The September 11th is how we know the terrorist attacks carried out by Al-Qaeda against the Towers Twins and against the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. In that attack, Islamic fundamentalists hijacked commercial planes and launched them into the aforementioned targets, resulting in thousands of deaths.
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The day of the attack
The 9/11 attack was organized by Al-Qaeda for years and embedded within the concept of jihad (idea of holy war that is part of the Islamic religion and that is exploited by fundamentalist groups). The attack was very well planned and used 19 terrorists to hijack the commercial planes and fulfill their purposes.
The terrorists boarded four different flights that took off from the coast eastern United States and would land in California. The four flights were from different North American airlines, American Airlines (AA) and the United Airlines (AU). The flights were as follows:
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AA Flight 11 :This flight took off from Boston and was going to Los Angeles. It was the first plane to crash into the Twin Towers and hit the Tower North .
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AA Flight 175 :This flight also took off from Boston and was going to Los Angeles. It was the second plane to crash into the Twin Towers and hit the Tower South .
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AA Flight 77 :This flight took off from Washington and was going to Los Angeles. It was launched against the Pentagon .
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UA Flight 93 :This flight took off from Newark and was bound for San Francisco. It would be launched against the Capitol, but fell before reaching its target.
It all started with the boarding of the 19 terrorists on the aforementioned flights. After the aircraft were in American airspace, the terrorists took control of them to carry out the plan. AA Flight 11 took off at 07:59 and shortly after, at 08:46, it was launched into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
The World Trade Center it was a complex formed by seven buildings, being the Twin Towers the best known. This complex had been opened in 1973 and was one of the postcards of New York. The complex was in the financial center of that city and, at the time of the attack, about 15,000 people were in the building.
A few minutes later, at 09:03, AA Flight 175 was launched into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. The attack on the second tower added to the devastation of the attack and increased the death toll in New York. At 09:37, AA Flight 77 was launched into the Pentagon , the building that used to house the United States Department of Defense.
By this time, the information that the country was undergoing a terrorist attack was already known to the authorities and ordinary people – such as those on UA Flight 93. Passengers on that flight were able to communicate with acquaintances outside the plane and found out what was going on.
The passengers of Flight 93 ended up rebelling against the terrorists, who chose to launch the plane in rural Shanksville , located in the state of Pennsylvania, at 10:03 . The target of this flight was the Capitol , center of US Legislative Power.
Once the attacks were underway, authorities intervened to minimize the number of dead and to rescue the wounded. Shortly after the attack on the first tower, the press began to cover the attack, and the moment the second tower was attacked, the images were broadcast live to the world.
The transmission of the unfolding attacks against the Twin Towers accompanied the trescue work and the fire that hit the building. The fire spread for a few minutes on the highest floors of the Twin Towers and resulted in the structure of the building overheating, which could not withstand and collapsed.
At 09:59 the South Tower collapsed and at 10:28 the North Tower collapsed as well . Regarding the moment of the attack against the Pentagon, the available images are very precarious. There are also no images available of the moment of the crash of UA Flight 93.
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Balance of attacks
After carrying out all the work to count the victims, it was concluded that the September 11 attack resulted in 2996 deaths , of which 2606 are of people who died in New York, 125 died in the Pentagon, 246 died in the planes (crew and passengers included). Finally, the death of the 19 terrorists is also counted.
In addition, this was the first major attack the United States had suffered on its territory since the Japanese attack on the naval base at Pearl Harbor in 1941.
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Who were the attackers?
The 9/11 attack was carried out by the terrorist organization known as Al-Qaeda . This organization emerged in the late 1980s, during the Afghan War, and had in Osama bin Laden one of its founders and its leader.
Another important name in the organization of the attack was that of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed . He is considered the architect from attack and is currently in jail awaiting trial for his role in 9/11. Khalid's trial is believed to take place sometime in 2021.
Motivations for the attack
We can consider that the main reason for the attack was bin Laden's extremism and organization of it. This extremism regarded the United States as a major enemy because of the presence of American troops in the Middle East. Osama bin Laden's relationship with the United States dates back to the 1980s.
At the end of the 1970s, motivated by the context of the Cold War, the Americans began to invest in opposition forces inside Afghanistan . The objective was to weaken the communist government of that country and force the Soviets to intervene in the situation (the idea was to make the Soviet Union spend resources on a war).
Americans began to support reactionary groups in the interior of the country, which began to receive money and weapons from the US. These groups, known as mujahidin , called a jihad against the Soviets – after Afghanistan was invaded by the USSR – and started to defend conservative ideas, which resulted in Islamic fundamentalism. In the course of the war, Osama bin Laden was summoned to join the war and so he went to Afghanistan.
In the late 1980s, bin Laden decided to extend his fight against the infidels outside of Afghanistan and, therefore, participated in the creation of Al-Qaeda . So far, bin Laden's relationship with the Americans was great, but then the Gulf War came and everything changed.
In 1990, Kuwait was invaded by Iraq, and the Kuwaiti royal family was housed in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. The situation soured relations between Saudis and Iraqis and raised the possibility of an invasion of Saudi territory by Iraqi troops. Bin Laden, taking advantage of this, offered the Saudi government his (al-Qaida) troops to protect the territory of Arabia.
The Saudis, in turn, refused bin Laden's support and accepted American help. Bin Laden considered this a great offense , claiming it is sacrilegious for “infidels” to be protecting Saudi Arabia’s holy ground. He claimed that Saudi soil was being desecrated. Thus, bin Laden developed a deep hatred for the US .
This situation led to bin Laden being expelled from Saudi Arabia and, therefore, taking refuge in Sudan and later in Afghanistan, where al-Qaeda organized the attack against the United States as a form of revenge.
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Consequences
The 9/11 attack caused a great stir in United States, and the reaction of the US government was immediate. In October 2001, the US army began the invasion of Afghanistan . The objective was to overthrow the Taliban , the government (also of fundamentalist orientation) that had sheltered al-Qaeda.
The invasion carried out by the Americans overthrew the Taliban, but to date has not normalized the situation in the country. Currently, there is still fighting in Afghanistan against Taliban troops, who are seeking to regain power. The consequence of this invasion for Afghanistan was that, between 2001 and 2016, among civilians alone, about 31 thousand people died|1| .
In the case of the United States, commercial flight safety standards have become extremely strict, and the country has taken tough measures to combat terrorism. For this reason, a law called the Patriot Act was created, which was later replaced by the USA Freedom Act .
Notes
|1| Update on the human costs of war for Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2001 to mid-2016. To access, click here [in English].
Image credit :
[1] Dan Howell and Shutterstock