The al-Qaeda attacks on America on September 11, 2001 – now known as 9/11 – were the worst terrorist atrocity in modern history and shaped the decade to come.
The al-Qaeda attacks on America on September 11, 2001 – now known as 9/11 – were the worst terrorist atrocity in modern history and shaped the decade to come.
They triggered the ongoing “War on Terror” by America and Britain, which involved the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and has been met with countless further terror attacks.
In a meticulously planned operation, 19 members of the extremist Islamic terror network al-Qaeda, run by Osama Bin Laden, hijacked four airliners over the U.S. on the morning of September 11.
Both buildings, worldwide icons of architecture since 1973, collapsed within two hours on live TV as hundreds of millions of people watched in horror.
Around 2,600 people of many nationalities, races and creeds were killed in the towers or on the ground. Everyone on the two planes was killed.
A third airliner was crashed into the Pentagon, headquarters of the U.S. Defence Department, just outside Washington DC.
The fourth plane crashed into a field in Pennsylvania as passengers and crew tried to retake control.
There were no survivors on any plane. In all, the attacks killed 2,973 people and the 19 terrorists.
The world went into shock at witnessing the mass murders and the apocalyptic destruction in one of the great cities of the Earth.
The financial effects were profound. Stock markets collapsed. U.S. shares alone lost more than $1trillion.
The cost of clearing and rebuilding the World Trade Centre site, known as ‘Ground Zero’, ran into many billions of dollars.
Governments around the world condemned the attacks, with the notable exception of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
Many nations brought in sweeping new anti-terror measures.
America, led by President George W Bush, and its staunch ally Britain, led by Prime Minister Tony Blair, were determined to avenge the attack and prevent another.
First target was the Taliban’s brutal, repressive extremist Islamic regime in Afghanistan which had given al-Qaeda a base from which to train and plan operations.
Within three months of 9/11, Allied air and land forces had routed the Taliban and killed many al-Qaeda fighters holed up in caves near the Pakistan border.
However, the terrorists’ leaders, including Bin Laden, escaped into Pakistan.
America and Britain turned their attentions to Iraq, arguing that it sponsored terrorism and wrongly believing it was secretly harbouring weapons of mass destruction.
The Allies began the assault on March 20, 2003. By April 9, they took Baghdad and Saddam Hussein’s rule was over.
He escaped, but was caught in December 2003 and hanged three years later.
Despite the war on terror, Al-Qaeda and its many offshoots remained active with a host of attacks on different continents, most notably for Britain the July 7, 2005 (7/7) suicide bombings on the London Tube and on a London bus which killed 56 people and wounded around 700.
The war against, and rebuilding of, Iraq distracted the Allies from Afghanistan, allowing the Taliban to regroup and return in numbers around 2006.
The operation to rid the country of them is still ongoing, ten years after the 9/11 attacks.
Bin Laden remained the most hunted man on Earth for almost a decade. Then, in May 2011, years of intelligence work finally tracked him down to a secret compound in Pakistan, where he was shot dead by U.S. Navy Seals during a covert night-time operation ordered by President Barack Obama.
Work to rebuild New York’s World Trade Centre site is continuing. A single skyscraper to replace the twin towers is likely to open in 2013 and will be America's tallest building.
