The first step taken by the US in the War on Terrorism was the invasion of Afghanistan on October 7, 2001 by forces of NATO and the Northern Alliance with the support of the United Nations, given the refusal of the ruling Taliban regime to hand over Osama bin Laden, who had allegedly taken refuge in that country.

Nearly ten years after the attacks, on Monday, May 2, 2011, Osama bin Laden was assassinated by elite US troops in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

A group of U.S. Marines are preparing to enter one of Saddam Hussein's palaces in Baghdad on 9 April 2003.

Iraq War

The second step in the US War on Terror was the invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003. This military action was carried out by the United States and Great Britain without authorization from the United Nations. In addition, Spain, Italy and other countries allied with the US in this action and sent humanitarian aid to the area. The United States maintained that the invasion was essential because Iraq possessed hidden weapons of mass destruction. The invasion triggered a war, with hundreds of deaths, and caused the overthrow of the government led by Saddam Hussein on April 9, 2003. Once the country was controlled, no weapons of mass destruction were found. The United States then maintained that the reason for the invasion was due to the existence of information from the intelligence services that led to the assumption that Saddam Hussein maintained secret relations with Al Qaeda. Recent reports indicate that Hussein was never linked to Al Qaeda, and President Bush tried to link Iraq to the War on Terror.

Since then, various Iraqi groups opposed to the invasion have organized a resistance movement that has been very active in carrying out attacks against military targets. At the same time, after the invasion, Al Qaeda has also been able to establish itself in Iraq, where it mainly carries out terrorist attacks.^{[citation needed]}

To this day, the fallout continues as an "undeclared" sectarian civil war broke out, resulting in the deaths of more than 34,000 civilians (2006 alone, according to the UN) and According to UNHCR figures, there are 1.7 million internally displaced Iraqis and another two million who have fled to neighboring countries. In addition, as of June 2007, the United States Army casualties amount to more than 4,000 fallen.

Tributes and legacy

World Trade Center Zone in December 2005

The memorial Tribute in Lightin tribute to the victims of the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2004.

In the days following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, various vigils and tributes were held for the victims around the world. Many people posted photographs of the victims and disappeared at Ground Zero. A witness testified that he "was not able to forget the faces of the innocent victims who were killed." Photos of him are everywhere, in phone booths, traffic lights, subway station walls. It all reminds me of a huge funeral, with people who are quiet, crying and sad, but also very kind. Before, New York made me feel cold; now people come together to help each other".

On September 20, 2001, a song called El último adiós was published, written by Emilio Estefan Jr. and Gian Marco as a tribute to the victims, in which more than 60 artists gathered as a sign of alliance; Among those who participated in this tribute are: Ricky Martin, Alejandro Sanz, Thalía, Gloria Estefan, Juan Luis Guerra, Celia Cruz, Olga Tañón, Jennifer López, Paulina Rubio, Alicia Villarreal, José José, Shakira, Lucía Méndez, John Secada, OV7, Kumbia Kings, Álvaro Torres, Ana Bárbara, Los Temerarios, Los Tigres del Norte, Lupillo Rivera, Andy Garcia, Yuri, Soraya, Marco Antonio Solís, Carlos Vives, Ana Gabriel, Carlos Ponce, Patricia Manterola, Pilar Montenegro, Christina Aguilera, Chayanne, Beto Cuevas, A.B. Quintanilla, brother of the deceased singer Selena, etc. All of the profits collected by the label that distributed the song and the Sony Music album were donated along with the manufacture of the first one hundred thousand records of this song to the American Red Cross and the United Way to help the families of the victims of the attacks.

World Trade Center Memorial in New York

One of the first memorials was the Tribute in Light, the installation of eighty-eight searchlights at the site of the Twin Towers, projecting two vertical columns of light into the sky In New York, a competition was held to design the most appropriate memorial for the site, which was won by Israeli-American architect Michael Arad and American landscape designer Peter Walter. The winning design, Reflecting Absence, now called the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, was chosen in August 2006 and inaugurated on September 11, 2011, on the tenth anniversary of the attacks and consists of a pair of reflecting pools where the Twin Towers were, surrounded by bronze panels with the names of the victims. who died in the attacks of September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993, as well as a museum located in the basement of the memorial, which exhibits objects found in the rubble of the Twin Towers after the attacks, as well as personal belongings used alive for the victims. The new building that replaces the missing Twin Towers called One World Trade Center was officially inaugurated on November 3, 2014.

On the seventh anniversary of the attacks, on September 11, 2008, construction was completed and the Pentagon Memorial opened to the public. It consists of a park with 184 benches representing the number of victims of the attack at the site where the plane crashed into the Pentagon. When the building was repaired in late 2001 and early 2002, it included a private chapel and internal memorial, located at the spot where American Airlines Flight 77 crashed.

In Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the National Flight 93 Memorial was built, which includes a ring of trees surrounding the area where the United Airlines Flight 93 plane crashed, with forty chimes inscribed with the names of the victims. A temporary memorial was also built 457 meters from the crash. New York City firefighters donated a memorial to the Shanksville Fire Department. It is a cross made of steel from the World Trade Center, on a platform in the shape of the Pentagon. It was installed in front of the fire station on August 25, 2008.

In many other places permanent memorials are being built in honor of the victims and financial support for their families, numerous organizations and public figures have created various scholarship programs and foundations to raise funds.

On each anniversary of 9/11, in New York City, at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, where the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were located, the names of the victims who died in the attacks are read with funeral music in the background. The President of the United States, meanwhile, attends a memorial service at the Pentagon. Smaller services are held in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, often attended by the First Lady.

The Wikimedia Foundation also opened a wiki dedicated to the attacks, which was closed on September 15, 2006.

There have also been many films and documentaries made about the attacks of September 11, 2001, as well as tribute concerts in memory of the victims who died.

View in which you can see in the foreground the monument, made of some rubble, located in Jersey City (New Jersey, United States), and more behind the buildings in Manhattan, among which the twin towers were located (photograph taken in July 2007).

Victim identification

As of 2018, new DNA analysis techniques are helping to identify more victims. Investigators at the world's largest crime lab made the breakthroughs by re-examining bone fragments that they had studied many times before without success. This technique, which consists of cleaning the bone, pulverizing it to a powder, adding chemicals, incubating the sample, and depositing it in an automatic machine that extracts all the recoverable DNA from the damaged material, has been called the "World Trade Center Protocol" and has been used to help identify victims of railway and airplane accidents and terrorist attacks in various countries.

Conspiracy Theories

Cross of the World Trade Center

Since the attacks took place, several theories have emerged that are usually grouped under the name conspiracy theories, which maintain that the conclusions reached in the official investigation are not consistent with the facts.

In general, these theories talk about the possibility that it was actually a missile that hit the Pentagon; that the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and the Tower No. 7 of the World Trade Center were collapsed by explosive charges, in a controlled demolition carried out by remote control; that United Airlines Flight 93 was shot down by an American fighter and not because of the confrontation between the passengers and the terrorists, etc. In general, these authors claim to have found inconsistencies that cast doubt on the entire government version. Some of the alleged inconsistencies that critics mention would be the fact that, in theory, it was impossible for a plane to approach the Pentagon without activating the anti-aircraft defenses or that the FBI had located the intact passport of one of the terrorists inside the wreckage. smoke from the World Trade Center. Other inconsistencies are based on the economic irregularities that occurred before, during and after the attacks.

As for the perpetrators, some of these theories hold that some members of the United States government already knew of Al Qaeda's plans to attack the World Trade Center but did nothing to prevent it. Others even go so far as to directly accuse the United States government of planning and carrying out the attacks.

Among the main opponents of the version given by the US government is the French journalist and director of the left-wing website Red Voltaire Thierry Meyssan, who wrote a book entitled The Great Imposture. In his work, Meyssan presents a series of reasons and arguments for which, according to him, it is not possible to take the government version for granted.

Another of the staunchest critics is the American professor David Ray Griffin, author of the book Unmasking 9/11, where he makes a point-by-point analysis of the events that occurred on September 11, 2001. Griffin claims to have found at least 115 serious logical flaws in the official version of the attacks.

Filmography

Two films based on these attacks were released in 2006:

• United 93which is based on hypotheses of events on board United Airlines Flight 93.
• World Trade Centerwhich is inspired by the events that occurred after the damage caused to the area affected by the landslides of the Twin Towers.
• Fahrenheit 9/11Michael Moore's documentary criticizing Bush's response to the attack.
• In the sixteenth season of the Mayday Canadian documentary series: aerial catastrophes, American Airlines Flight 77 is recreated, which was crashed against the Pentagon, transmitted in National Geographic Channel.
• This attack was also presented in the second catastrophic television program, entitled "11-S: Ten years later", transmitted in National Geographic Channel.

Although it was before the events, the pilot episode of the series The Lone Gunmen described a plot by the secret services of the United States Government to crash a Boeing 727 into one of the Twin Towers. The purpose pursued by the Government was that it tried to blame a foreign country for the act, with the purpose of obtaining a casus belli (reason for declaration of war ) and taking advantage of the sale of arms. This episode was released on March 4, 2001, just over six months before the attacks.